As the aviation industry presses ahead with its sustainability ambitions, developers of electric, hybrid, and hydrogen-powered aircraft are grappling with the fact that new eco-friendly designs cannot deliver the same range, payload, and performance as their traditional gas-guzzling counterparts.
To address this conundrum and make “green” aircraft more competitive, TT Electronics is introducing a suite of high-voltage DC power conversion solutions that the UK-based company says will boost performance by enabling more efficient, longer-duration flights at higher altitudes compared with off-the-shelf components that are available today. TT Electronics announced the high-voltage DC power conversion solution Tuesday at the Farnborough International Airshow.
“What we're seeing in terms of the urban air mobility market and even the civil and military aviation markets now is that our customers are after almost modified off-the-shelf products,” Kevin Littler, head of business development at TT Electronics, told AIN. “They want something that's quick and they don't want to pay a lot of non-recurring engineering costs for it, but they still want it to be suitable for their requirements.
“So, we are developing effectively a set of modular building blocks that can then be used to quickly develop those specific power supplies for our customers.”
While the technology lends itself to urban air mobility vehicles such as eVTOL air taxis, Littler said the goal of AltitudeDC is to fulfill the needs of the civil aviation market. “Civil airliners will require high-voltage DC power conversion and military aircraft are going down that path, too,” he said.
With the push to electrify aircraft, the industry cannot continue to rely on AC power “because the cable weight and cable size would be huge,” Littler said. He explained that the electrification of the automotive industry faced the same issues as more electric ground vehicles have entered the market.
TT Electronics is collaborating with the UK’s Aerospace Technology Institute as well as other industry and academic partners to develop the AltitudeDC portfolio.
Separately, last week TT Electronics announced an expansion of its partnership with Parker Meggitt. The multi-million dollar agreement aims to develop complex electronic assemblies for commercial aircraft braking systems.