Development of a novel AC hybrid concept for a

fuel cell-battery hybrid electric aircraft with power

electronics switches
Debjani Ghosh Caroline Willich Josef Kallo
Institute of Energy Conversion and Institute of Energy Conversion and Institute of Energy Conversion and
Storage Storage Storage
University of Ulm University of Ulm University of Ulm
Ulm, Germany Ulm, Germany Ulm, Germany
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Abstract— A novel hybrid concept is proposed for the

drivetrain of a fuel cell/battery hybrid aircraft. The concept
puts a battery pack directly on each ac phases of the motor.
Therefore, the dc voltage from the battery will be
superimposed on the ac voltage of the motor, providing voltage
increase directly on the motor phases. This short power boost
can be used during high power demand and the system can
also serve to recharge the battery during flight. The new design
simplifies the drivetrain by completely eliminating the need for
a DC/DC converter as used in conventional hybrid system. A
new high speed switching architecture has been developed and
Fig. 2. Passive Fuel Cell/battery topology
simulated with a flight profile to test the functionality. The
results show good response for dynamic loads with the new
hybrid topology and the relation of power and speed of the On the other hand, Fig. 2 depicts a passive hybrid system
motor with different battery voltages is examined. which directly connects the fuel cell and the storage device
to the DC link without additional converters [6]. It reduces
Keywords—hybrid system, power electronics topology, the power loss and cost; however, it requires a special
electric aircraft, Li-ion battery. operating procedure to avoid mismatching in the voltage –
current behavior of the two power sources. For the aircraft
I. INTRODUCTION HY4, a direct hybrid system was used which includes a
Fuel cell systems are becoming a key technology for H2/air PEFC stack and a battery pack [7]. This hybrid system
electric hybrid aircrafts as well as other mobile applications. uses two diodes connected in series with the power sources
With the successful demonstration of the fuel cell driven instead of DC/DC converter as shown in Fig. 3. This kind of
four-seater aircraft HY4, emission free flying has become a hybrid allows the fuel cell to be directly connected in parallel
reality [1]. to the battery.

Fuel cells can be used as a primary power source for

small aircrafts [2][3]. However, combining an electrical
storage system with the fuel cell can lead to a better
performance [4]. Therefore, rechargeable batteries or
supercapacitors are used as a secondary source to boost the
fuel cell power during high power demand. Different
approaches have been made to develop a working hybrid
system. These hybrid systems can be mainly divided into
active or passive hybrid systems. Fig. 3. Direct hybrid topology used in HY4 aircraft

This paper describes a novel AC hybrid concept for a

hybrid drivetrain. The concept focuses on having a direct
connection of the batteries to the motor on each ac phases.
The configuration is able to provide a short power boost.
This short power boost can be used, for example, to
accelerate during a climb or when the fuel cell alone cannot
fulfil the power demand. In this configuration, the voltage
Fig. 1. Active fuel cell/battery topology boosting entirely depends on the battery voltage and can be
double that of the battery voltage. Besides, this eliminates the
need for a DC-DC converter between fuel cell and battery
In an active hybrid system a DC/DC converter is used to compared to the conventional hybrid. A smaller inverter can
actively control the two power sources to regulate the load be used depending on fuel cell voltage as only the DC
sharing as shown in Fig. 1 [5]. voltage of fuel cell has to be converted. Moreover, it does not

978-1-5386-7428-4/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE 105

require the highly constrained voltage-current matching to have a positive dc voltage on top of the positive ac half
operation as in the passive hybrid. cycle and a negative dc voltage on the negative ac half cycle
as shown in Fig. 5. Therefore, it will increase the peak-to-
In the first part of the paper, the concept of the new peak voltage. It is very important to have the correct
hybrid and the switching circuit architecture are presented. switching at the correct phase, otherwise it will result in a
Then in the next section simulation model and the results are voltage decrease instead of boosting. Fig. 5 also depicts that
given which are simulated for the HY4 flight profile. The with proper switching the voltage can be boosted by the
results show that the newly developed architecture is able to double of the battery voltage
provide the desired power boosting during high power
demand of the aircraft. It also inspects the battery voltage A high-speed efficient switching circuit is required to
and current behavior with the ac inputs. Simulations were realize the new hybrid concept. There are three operating
done with different battery voltages to study the relation modes for the switching circuit:
between speed of the motor and battery voltage.
• Route the AC power from the inverter via battery to
motor → Voltage boost mode
II. AC HYBRID CONCEPT
• Route the AC power from the inverter directly to
The AC hybrid concept is to put the battery pack directly motor→ Direct mode
on the phase of the AC motor (Fig. 4). Therefore the dc
voltage from the battery will be superimposed on the ac • Reverse the AC power flow from the motor via
voltage of the motor, which will provide a voltage increase battery to inverter → Recharge battery on flight
directly on the motor phases.
Furthermore, a control circuit is needed to control the
switches. The control circuit will receive inputs from the
human machine interface (HMI) to select the operating
modes from these three and it will drive the switching circuit
accordingly. It will also monitor load, current, power, speed,
torques etc. to initiate boosting at the correct phase angle.

