Simulation and analysis of a fuel cell/battery hybrid power supply for More-Electric Aircraft

Aircraft electrical power systems have had to make serious progress in recent years because aircraft depend more and more on electricity. The More-Electric Aircraft (MEA) concept highlights utilizing electrical systems to replace more conventional aircraft power transfer systems and to accommodate newly-introduced electrical load. There is a trend in the aircraft industry to replace hydraulic and pneumatic systems with electrical systems, thereby realizing more comfort and monitoring features and increasing the overall energy efficiency. This paper presents the simulation and analysis of a fuel cell/battery hybrid power supply. The simulated system contains a fuel cell/battery hybrid power supply with a single DC to DC buck converter. In this configuration, the battery does not have a DC to DC converter, as it is passive in the system. The simulation makes use of Matlab/Simulink-based models. The simulation results are given to show the overall system performance.