A distributed, real-time simulation platform for aerospace power system design, testing and evaluation

This paper presents a distributed, real-time platform for aerospace power system design, testing and evaluation, which was developed by the University of Dayton, in partnership with GE Aviation's Electrical Power Integrated Systems Center (EPIS Center). This platform is based upon heterogeneous distributed, real-time computing hardware. Also, high-fidelity, physics-based or behavioral models can capture a variety of electro-magnetic transients, electro-mechanical dynamics, aerodynamics, control and thermal dynamics at different time scales, and allow for fault studies as well. A set of real-time computational solvers are used to find the solution to system simulation in a parallel manner, which can help optimize the computational load and simulation step. A simulation time-step as low as 100 nanoseconds can be achieved on the real-time simulator for the model to capture very fast electromagnetic transients, which is especially beneficial for more-electric aircraft where fast-switching power electronic devices dominate. Multiple simulators can be connected together to simulate the integrated operation of multiple systems such as electrical power systems, engines and propulsion systems, and avionics. This paper also elaborates on the various stages of product development and certification for which this platform can be used: real-time simulation, hardware-in-the-loop testing, power hardware-in-the-loop testing and pilot-in-the-loop testing. Two examples of model development and validation and some selected testing results will also be presented in the paper.