Optimal Paths for Progressive Aircraft Subsystem Electrification in Early Design

The push for more-electric aircraft (MEA) has motivated numerous studies to quantify and optimize the impact of subsystem electrification in early design phases. Past studies on multi-objective optimization of MEA show a clear benefit over conventional architectures when no constraints are placed on the number of subsystems electrified at once. In reality, aircraft manufacturers are more likely to progressively electrify subsystems over multiple aircraft generations. While step-by-step electrification may lead to suboptimal MEA architectures when compared with scenarios with no such imposition on the number of subsystems electrified, little or no literature was found to address the optimal paths toward such electrification changes. This study proposes a mathematically defensible method to analyze different directions of technology evolution focusing on aircraft subsystem electrification. It seeks to enable decision makers to understand the performance tradeoffs between different electrification paths under different scenarios, constraints, and uncertainties. Certain trends in Pareto-optimal MEA architectures and progressive subsystem electrification order (optimal paths) under uncertainty are discussed.