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A description of a full electric propulsion system demonstrator with an energy source based on a battery pack for an ultralight manned Sigma-4 aircraft is presented. The main characteristics and functionality of the main units and devices of the electric propulsion system and its control system are presented.

This article describes the development and key features of the lightweight electric aircraft power system. The overview includes internals of main power control units and propulsion system rigging, hardware parts selection guide and fail-safe features in hardware and software of aircraft. The propulsion system includes lightweight solution utilizing brushless DC (BLDC) motor with a propeller as the main thrust generator, and a control system, which consists of insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBT) 3-phase bridge and control system, as well as a special optical-insulated throttle controller. Main power control system automatically starts up aircraft modules and provides all the necessary information coming from the sensors. All of the key components in aircraft are connected through Controller Area Network (CAN) interface. To create a strong protection against surges and electric interference special cabling and interfacing aspects between several systems of lightweight aircraft are described. Part of the article provides a future extendibility, versatility and economical concepts.

This paper provides a description of a hybrid electric propulsion system demonstrator developed at CIAM. The key element of the demonstrator is an electric motor based on the principles of high-temperature superconductivity. Bench tests of several demonstrator units and devices have been successfully carried out. After their completion, bench tests of a full demonstrator were carried out in a high-altitude-climatic chamber.

This paper provides a concept for developing inverters for high power aircraft brushless motors. It should be noted that such devices have an increased number of safety solutions, stable rotor synchronization parameters, and an increased number of isolated hardware nodes. The main result of this study is an engine motor controller with a power of up to 60 kW with control through optical fiber, liquid cooling, completely isolated power and control circuits, overcurrent, inverter and motor temperature protection, synchronization by Hall sensors. This paper also contains the calculation of the cost of introducing such solutions into a typical inverter.