Key Technologies and System Integration for More-Electric Aircraft Power Systems: Research Progress, Challenges and Future Directions

Aviation accounts for 2% of global carbon emissions. As global carbon emissions increase, the more-electric aircraft (MEA) concept has been proposed in recent years to reduce emissions from aviation. The MEA trend involves replacing conventional hydraulic, mechanical and pneumatic components with more electrical components, eliminating some uses of non-electrical energy. Starting from the background and concept of MEA, this review introduces its basic concepts and architectures, together with the energy-supply requirements of onboard electrical systems. It reviews progress in high-power-density power supplies, energy utilisation, thermal management, onboard energy storage and fault safety. By comparing existing technical results, the review identifies interactions among generation, power conversion, thermal management and energy storage. It analyses their effects on onboard electrical power system mass, mission energy consumption and power supply reliability. The functional differences between MEA and electrified aircraft propulsion (EAP) are used to clarify the shared basis of their electrical technologies and the conditions for applying them. Finally, the review identifies priorities for MEA development. These include higher power density and efficiency in generation and conversion equipment, lightweight thermal management, energy recovery and high-specific-energy storage. Further priorities are intelligent power management, post-fault supply restoration, battery installation protection and verification of airworthiness compliance.