A status of the United States Air Force's More Electric Aircraft initiative

Since the early 1990s, the United States Air Force has been successfully pursuing advancement in aircraft electrical power system technologies as a means of collectively establishing the capability to dramatically reduce or eliminate centralized hydraulics aboard aircraft and replace it with electrical power as the motive force for all aircraft functions. This overall approach (called the More Electric Aircraft, MEA) has been analytically determined to provide dramatic improvements in reliability, maintainability, supportability and operations/support cost as well as enhancements in aircraft weight, volume, and battle-damage reconfigurability. Advances in switched reluctance configuration electric machines and solid state power electronics has enabled demonstration of an MEA. This paper provides: (1) a brief historical treatment of technology milestones achieved which enabled the MEA approach; (2) a status of United States Air Force and Department of Defense research and development programs in electrical power generation, distribution, energy storage, systems integration and flight testing; (3) a description of some of the Air Force's planned demonstration activities in aircraft electrical power subsystems; and (4) the dual use nature of many of these technologies to enable a variety of electric and hybrid electrically-propelled military weapon systems and commercial vehicles.