Development of a Rapid Controls Prototyping Testbed for Wing-Mounted Distributed Electric Propulsion Arrays

The Hardware Integrated Controls and Avionics Testbed (HICAT) enables rapid prototyping and testing of avionics and control algorithms for wing-mounted distributed electric propulsion (DEP) systems. Capabilities of the rig include vehiclelike command-and-data-handling (C&DH) hardware, a high power capacity, and a flight dynamics simulation environment based on wind tunnel and flight test data to facilitate system-level testing. HICAT, modeled on a proposed DEP design for a next-generation transport aircraft, can study component layout, wiring, C&DH routines, and control strategies at motor and vehicle levels. To validate the DEP array design concept, thrust response and velocity tracking metrics were gathered using a flight dynamics simulation. The flight dynamics simulation communicates with real propulsion hardware to evaluate the propulsion system performance as if it were being used on a real aircraft. These results demonstrate the capability of HICAT to rapidly transition conceptual designs to operational hardware prototypes for high-power flight control systems.