Browse Topic: Power electronics
Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) aircraft introduce complex monitoring challenges due to distributed propulsion, lightweight structures, and variable operating conditions. This paper presents advanced Frequency and Orders domain techniques that repurpose existing flight control, propulsion, and structural sensor data to enhance observability without additional instrumentation. By transforming vibration, acoustic, and electrical signals into frequency and order domains, the approach enables detection of harmonics, resonance, and fault signatures tied to rotor dynamics, supporting adaptive control and predictive maintenance. Beyond rotor systems, these techniques are equally effective for monitoring electric motor health, gearbox wear, bearing degradation, and structural coupling effects in composite airframes. They also provide insight into power electronics and thermal management systems by identifying spectral anomalies linked to electrical imbalance or cooling inefficiencies. Aggregated fleet data strengthens prognostic capabilities, enabling early detection of systemic issues and trend analysis. Applications include mitigating ground resonance and modal instabilities, as well as improving reliability of propulsion and structural subsystems. Integration into avionics emphasizes computational efficiency, scalability, and compliance with standards such as DO-160 [1], DO-178 [2], ARP4761 [3] and ARP4764 [4]. Simulation and bench testing confirm feasibility, demonstrating potential to enhance safety, reliability, and lifecycle cost for next-generation urban air mobility platforms.
This paper proposes a highly integrated 3-in-1 e-Propulsion unit that exceeds current state-of-the-art power density, utilising low-risk, high TRL technologies. The design process of the e-Propulsion unit is outlined, including the development of a high integrity, fault-tolerant system design targeting DAL-A safety levels. The resulting system concept embodies redundancy throughout the electrical system - two sets of windings in the motor and redundancy built into the power electronics create a robust and efficient architecture. The electrical machine is connected to an optimised single stage planetary gearbox to realise output shaft speed and torque suitable for an eVTOL or eCTOL type application. Both systems are cooled and lubricated by a standalone cooling loop.
Within this paper redundancy concepts on electric propulsion systems - consisting of electrical sources, inverters, electrical machines, gearboxes and drag generation units - are discussed. In a first steps different possible concepts are explained. In a general section considerations on the possible concepts are made, with a special focus on the design of the inverters, electrical machines and gearboxes. Advantages and disadvantages are shown and therefore some general assumptions on possible applications discussed. Later, two engineering examples for the concepts of shared drag generation unit and shared electrical machines with inverters are shown. The functionality is shown on measurement examples and experiences made during the design and testing phases are given. Finally, a new concept to reduce the risk of failure propagation in multi-wound motors is shown and discussed.
The paper discusses the application of the Array Controlled Turn-less Structures (ACTS) motor for VTOL application. The motor enhances the three main competing characteristics of electric motors; namely specific power, efficiency and reliability. The motor arrays an ensemble of elemental turn-less motors which include turn-less elements each with their dedicated inverters which are operated in synchronism. The resulting small pole size enhances the power density, the enhanced conductor packing enhances the efficiency, and the massive parallelism enhance the reliability. Vertical takeoff requires much higher thrust compared to wing assisted takeoff. With limited on-board power, this higher thrust is presently provided by in ordinary larger propulsion disk area which reduces the craft aerodynamics, and the cruising Lift-to-Drag (L/D) ratio and accordingly the flight efficiency and range. The high specific power of the ACTS motor allows for a different scenario and thus craft architecture. By substantially increasing the takeoff power which is now possible with the higher specific power of the ACTS motor, the propulsion disk area can be substantially reduced, with the resulting greater streamlined, high L/D craft, and thus longer range. The paper discusses key aspect of the motor and inverter architecture and technology. Furthermore, it discusses its application to a high L/D VTOL and prospective performance.
LaunchPoint Electric Propulsion Solutions is developing mission-optimized electric propulsion systems. Unlike traditional aircraft development where designs are often driven by available propulsion systems, the relative simplicity of electric propulsion opens up the possibility that bespoke propulsion components may be developed and optimized for a particular vehicle configuration and mission. Electric propulsion is new to many aerospace designers and there is not yet a good body of knowledge about the performance of electric propulsion components. LaunchPoint aims to fill this gap by developing user-friendly physics-based electric propulsion models for multi-disciplinary optimization in vehicle/mission designs. To date, the existing vehicle configuration studies have largely used curve fits of existing electric propulsion components that do not accurately capture all of the relationships between motor and power electronics size, mass, efficiency, voltage, torque, and rpm and how those different motor parameters affect the overall vehicle performance. In a step toward revealing these relationships, this paper presents the design results from the coupling of detailed parametric motor and drive models with a simple eVTOL vehicle model.
This paper describes the development of performance prediction models for the electric powertrains of group 1 unmanned aerial systems (G1UAS) that use sensorless brushless DC (BLDC) motor architecture consisting of a BLDC motor, electronic speed controller, and a battery. Per US Army definitions, G1UAS are platforms that weigh less than 20 lb. (9 kg). The resulting semi-empirical models for the motor, power electronics, and battery use high-level component specifications to enable pre-conceptual design space exploration and mission-based design optimization of G1UAS without a library of test data. The models also enable tradeoffs analysis between existing and/or conceptual designs without a series of flight tests. To develop, tune, and validate the models, a custom dynamometer test setup was designed and built to measure torque, speed, and electrical power data of small-scale motor drive systems. The validated models reveal that popular claims of high efficiency for electric powertrains are only valid in a narrow band of high speed/low torque operation. This is a critical finding for vehicle designers in the VTOL industry who are increasingly transitioning to electric powertrains in low speed/high torque applications which may decrease the overall system efficiency. A traditional rotor hover test stand was also developed to generate data with a traditional rotor load. The integrated motor and electronic speed controller model was able to predict the total efficiency of the hover stand tests within 5 percent of experimental values. The electrical models presented in this work can be immediately applied to design G1UAS given the torque and speed requirements of the rotors/propellers, the operating voltage of the vehicle system, and certain high-level component specifications for the motor, electronic speed controller, and battery. The models can also be used to BLDC powertrains for small terrestrial or aquatic electric vehicles.
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