Desensitized Optimal Control of Electric Aircraft Subject to Electrical–Thermal Constraints

This article proposes a desensitized optimal control (DOC) methodology to enhance the trajectory robustness of electric aircraft. First, a comprehensive multiphysics model of electric aircraft is built based on the first principle. An emphasis is put on the battery pack characteristics led by the cell unevenness. Thereafter, the optimal control technique is applied to study the influence of thermal effects and battery unevenness on flight performance. Furthermore, to alleviate the impact of cell unevenness, the crude control scheme is augmented by DOC. The proposed method generates a more robust reference trajectory for aircraft against cell unevenness. Processor-in-the-loop tests prove that the trajectory is trackable via a tracking controller. Compared to the standard trajectory optimization and nonlinear model predictive control, the proposed method significantly reduces the sensitivity of battery pack temperature regarding cell unevenness with acceptable computational effort.