III. SIMULATION MODEL

To meet all the requirement, a new switching architecture
was developed as shown in Fig. 6, where switch S1 and S3
will be on when there is a positive ac half cycle and S2 and
S4 will be on when there’s a negative ac half cycle.
Therefore, supplying an unidirectional AC current to the
battery.

Fig. 4. Proposed AC hybrid concept

Fig. 6. Proposed battery bridge model

To check the functionality of the circuit, a simulation

Fig. 5. Concept of voltage boosting model has been developed with PLECS [8], a high speed
simulation tool specialized for power electronics.
To achieve this objective, a switching circuit was
developed in such a way that the dc voltage is correctly
superimposed on the ac voltage. The switches should operate

106
 Fig. 1. Simulation model

As the main goal of the paper is to focus on the AC

hybrid system, a simple simulation model has been four MOSFET switches were chosen for the high frequency
developed to check the functionality of the hybrid concept. switching operation.
Fig. 7 shows the proposed drive model with fuel cell, The control circuit of the MOSFET switches includes a
inverter and motor along with the battery bridge. For the comparator circuit (zero-detection) to enable switching at
simple model, there is no filtering components between the correct phase.
inverter and the battery bridge. A general overview of the
model is provided for the ease of understanding.
D. Motor
A. Fuel Cell The motor is a three-phase permanent magnet
synchronous machine with surface mounted magnets and
A 270V fuel Cell serves as the primary energy source for
has a sinusoidal back electromotive force. The machine can
the drive train. It is modelled as an DC source with output
be operated as a motor or generator depending on the
resistances which supplies directly to the inverter via a diode.
Therefore, the fuel cell voltage remains constant over the mechanical torque. If the mechanical torque has the same
entire simulation time. The fuel cell output current is direction as the rotational speed of the machine, it runs in
dependent on the load demand. The diode prevents any motor mode. The motor parameters follow that of a Baldor
backflow of the current to the fuel cell. brushless servo motor BSM90N-175A. The important
parameters are shown in Table I.
B. Inverter and Drive Control
TABLE I. PARAMETERS OF A BALDOR BRUSHLESS SERVO MOTOR
A PI controller in the outer control loop compares the BSM90N-175A
reference speed with the current motor speed and generates a
reference torque which is fed to the motor drive. The motor Parameters Value
drive system includes a 2-level inverter with 6 IGBTs. The Stator resistance 2.875 ohm
reference torque from the outer controller along with the Stator inductance (Ld, Lq) 8.5 mH
motor parameters such as speed and phase angles generates Number of pole pairs 4
the switching signal for the inverter. Magnetic flux 0.175 Vs

C. Battery Bridge
E. Reference Speed and torque profile
Reference speeds and torque profiles similar to a HY4
flight profile are used for the simulation (Fig. 9). High power
is required for takeoff and climb. The timeframe is reduced
in comparison to an actual flight profile to save simulation
time.

Start
Climb

Cruise
Fig. 8. Battery bridge circuit

Fig. 8 shows the sub-circuit inside the module battery

bridge where a battery pack is connected to each ac phase. A
RC-chain based Li-ion battery model [9][10] is used for the
simulation. It was assumed that temperature has no effect on
the model behavior. Self-discharge of the battery is also not
taken into account.
To perform the rapid switching action during each half-
wave interval, high speed switches are required. Therefore,
a)

107
 Start

Fuel cell only

Hybrid

Climb Fuel cell only

Cruise

Fig. 11. Motor speed with new hybrid system

b)
Fig. 9. a) Reference speed b) Reference torque Fig. 101 shows the motor speed when the AC hybrid is
on. As soon as the battery is connected to the motor phase, it
gives a power boost and the motor can reach the desired
speed. The hybrid is switched to fuel cell only mode when
F. Operating Modes
the power demand goes low during cruise.
The model can be operated in two modes: a) fuel cell
only mode and b) hybrid mode.
In fuel cell only mode the fuel cell alone supplies the
load. In the hybrid mode, the fuel cell and the battery supply
the load together. The battery is only turned on when the
power demand cannot be met by the fuel cell alone. During
the start and climb phase of the flight, the system is therefore
operated in hybrid mode. The power demand becomes
relatively lower during cruise phase and the operation can be
switched to fuel cell only mode.

IV. RESULT

Fig. 10 shows the motor speed with only the fuel cell as
power source. We can observe that the fuel cell power is not
enough to reach the desired speed when the torque is also
high during the starting flight phase.

Fig. 12. Battery parameters

Fig. 12 shows the battery parameters (voltage, current

and state of charge (SOC)) during hybrid mode. It can be
seen that the battery current behaves as a unidirectional ac,
varying between 0 and 10 A which conforms to our concept.

