A Network Graph Technique for the Design of Electric Aircraft Power Systems

Today the electrification of flight is more popular than ever, creating a wide array of concept aircraft and associated power system topologies. In order to gain insights into benefits of these varying architectures, this paper introduces the development of a framework for electric aircraft power system (EAPS) optimization. The proposed framework accepts inputs from a designer in the form of component parameters and desired flight mission characteristics. A collective graph representing many architectures is formed, from which, subgraphs or power system topologies meeting the flight requirements are extracted and analyzed. An optimum topology meeting the flight requirements with minimum mass, maximum efficiency and reliability can be subsequently selected from these subgraphs. The presented results include the comparative analysis of different EAPS types with respect to the competing performance metrics of mass and efficiency.