Modular Assembly and Real-Time Hardware Emulation of On-the-Move Multidomain Multimachine System on More-Electric Aircraft

Abstract

Multi-domain and multi-machine are two significant features of the on-the-move powertrains on more electric aircraft (MEA). To successfully simulate the dynamic behaviors of MEA, not only should the multi-disciplinary characteristics be incorporated, but their interfacing issue should be considered. This article presents a modular assembly methodology to model the multi-domain multi-machine system on MEA and achieves real-time emulation on field programmable gate array (FPGA) hardware. The various domain (pneumatic, hydraulic, and mechanical) parts are viewed as modules and interfaced with the electrical domain through machine drive system. State-space model of the power electronic based multi-machine drive system is developed accordingly and the eigenvalue distribution is analyzed. This article also derives practical bounds on real and imaginary part of the eigenvalues to facilitate parallel computation. An 100-machine drive system is then constructed and a Monte Carlo test is performed to validate the effectiveness of the eigenvalue bounds. High fidelity real-time emulation of the MEA multi-domain multi-machine is realized on FPGA. Pneumatic, hydraulic, and mechanical domain characteristics along with the related electrical domain waveforms are exhibited and their comparisons with MATLAB/Simulink are provided. High agreement on these transients waveforms suggests that this modular assembly approach could be a helpful scheme for the modeling and design of MEA powertrains.