Hardware-based electric drive train fault detection unit enabling fail-operational capabilities for aviation applications

The aircraft electrification process imposes safety requirements to ensure the reliability and availability of the electric drive train. Integrating multiple three-phase structures in the motor and inverter is a possible solution to meet these prerequisites. A critical condition to successfully implement such multiple three-phase structures is the ability to isolate faulty subsystems effectively from the overall system. The usage of traditional melting fuses is limited due to possible low short-circuit currents, as they cannot guarantee reliable isolation in such a case. A solution is the use of an active fuse in the DC link of the drive train. For the actuation of such an active fuse, a system is required that detects possible faults in the electrical drive train. This leads to a hardware-based electric fault detection unit (FDU). Therefore, this work aims to develop and simulative evaluate a redundant hardware-based FDU for an active fuse, in this case, a pyrofuse. A new solution that closed the gap in large scale electric propalsion aircrafts fault management concepts.