A Hybrid Energy Storage System for eVTOL Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Using Supercapacitors

Electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft have gained considerable interest for their potential to transform public services and meet environmental objectives. Designing an effective power supply for eVTOL is challenging due to the extreme power requirements during takeoff and landing. This work presents a power supply solution and energy management control for an all-electric hybrid energy storage system that integrates supercapacitors and batteries to enhance eVTOL endurance. The proposed system employs DC-DC converters to regulate power output from each source. This method has the potential to improve the efficiency of the energy storage system and enhances the overall lifetime of the battery system. The integration of supercapacitors reduced total energy losses by 25.24% per flight compared to the conventional battery-only system. The work is validated through simulations and hardware-in-the-loop real-time testing, demonstrating its effective performance.