aircraft, moving from the âfly-by wireâ to the âpower-by wireâ concept. .... Patrick W. Wheeler (M'00) received the B.Eng. (Honours) degree and the Ph.D. degree in.
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Introduction to the Special Section on The More Electric Aircraft: Power Electronics, Machines, and Drives
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HE transport sector still largely relies on fossil fuels; however, more “electric” solutions are gaining attention with the aim of increasing energy efficiency and reliability leading to reduce emissions and maintenance costs. Many examples can be found from road transport, where hybrid electric vehicles are gaining popularity, to sea transport, where hybrid diesel–electric propulsion systems free naval architects from the “tyranny of the shaft line.” In this general frame, aerospace applications have found that the progressive electrification of on-board services is a way to reduce or to remove the dependence on hydraulic, mechanical, and the bleed air/pneumatic systems. This concept has been called the More Electric Aircraft (MEA), part of which involves the introduction of the electromechanical actuators (EMAs) and the electrohydraulic actuators for the actuation of the flight surfaces of wide-body aircraft, moving from the “fly-by wire” to the “power-by wire” concept. The resulting step change in aircraft electrical loads will have far reaching implications for the electrical generation system. Considerable effort has been directed toward realizing the so-called More Electric Engine (MEE), which foresees an integration of the electrical generator directly inside the main gas turbine engine together with MEE accessories. In addition, the entire electrical distribution system is subject to radical redesign, with a trend that is leaving the constant frequency, i.e., 400 Hz, and ac energy distribution in favor of frequencywild or dc solutions. The aerospace application specific requirements in terms of lightness, reliability, cost, fault tolerance, fault propagation, harsh ambient conditions, and standard compliance have challenged the body of knowledge and the creativity of the electrical designers both in the industry and academic environments. In the past years, many EU projects and initiatives have been developed to explore the MEA/MEE concepts both for military and civil applications, e.g., from the Power Optimized Aircraft project, for the validation of alternative equipment systems to reduce the consumption of nonpropulsive power, to the More Open Electrical Technologies project, to establish the new industrial standard for commercial aircraft design. Today, the MEA topics have a relevant role in the research projects managed by the Clean Sky Joint Technology Initiative, with costs equally shared by the European Commission and industry, over the 2008–2015 period. The research results have already brought to the development of many of the electric devices that are now installed in large civil aircraft such as Airbus A380
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIE.2012.2188935
and Boeing B787, which is the beginning of the adoption of the MEA concept. The MEA approach has been widely discussed in the technical literature, and the topic has been included in the call for paper of many of the most important international conferences dedicated to power converters, electric machine, and drives. Furthermore, special sessions have been dedicated to the MEA developments at IEEE Industrial Electronics Society conferences such as IECON 2009 and ISIE 2010, EPE 2009, and EPE 2011, as well as dedicated sessions at aerospace conferences such as ICAS and SAE AeroTech and even dedicated conferences such as TEOS. Allaspectsofelectricalengineeringresearchareinvolvedinthe development of MEA applications as can be seen in the literature: • EMAs for flight surfaces control; • electrically driven fuel pumps, oil system, and other engine accessories; • starter–generators coupled through the gearbox or embedded within the engine; • converters for power conditioning, management, and quality; • analysis, modeling, and simulation of the overall electric system performance under possible normal and abnormal scenarios. The Guest Editors are very pleased to present this “Special Section on The More Electric Aircraft: Power Electronics, Machines, and Drives” of the IEEE T RANSACTIONS ON I N DUSTRIAL E LECTRONICS , which aims to answer to the growing demand for the upgrading of the technical and scientific knowledge of the electric aspects involved in the MEA. The fourteen selected papers are collected in two groups: I. Electric Machines and Drives; II. Power Electronic Converters. I. E LECTRIC M ACHINES AND D RIVES The survey on the machine technologies shows major interest in multiphase concentrated windings PM synchronous or switched reluctance motors, as presented in Overview of Electric Motor Technologies Used for More Electric Aircraft (MEA) by Cao et al.; a couple of examples are described in Design of a Five-Phase Brushless DC Motor for a Safety Critical Aerospace Application and in A Single Sided Matrix Converter Drive for a Brushless DC Motor in Aerospace Applications by Haung et al. The issue of lightness and torque ripple of actuators is addressed in A Novel Slotless HalbachArray Permanent-Magnet Brushless DC Motor for Spacecraft Applications by Praveen et al. whereas the positioning issue
