A Modeling Specification Methodology to Support Simulation of Distributed Heterogeneous Power Systems

Abstract

Today’s aircraft power systems have grown enormously in electrical content. This has been driven by a desire for system level optimization of aircraft in terms of performance and efficiency. In an effort to meet these new engineering constraints modern power electronics systems are extremely integrated and complex. A purely hardware driven methodology is no longer practical; the interplay between physical phenomena is such that the only viable way to design and validate systems of such complexity is through simulation. There are many challenges facing modern power system simulation including integration of models from multiple sources, variation in modeling approaches, effects of component variations, complexities arising from incorporating different engineering domains in a simulation, the need to include continuous and discrete time domain behaviors and have multiple coupled simulation instances running simultaneously. This paper outlines an analysis and test bench driven model specification methodology designed to support robust design through effective simulation of complex More Electric Aircraft (MEA) power systems allowing for virtual design, validation and verification of these systems including the effects of tolerances on design performance well before hardware is available. The methodology addresses aspects including distributed simulation, modeling languages, multi-vendor integration and intellectual property protection.