A virtual electrical test bench for more electrical aircraft architecture verification and energy management development

The shift towards More Electrical Aircraft is bringing with it many new technologies and a redesign of the existing aircraft electrical network, both of which require thorough testing before their implementation. This led to the creation of the Copper Bird® test bench which recreates the aircraft electrical system and is used for equipment evaluation and validation. This paper details the development of an accompanying virtual electrical test bench; modelling and real-time simulation of the operation of an aircraft electrical system for conducting verification activities over different aircraft electrical architectures and developing energy management strategies. In this paper particular attention is given to the PEM fuel cell model which has been characterized and validated using a scaled version of the electrical test bench. The model shows good accuracy, giving an average error of less than ±350mV and a max error of only ±3%. Fuzzy logic-based energy management was then developed for a fuel cell and battery-based auxiliary power unit with the fuel cell supplying average load power (whilst acting as a current source) and the battery handling load transients and overload situations. The energy management attains its goals of operating the fuel cell at its average power, in order to extend its lifetime, whilst maintaining the battery state of charge between 50% and 90%, also in order to extend its lifetime as well as maintaining its ability to absorb excess generated power.