On-board Electrical System Laboratory

• Subject Area: Electrical Engineering and Information Technology
• Term: Funded in 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 522005634

The different modes of transport (road, air, shipping) caused 28.5 % of the EU's greenhouse gas emissions in 2019. For mobility to become more sustainable in the future, there is a trend towards the electrification of vehicles, which will fundamentally change their electrical systems and require system adaptations due to energy storage integration. The vehicle electrical system laboratory will drive the development of future power electronics-dominated vehicle electrical systems and experimentally test new architectural concepts. Research will focus on aircraft, ship and satellite electrical systems in the low-voltage range. As a power-hardware-in-the-loop system, the on-board power supply laboratory will be capable of real-time operation, realistically reproducing time histories of mission profiles and passenger behavior, mapping malfunctions and faults, and thus emulating on-board networks sufficiently accurately to evaluate efficiency, reliability and safety. Special linear power amplifiers can be used to emulate the frequency- and time-variable on-board power system impedance and thus investigate how the required voltage quality is ensured during a large number of switching operations. The vehicle electrical system laboratory can be used to research new vehicle electrical system architectures for aircraft with the following research questions: 1) How can consumption-optimized control at the system level be implemented in future aircraft with DC electrical systems? 2) How can a variable voltage electrical system provide higher power in low altitude flight phases (such as takeoff and climb) and still meet the insulation strength, which is dependent on the air pressure (Paschen's law), of the electrical components? A design that takes into account Paschen's law is a special feature in aviation. Shipping is responsible for 3% of global CO2 emissions. In order to achieve the targeted emission reductions of 40% by 2030, new energy sources are to be integrated into the ship. In the future, for example, cruise ships will be equipped with photovoltaics on outside cabins and fuel cells and batteries per ship section. This will result in new structures that may include the introduction of a DC grid and the use of bidirectional converters. The on-board power system laboratory will consider ship operation phases, passenger behavior, and impacts on hotel loads to answer the research questions: 1) How can a meshed DC grid in a ship be operated stably using many common parts (to modularize the power system) while considering different grounding and protection concepts? 2) How is a consumption-optimized energy and power management in a ship DC grid controlled and which concepts (e.g. centralized, decentralized control with or without communication network) are optimal for which ship types?

• DFG Programme: Major Research Instrumentation
• Major Instrumentation: Bordnetzlabor
• Instrumentation Group: 2260 Druckmaschinen und Druckerei-Hilfsgeräte
• Applicant Institution: Technische Universität Braunschweig
• Leader: Professor Dr.-Ing. Michael Terörde