A Segmented Electric Aircraft Drivetrain Employing 10-Level Flying Capacitor Multi-Level Dual- Interleaved Power Modules

Abstract

Electric aircraft require power dense and efficient powertrains to become practical and break out of the laboratory and into the air. This work describes a full electric drivetrain, comprising six interleaved 10-level flying capacitor multi-level (FCML) dc-ac converters with high (38.4 kW/kg) specific power density and efficiency (98.95%). A global controller implements field-oriented control, and communicates through digital optical links to a local FPGA controller on each dual-interleaved FCML module (each module comprising two dc-ac converters). Successful demonstration on a full dynamometer test-bed with twin 250 kW electric aircraft machines is demonstrated, along with an active feedforward cancellation technique to reduce higher order harmonics.