COMPARISON OF DIFFERENT CONTROL ALGORITHMS TO ASSESS THE PERFORMANCE OF ELECTRIC AIRCRAFT MOTOR DRIVE DURING DIFFERENT FLIGHT PROFILES

Kurzfassung

This paper presents a comparison study of different control algorithms for an electric motor drive of a twin-engine Short Take-Off and Landing (STOL) utility aircraft during different flight phases and maneuvers. Two different flight profiles were selected for this work: 1) A conventional flight profile consisting of take-off, climb, cruise, descent, and landing phases, and 2) an unconventional flight profile with some extreme flight maneuvers and environmental conditions like emergency descent, sudden climb, steep turn, turbulence, etc. The flight profiles were simulated and the load torque data was derived using an in-house real-time flight simulator. Two different control algorithms, Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) and Liner Quadratic Regulator with Integral Feedback (LQI), were synthesized and implemented within the Field Oriented Control (FOC) topology to investigate the performance of the electric drive during the flight profiles. The simulation results of two different control algorithms implemented indicate that LQI controller has better performance compared to LQR.