High-Density Motor Drive Development for Electric Aircraft Propulsion: Cryogenic and non-Cryo Solutions

This paper presents an overview for the power electronics converter development effort for Electric Aircraft Propulsion (EAP) Systems, in both non-cryogenic and cryogenic power system configurations, from the authors' research group. The first part of the paper presents an architectural comparison for motor drives in such systems. The second part of the presentation will use examples from the author's development to explain on co-design/co-optimization efforts to achieve high power-density and efficiency for the propulsion motor drives. These efforts include converter-level and component-level optimization/advancement, as well as power module packaging. The last part of the paper will briefly introduce the challenges from modeling, testing, and analysis of the “side-effects” for the power electronics in electric aircraft propulsion systems, including partial discharge, EMI/EMC, and reflected wave influences, in such a compact, high-power, high-altitude application environment.