Wide-bandgap power electronics for the More Electric Aircraft

Developments in solid-state electronics have provided the United States Air Force with the most sophisticated and capable avionics systems in the world. Steady advancements in solid-state devices and integrated circuits have enabled modern electronic warfare, navigation, and flight and propulsion control electronics. Wide-bandgap (WBG) electronic devices are capable of operating at high temperature and high efficiencies, thus reducing the amount of heat dissipated by the electronics, thus enabling a reduction in, or elimination of, existing heavy, single-redundant distributed aircraft electronics cooling systems. Consequently, WBG high-temperature electronics (HTE) are expected to play an enabling and vital role in the design of the future concept More Electric Aircraft (MEA). The system-level benefits of employing WBG-HTE in the MEA include a reduction in flight control system weight and improved reliability; a reduction in size and weight, or elimination of, the environmental control system (ECS) required to cool management and distribution (PMAD) and flight electronics; a reduction in engine control system weight and increased reliability using a distributed processing architecture; and the improved reliability and maintainability of stores management system (SMS) avionics. The paper address important aircraft subsystem WBG electronics applications, the temperature range in which electronics will be expected to operate if they are to be un-cooled, and a description of WBG-HTE components desired for use in future MEA electronic systems