Abstract
Future aircraft will make more and more use of automated electric power system management onboard. Different solutions are currently being explored, and in particular the use of a supercapacitor as an intelligent energy storage device is addressed in this paper. The main task of the supercapacitor is to protect the electric generator from abrupt power changes resulting from sudden insertion or disconnection of loads or from loads with regenerative power capabilities, like electromagnetic actuators. A controller based on high-gain concepts is designed to drive a DC/DC converter connecting the supercapacitor to the main electric bus. Formal stability proofs are given for the resulting nonlinear system, and strong robustness results from the use of high-gain and variable structure control implementation. Moreover, detailed simulations including switching devices and electrical parasitic elements are provided for different working scenarios, showing the effectiveness of the proposed solution.
Highlights
Energy is stored under the form of liquid hydrocarbon fuel by using Energy Storage Systems (ESS), which is burned with air in the engines
In order to minimize the total amount of energy required for a full mission flight time, there is a stringent need for passing from static to dynamic management of electrical energy accumulated in ESS [4]
By allowing the electrical energy from the ESS to be reused in different scenarios, such as for coping with temporary overloads of the generators [5] or for storing the energy regenerated by Electromechanical Actuators (EMAs) [6], significant savings can be obtained in terms of electrical machine and wiring weights reduction, with consequent minimization of the aircraft overall energy burns
Summary
Energy is stored under the form of liquid hydrocarbon fuel by using Energy Storage Systems (ESS), which is burned with air in the engines. By using ESS and the proposed control strategy, the EMA braking energy can be stored for successive controlled release, with the double benefit of deleting the heavy and bulky dissipation resistor typically introduced on the HV bus, reducing the risk of electrical shocks to other systems (especially the generator). This idea has been presented in different context [2], but, to the best of our knowledge, a formal proof of stability and detailed simulations to confirm the effectiveness of the concept has not presented before. Comparison with scenarios without supercap shows the effectiveness of the proposed strategy
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