EPOCAL

EPOCAL: an Electrical POwer Center for Aeronautical Loads

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'The main objective of the current proposal is the development of an Electrical Power Center (EPC) integrated with a devoted Control Console (CC), enhanced with advanced electrical power management strategies. The proposal is based on the following keypoints:

1) an Electrical Power Center equipped with Solid State Power Controllers (SSPCs) for both energy management and protection functions will be implemented. Most recent technologies will be included in the power center, referring to the recent state-of-art, in order to guarantee compliance with selected aeronautical standards. The SSPC component will be ad-hoc designed for the implementation of both the power management strategies and protection functionalities.

2) a firmware will be implemented for monitoring and supervision of the EPC, particularly referring to Electrical-Energy Management (E-EM) concept verification. The EPC will be equipped with a software able to perform several analysis, referring to preprocessing (i.e. configurations pretesting), (i.e. monitoring and energy management logics implementation) and postprocessing (i.e. plotting and comparison between measured and simulated quantities).

The proposed Project follows a typical workflow based on requirements analysis, specs derivation, design phase, physical implementation, testing phase, results analysis versus simulations and final equipment validation.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

Through its ambitious Clean Sky public-private partnership, the EU is making great strides toward reducing the environmental impact of flight. Italian scientists are developing intelligent load power management to reduce fuel burn and emissions.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

The Green Regional Aircraft (GRA) All-Electric Aircraft (AEA) demonstrator will showcase the most promising technologies for the Clean Sky programme. An Italian consortium launched the EU-funded project 'EPOCAL: An electrical power center for aeronautical loads' (http://research.diii.unina2.it/acl/projects.html (EPOCAL)) to develop and validate the supervisory control of the GRA AEA demo in-flight test. Scientists are developing the electrical power centre (EPC) equipped with solid-state power controllers (SSPCs) to do the job.

SSPCs control the current and/or voltage supplied to a load. They enable smart power management including supervisory and diagnostic functions to identify overload and prevent short circuits. The project is also developing firmware (combination hardware and software) for monitoring and supervision of the EPC, specifically the electrical energy management concept. It will enable configuration testing (pre-processing), real-time monitoring and energy management, and post-processing comparison of predicted and actual quantities.

The complete EPC hardware has now been defined and a list of specifications and the associated design drawings have been delivered. In addition, a list of requirements of the EPC software to meet aeronautics standards has been prepared and some selected components of the GRA have been modelled as well. Work is also progressing well with respect to development of the SSPCs and modelling supporting development of the electrical energy management system.

EPOCAL scientists have laid out the protocol for testing, which will consist of an initial qualification phase focusing on internal structures followed by a safety of flight phase. The latter will study interactions of the EPC system with other aircraft systems and with the environment. Testing will cover average operating conditions and an overload scenario.

Researchers expect that the monitoring and control technology will become a standard component of future virtual aircraft models. In addition, the power management techniques could easily find application in other areas such as marine, rail and road vehicles. Finally, the technology is expected to enhance the safety, reliability and sustainability of aircraft electrical systems.