To further understand the battery current, it is necessary

to examine the current through the different switches (Fig.
13). It can be observed that switches S1 and S3 carry current
during the positive half cycle and S2 and S4 carry current
during the negative half cycle. Therefore, even though we
Fig. 10. Motor speed with only fuel cell as source

108
have an AC current through the battery bridge, the battery When checking the functionality of the new concept it
pack itself sees only a unidirectional current. also interesting to observe the effect of different battery
voltages on the motor speed. For this part of the simulation,
the reference speed is changed to a simple step signal for the
ease of visualization. From Fig. 15, it can be seen that the
higher the battery voltage is, the greater is the boosting
effect and the higher is the motor speed that can be reached.
Thus, regardless of the fuel cell power, a higher battery
voltage can initiate higher speed. Moreover, no changes in
control parameters were required. Therefore, the same
system can be used universally to connect different battery
packs to the hybrid system.

Hybrid

Fig. 13. Current through MOSFET switches during hybrid mode

Fig. 15. Effect of different battery voltage on motor speed

V. CONCLUSION

The paper proposes a new topology for a fuel

cell/battery hybrid system. This new system can simplify the
drivetrain architecture by eliminating the DC/DC converter
as well as provide the opportunity to decrease the inverter
Hybrid
size. Hence it reduces the total weight of the drivetrain as
well as the power losses. It also removes the constraint on
Fuel cell only the voltage-current matching as in the passive hybrid
system. However, the switching of the batteries to each
Fig. 14. Overview of system voltages phase requires a careful synchronizing, resulting in a
complex switching circuit for the battery bridge. The system
Fig. 14 shows the voltage behavior at each stages of the concept was tested by simulating it for a flight profile of a
model for different operating modes. At the beginning of the fuel cell/battery hybrid aircraft. The results prove the
flight, during start and climb phase, the fuel cell alone is not feasibility of the architecture. The results also showed that
sufficient to supply the load power demand. Therefore, the the hybrid system can be incorporated universally.
hybrid mood is turned on and the battery is connected to the Current work is focusing on facilitating the on-board
drivetrain. The operation is changed to fuel cell only mode charging of the battery from the fuel-cell and by
during the cruise phase of the flight, when load demand is recuperation. An experimental prototype is being prepared
lower. to demonstrate the feasibility of the concept. The prototype
It can be observed that, the fuel cell voltage remains will include a Li-ion battery string, starting from 3.7V and
constant throughout the simulation as it has been modeled as will be tested with a 50V motor drive. Afterwards, a scaled
a DC source. The battery voltage also does not change up model will be prepared according to aviation standards.
dramatically due to a very short simulation time. The most
interesting voltage behavior can be seen for the motor
voltage. It can be seen that the motor gets a symmetrical ACKNOWLEDGMENT
voltage boost during the hybrid mode. The motor voltage The research has been supported through the ongoing
returns to its previous value as soon as the system enters the project Go4H2 (03B10702) funded by the Federal Ministry
fuel cell only mode of operation. of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (Germany) under the
promotion guidelines of 'National Innovation Program for
Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology', coordinated by the

109
National Organization for Hydrogen and Fuel Cell
Technology (NOW). The authors gratefully acknowledge the
support.

REFERENCES

[1] “Zero-emission air transport – first flight of four-seat passenger

aircraft HY4 – HY4,” 2016. [Online]. Available:
http://hy4.org/zero-emission-air-transport-first-flight-of-four-
seat-passenger-aircraft-hy4. [Accessed: 09-May-2018].
[2] DLR Press Release, “DLR motor glider Antares takes off in
Hamburg – powered by a fuel cell,” 2009. [Online]. Available:
http://www.dlr.de/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-5105/8598_read-
18278/8598_page-2/. [Accessed: 09-May-2018].
[3] T. Koehler, “Boeing makes history with flights of Fuel Cell
Demonstrator Airplane,” Boeing Frontier, 2008.
[4] P. Thounthong, S. Raël, and B. Davat, “Energy management of
fuel cell/battery/supercapacitor hybrid power source for vehicle
applications,” J. Power Sources, vol. 193, no. 1, pp. 376–385,
2009.
[5] L. Gao, Z. Jiang, and R. A. Dougal, “Evaluation of active hybrid
fuel cell/battery power sources,” IEEE Trans. Aerosp. Electron.
Syst., 2005.
[6] J. Bernard et al., “Fuel cell/battery passive hybrid powertrain
with active power sharing capability,” 2010 IEEE Veh. Power
Propuls. Conf. VPPC 2010, pp. 1–5, 2010.
[7] A. Nishizawa, J. Kallo, O. Garrot, and J. Weiss-Ungeth??m,
“Fuel cell and Li-ion battery direct hybridization system for
aircraft applications,” J. Power Sources, vol. 222, pp. 294–300,
2013.
[8] “Plecs, Simulation Software for Power Electronics.” [Online].
Available: https://www.plexim.com/. [Accessed: 09-May-2018].
[9] M. Ahmed, “Modeling Lithium-ion Battery Chargers in PLECS
®,” pp. 1–9, 2016.
[10] M. Chen, S. Member, and G. A. Rinc, “Accurate Electrical
Battery Model Capable of Predicting Runtime and I – V
Performance,” IEEE Trans. Energy Convers., vol. 21, no. 2, pp.
504–511, 2006.

110