Currawong’s CAN servos provide many benefits over traditional servos widely used in many UAV applications. With integrated current, temperature and vibration sensing, the servos provide a level of diagnostic feedback and airframe health monitoring that is not possible using standard servos. Advanced features such as control surface linearisation, torque limiting and actuator redundancy are provided by the internal controller. Leveraging the benefits of the CAN communications architecture, these servos do not require individual dedicated autopilot I/O lines, and all avionics devices on the CAN bus have access to servo feedback data.

The key features of the CBS CAN servo include:

• • High resolution position control that is completely free of jitter due to the error-free CAN communications interface;
  • Real-time feedback of key performance parameters such as servo position, torque, current and temperature;
  • Complete closed-loop actuator system featuring a high-frequency current-limiting feedback system, which is fully user configurable. Integrated linearisation curves allow each servo to be configured against individual control surface linkages;
  • Each servo features accelerometer-based vibration sensing, which provides a vibration analysis system distributed around the aircraft. This data available on CAN;
  • A variety of user-configurable warning thresholds (current, vibration, position error etc) to provide vital real-time diagnostic information;
  • A simple yet powerful command interface so that messages can be sent to individual servos or broadcast to the entire group. Redundant control is achievable as servos can coordinate motion or be used in a variety of master/slave configurations; and
  • The ability to be controlled, configured and monitored using Currawong’s sophisticated data analysis software package, cEQUIP.