Novel Modular Device for a Decentralised Electric Power System Architecture for More Electric Aircraft

The aeronautical industry is one of the last groups which has decided to join the distributed architecture trend in order to increase both the safety and efficiency of future aircraft. However, the actual power system used in aircrafts has certain limitations that makes it difficult to achieve this objective due to its high centralisation. This paper proposes a novel methodology for the design of a new modular power electronic device that is based on semiconductor technology, which provides the equipment and functionality that makes the full decentralisation of the aircraft DC power system possible in the near future. The proposed and developed device can be adapted to the requirements of the system where it is going to be implanted, as it is possible to add as many devices as the system needs and have as many modules as needed. All the modules are bidirectional, which makes the system more redundant and fault tolerant, as the number of possible paths to feed the loads is increased. Tests were carried out with 5 devices (4 modules per device), 3 power supplies and 2 loads, where the correct operation of the system (path search, load feed and failure management) was proved.