Improving Reliability of Aircraft Electric Power Distribution System

In an Aircraft Electric Power Distribution (EPD) system, the power is distributed from generators to loads, sensors and actuators through AC and DC distribution buses using control switches. Over the years, with the increase demands of loads and its power requirement, EPD system must be optimized in order to operate the system efficiently. In this paper, we propose a synthesis tool based on a need-based design method to obtain optimal topology of EPD system considering maximum reliability, continuous connectivity, power requirement, minimal cost, and node failure. We treat the EPD system as an optimization problem by using Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) to achieve maximum reliability while satisfying a set of constraints.