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is afforded in Posture Control of Electromechanical-ActuatorBased Thrust Vector System for Aircraft Engine by Li et al. The thermal management in aircraft applications requires dedicated approaches. The use of fuel as a cooling liquid is analyzed in Modeling of Thermal Phenomena in Liquid Cooling System for Aircraft Electric Unit by Ancik et al. The starter/generator is a key component in the aircraft electrification process; the wound-field technology is the state of the art and two different solutions are discussed in Sensorless Starting of a Wound-Field Synchronous Starter/Generator for Aerospace Applications by Griffo et al. and in A Doubly Salient Starter/Generator With Two-Section Twisted-Rotor Structure for Potential Future Aerospace Application by Chen et al. Moving from power generation to distribution and management, the combination of actuation and power transfer within a single drive unit is proposed in A Mixed Function for Actuation and Power Flow Control in Embedded Networks by Baumann et al. II. P OWER E LECTRONIC C ONVERTERS The increasing number of nonlinear loads such as rectifiers poses the power quality problem for the aircraft distribution grid; three different papers address the shunt active filter solution: Control Design and Implementation for High Performance Shunt Active Filters in Aircraft Power Grids by Liu et al.; Control and Performance of a Cascaded Shunt Active Power Filter for Aircraft Electric Power System by Chen et al. and Design Considerations for DSP-Controlled 400 Hz Shunt Active Power Filter in an Aircraft Power System by Hu et al. The effective rectification is studied in A Three-Phase Delta Switch Rectifier for Use in Modern Aircraft by Hartmann et al.
Finally, the converters’ modeling for the simulation of the power distribution systems is afforded in Black-Box Modeling of Three-Phase Voltage Source Inverters for System-Level Analysis by Valdivia et al. The Guest Editors hope that this Special Section will contribute to spread in the scientific community the interest toward these challenging topics and will encourage the development of new research activities and original advanced solutions.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT The Guest Editors would like to thank all the authors who submitted their valuable papers for the Special Section and all the reviewers for their constructive comments and dedication to the review process. Finally, their special acknowledgment is dedicated to the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE T RANSACTIONS ON I NDUSTRIAL E LECTRONICS , Prof. Mo-Yuen Chow, for his constant attention and to the Journal Administrator, Mrs. Sandra McLain, for her essential support. A LBERTO T ENCONI, Guest Editor Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica Politecnico di Torino 10129 Turin, Italy PATRICK W. W HEELER, Guest Editor Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering University of Nottingham Nottingham NG7 2RD, U.K.
Alberto Tenconi (M’99–SM’10) received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy, in 1986 and 1990, respectively. From 1988 to 1993, he was with the Electronic System Division, Fiat Research Center, where he was engaged in the development of electrical vehicle drive systems. He then joined the Department of Electrical Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, where he is currently a Full Professor. His research activity is documented by more than 150 papers published in international journals and international conference proceedings. His current research interests include highperformance drive design and nonconventional electric machine development. Prof. Tenconi has participated, both as a Designer and as a Scientific Responsible, in many national and European research programs. He is a Reviewer for international journals and has been an Associate Editor of the IEEE T RANSACTIONS ON I NDUSTRIAL E LECTRONICS.
Patrick W. Wheeler (M’00) received the B.Eng. (Honours) degree and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering on matrix converters from the University of Bristol, Bristol, U.K., in 1990 and 1994, respectively. In 1993, he moved to the University of Nottingham, Nottingham, U.K., and worked as a Research Assistant in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. In 1996, he became a Lecturer in the Power Electronics, Machines, and Control Group at the University of Nottingham. Since January 2008, he has been a Full Professor in the same research group. He has published more than 250 papers in leading international conference proceedings and journals. His research interests are in power conversion, energy, and more electric aircraft technology.
