Aircraft hybrid-electric environment for analysis and design (AHEAD) applied on a fixed-wing drone

AHEAD is a methodology that aims for defining the basic characteristics of an aircraft's hybrid-electric engine components. These components are calculated as optimal following predefined criteria. The goal is to create a reliable analysis platform to establish the hybrid power-train characteristics that may optimally substitute the conventional propulsion system for any aircraft under analysis. The hybrid-electric powertrain is composed of several subsystems, the proposed approach employs reliable and widely available simulation tools for modeling these subsystems. The first step is modeling each subsystem of the current configuration, the aircraft included. Assuming steady state conditions, the results of each model are transformed into polynomial equations that represent the energy transformations in each device. These equations consider the conditions of the aircraft's altitude and velocity to calculate efficiency. A typical mission is defined, and aerodynamic variables are calculated, as well as the fuel consumption for conventional propulsion. The next step is modeling the proposed hybrid-electric set and calculate energy and fuel consumption over the same mission. The method varies the dimensions of some devices to find the optimal specification. A fixed-wing drone from a Brazilian manufacturer helps to characterize the method. Two topologies were analyzed: series configuration with internal combustion engine (ICE); and turbo-electric with fuel cell (FC). The aircraft is modeled in SUAVE and OpenVSP [1] , propeller in QBlade [2] , ICE in Diesel-RK [3] , electrical components in MATLAB ® /SIMULINK ®, and the method algorithm is programmed in Python . By employing this method, it is possible to analyze the viability of substituting actual propulsion by hybrid. • Hybrid electric propulsion for aircraft. • Preliminary design method. • Power electronic converters for aircraft propulsion.