A convex formulation is proposed for optimal energy management in aircraft with hybrid propulsion systems consisting of gas turbine and electric motor components. By combining a point-mass aircraft dynamical model with models of electrical and mechanical powertrain losses, the fuel consumed over a planned future flight path is minimised subject to constraints on the battery, electric motor and gas turbine. The resulting optimisation problem is used to define a predictive energy management control law that takes into account the variation in aircraft mass during flight. A simulation study based on a representative 100-seat aircraft with a prototype parallel hybrid electric propulsion system is used to investigate the properties of the controller. We show that an optimisation-based control strategy can provide significant fuel savings over heuristic energy management strategies in this context.
@article{arxiv.2004.02582,
title = {Optimal energy management for hybrid electric aircraft},
author = {Martin Doff-Sotta and Mark Cannon and Marko Bacic},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2004.02582},
year = {2020}
}