Impact of Battery Cell Chemistry on Urban Air Mobility Electric Aircraft Performance

In recent years, many aircraft companies have been developing electric propulsion solutions for Urban Air Mobility (UAM) using lithium-ion batteries. The demanding performance of UAM vehicles requires the battery pack to have the perfect balance between energy, power, and weight. Different cell chemistries and formats are available on the market, with several advantages and disadvantages. This research presents an analysis of the impact of cell chemistry and battery pack size on vehicle performance considering several vehicles examples. The power request by the vehicle during the mission profile is calculated using data available in the literature, while the battery cell models have been experimentally calibrated. For each vehicle and each cell chemistry, a battery pack is designed, optimally operated and compared considering several performance metrics.