Novel axial flux machine for aircraft drive: design and modeling

A novel brushless ac permanent-magnet motor is described. This is intended for use as a highly efficient machine for a propeller-driven stratospheric aircraft. The machine is lightweight because of the use of plastics for the structural elements. A form of modeling is described in which the parameters for a decoupled equivalent circuit are calculated by three-dimensional finite-element analysis of a module of the machine. Matlab is then used to simulate the equivalent circuit action. It is shown that the fundamental component of the current waveforms agrees closely with a simple analysis approach.