Distributed Adaptive Control for DC Power Distribution in Hybrid-Electric Aircraft: Design and Experimental Validation
This work addresses the safe and efficient operation of propulsion systems in hybrid-electric aircraft, which is crucial for reducing CO2 emissions and fuel costs in aviation, representing an incremental advance in control strategies for this domain.
The paper tackles the challenge of managing the electrical power distribution network in hybrid-electric aircraft by proposing a distributed adaptive controller for DC bus voltage regulation and proportional load-sharing among multiple sources. The method ensures stable and accurate performance even with unknown line parameters, and experimental validation in a power hardware-in-the-loop environment shows it outperforms state-of-the-art controllers.
To reduce CO2 emissions and tackle increasing fuel costs, the aviation industry is swiftly moving towards the electrification of aircraft. From the viewpoint of systems and control, a key challenge brought by this transition corresponds to the management and safe operation of the propulsion system's onboard electrical power distribution network. In this work, for a series-hybrid-electric propulsion system, we propose a distributed adaptive controller for regulating the voltage of a DC bus that energizes the electricity-based propulsion system. The proposed controller -- whose design is based on principles of back-stepping, adaptive, and passivity-based control techniques -- also enables the proportional sharing of the electric load among multiple converter-interfaced sources, which reduces the likelihood of over-stressing individual sources. Compared to existing control strategies, our method ensures stable, convergent, and accurate voltage regulation and load-sharing even if the effects of power lines of unknown resistances and inductances are considered. The performance of the proposed control scheme is experimentally validated and compared to state-of-the-art controllers in a power hardware-in-the-loop (PHIL) environment.