Development and Implementation of a Flexible Model Architecture for Hybrid-Electric Aircraft

This paper describes the implementation of a flexible, modular, hybrid-electric aircraft modeling architecture for the development of a virtual and physical demonstrator system that will be used in the advancement of sustainable mobility systems by the National Research Council of Canada (NRC). The initial modeling architecture was established in Modelica based on the NASA X-57 electric flight demonstrator aircraft. A series of models were assembled from a high level aircraft system architecture to mimic the initial developmental path from the baseline conventional aircraft to the X-57 electric aircraft variant. The multi-physics component models describe the aircraft dynamics and performance, integrated with the relevant mechanical, electrical, and thermal dynamics of the electric aircraft power train. The proposed modular architecture allowed the simulation of three different aircraft configurations with different degrees of electrification, demonstrating its effectiveness and versatility in the design and development of hybrid-electric aircraft.