Battery Control Box for Electric Airplane project

Falcon Electric Aviation 1 (FEA-1) is the first prototype built on a Cessna 150 platform. This plane is frequently used in flight training and therefore the perfect candidate for electrification. The internal combustion engine and fuel tanks are replaced by an electric motor powered by batteries whilst keeping the handling of the aircraft the same. This way the energy transition in the aviation industry is as smooth as possible.

Following is a very high-level overview of the battery-electric powertrain for the project:

Starting from the right to left

Motor:

For a retrofitting project, we need to substitute/replace the gasoline engine with a electric motor equivalent. The Cessna F150 has a Lycoming O-200-A engine that delivers about 100 BHP (~75kW). The maximum RPM for propeller is 2800 and the torque delivered is 220 N.m. Falcon uses a EMRAX 268 axial flux motor and we have chose the highest voltage variant (800VDC) to keep current and wire gauge as low as possible. The EMRAX 268 delivers a continuous power output of 117kW which way higher than that of the gasoline engine.

Inverter:

Falcon uses the SEVCON Gen 4 Size 10 motor inverter from Borg Warner. The inverter uses IGBT switching to convert the DC Current from the batteries to 3 phase AC current for the motor. The SEVCON can be controlled via CAN bus.

Battery Control box:

The Battery Control Box has advanced microcontrollers, relays and current measurement modules. It monitors and protects the battery modules and switches the relays ON when the cockpit instrumentation signals it to enable the power supply. The battery control box is made of a metal enclosure that has a high voltage (600VDC) and high current (150A) PCB which looks like the following.

Battery modules:

The battery modules comprises of Li-ion cells. Each battery module has a nominal voltage of 300VDC and a capacity of 25Ah. Two such modules are connected in series to get a stack voltage of 600VDC.

With the help of PCBWay we would like to manufacture the PCB of our Battery control box, this requires support and review from PCBWay engineers. We would be delighted to have PCBWay sponsor us so that we can work our way towards sustainable aviation.

Regards,

Electrical Engineering Team

Falcon Electric Aviation

TU Eindhoven, The Netherlands