Temperature Management Strategy for Urban Air Mobility Batteries to Improve Energy Efficiency in Low-Temperature Conditions

As urban population concentration accelerates, issues such as traffic congestion caused by automobiles and climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions are becoming increasingly severe. Recently, urban air mobility (UAM) has been attracting attention as a solution to these problems. UAM refers to a system that uses electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft to transport passengers and cargo at low altitudes between key points within urban areas, with lithium-ion batteries as the primary power source. The lithium-ion batteries used in UAM have characteristics that degrade performance in low temperatures, including decreased power output and diminished energy capacity. Although research has been conducted on preheating lithium-ion batteries to address this issue, sufficient consideration has not been given to the energy used for preheating. Therefore, this study compares the energy recovered by preheating lithium-ion batteries with the energy consumed during preheating and proposes a temperature management method for low temperatures that maximizes the energy gain of lithium-ion batteries.