On-Board Power Supply System for Electric Aircraft

Abstract

The development of electric aircraft, the design of which will use, apart from doing away with pneumatic and hydraulic transmissions, electric propulsion, is one of promising lines in aviation technology. As an example, the project of the X-57 Maxwell electric aircraft developed by NASA, which is equipped with 14 propulsion electric motors, is given. In view of insufficient energy efficiency of existing storage batteries, a combined storage battery-and-generator power supply system for electric aircraft is considered. In the considered system, the aircraft propulsion is provided by electric motors, which are powered by storage batteries in combination with permanent magnet generators. The generator shaft is rotated by an auxiliary internal combustion engine, which operates in an economical mode. The power circuit of an active rectifier producing the +270 V DC bipolar output voltage is proposed, with which the permanent magnet generator operates with a sinusoidal phase current waveform and a close-to-unity power factor. The active rectifier control system uses an enhanced phase-locked loop, which eliminates the need to use generator rotor position sensors. For determining the stability domains and revealing undesirable hidden attractors in the considered storage battery-and-generator power supply system, it is proposed to use special analytical-numerical computation procedures based on modifications of Lyapunov's functions methods. The article will be of interest for developers of both aircraft and ground-based self-contained electric power supply systems with a bipolar 270 V DC voltage that must meet stringent requirements for improvement of their mass-and-dimensions and power performance characteristics.