A Brief Overview on Commercial Aircraft Electrification: Limits and Future Trends

This paper presents a brief overview of aircraft electrification, particularly regarding the commercial aviation sector. At first, a technology overview is presented by focusing on aircraft design, propulsion, and energy storage systems. In this regard, hybrid-electric propulsion systems seem the most suitable solution at present due to technological limitations, especially the still low energy performance of electrochemical batteries. Subsequently, some prototypes are presented, which have been classified in long-range, medium-short range, and urban transportation; many of them are just at the concept stage as they rely on technologies not yet available. The most important issues to address are then resumed, together with future developments and concluding remarks.