NASA Electric Aircraft Testbed (NEAT) Reconfiguration to Enable Altitude Testing of Megawatt-Scale Electric Machines

The NASA Electric Aircraft Testbed (NEAT) has been developed over the past four years in order to provide a testbed that enables end-to-end testing of multiple technologies that are required for the development of a hybrid-electric aircraft. NEAT has been designed to be reconfigurable, so that the facility can be used to test different technologies in appropriate ways. The testbed has recently been reconfigured from a powertrain test, to a megawatt-scale dynamometer inside of an altitude chamber. This configuration enables full-power testing of megawatt-scale components and systems under simulated altitude conditions. This paper discusses the reconfiguration design of NEAT, along with problems encountered and mitigations implemented during checkout testing to date.