More Electric Aircraft: Review, Challenges, and Opportunities for Commercial Transport Aircraft

Abstract

Similar to the efforts to move towards electric vehicles, much research has focused on the idea of a more electric aircraft (MEA). The motivations for this research are similar to that for vehicles and include goals to reduce emissions and decrease fuel consumption. In traditional aircraft, mutiple systems may use one type or a combination of types of energy, including electrical, hydraulic, mechanical, and pneumatic energy. However, all energy types have different drawbacks, including the sacrifice of total engine efficiency in the process of harvesting a particular energy, as with hyrdaulic and pneumatic systems. The goal for future aircraft is to replace most of the major systems currently utilizing non-electric power, such as environmental controls and engine start, with new electrical systems to improve a variety of aircraft characteristics, such as efficiency, emissions, reliability, and maintenance costs. This paper provides an in-depth look into how the systems have-or will-be changed. Future aircraft capabilities such as electric taxi and gas-electric propulsion for aircraft are also included for discussion. Most recent commercial transport aircrafts are described as the current state-of-the-art electric aircraft system. Future goals, including those of NASA, are presented for future advances in MEA.

Conceptual design of battery energy storage for aircraft hybrid propulsion system

“…The model of the air density variation against altitude is given in (1). The coefficients of the model in (1) are obtained by applying curve fitting to the data taken from the standard air-density versus altitude tables.…”

“…There is also a huge movement from the aeronautic industry towards hybrid and fully electric propulsion, not only to reduce emissions but also to reduce audible noise and improve aircraft performance. NASA has stated goals for future hybrid/electric propulsion aircrafts in which the audible noise, NOx emissions, and fuel and energy consumption are reduced significantly, [1], e.g. the energy consumption is aimed to be reduced by 60% in 2025.…”

Stability Analysis of Aircraft Power Systems Based on a Unified Large Signal Model

“…To save energy, reduce costs and improve the performance of aircraft systems, electricity is increasingly being adopted in modern aircraft as a form of energy supply instead of the hydraulic and barometric energy used in traditional aircraft [1][2][3]. Therefore, the safe operation of aircraft now depends to a great degree on their electric power systems, as the concept of multiple electricity uses is gradually penetrating into the design of future aircraft.…”

Distributed speed control for multi-three phase electrical motors with improved power sharing capability

“…Due to their advantages if compared against standard three-phase systems [2], multi-three phase electrical motors and multi-drive applications are still widely investigated, i.e. aerospace [3], [4], mining machines [5], [6], ships [7], [8], and road vehicles [9]. One of their main benefit is redundancy, leading to increased fault tolerance and reliability.…”