Smart Controller Design for Safety Operation of the MEA Electrical Distribution System

As the electrical network of future aircraft become more and more complex, safety issues related with electrification need to be addressed. This paper shows that this can be achieved by developing an advanced control strategy and then applying it, through a smart controller, to initiate fast and automatic actions to protect the vital operations of such an electrical power system (EPS). The case study presented in this paper demonstrates how a smart controller can be used to ensure uninterrupted power supply to the high priority loads in the event of single, or multiple, power electronic converter failures. The control logic is implemented using a finite state machine (FSM) and applied to a DC based EPS which is representative of future aircraft. The results are verified and validated in the Simulink environment.