Method and system for distributed electrical loads connected to shared power sources

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11198515-B2
Application number	US-201916567206-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 11, 2019
Priority date	Sep 11, 2018
Publication date	Dec 14, 2021
Grant date	Dec 14, 2021

Abstract

Methodologies to deal with electrical systems and power source failures for electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft (eVTOL) design with distributed propulsion using multiple electric motors minimize required power source energy to perform an emergency landing procedure. Interconnecting electric loads and power sources in the “Ring Topology” concept considers combination of electric loads and power sources in order to reduce the impact on the loss of a power source, as well as to better utilize the remaining energy of the remaining power sources if any load becomes unavailable.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. An electrical flight vehicle comprising:
a plurality of motors connected to rotors; and
a plurality of batteries used to supply electrical power to the motors,
an improvement comprising connecting the plurality of batteries in a ring topology to provide a network of batteries that can be adaptively interconnected to compensate for component failure.

2. The vehicle of claim 1 wherein the ring topology is configured to selectively connect multiple batteries to at least one motor.

3. The vehicle of claim 1 wherein the ring topology is configured to selectively connect multiple motors to at least one battery.

4. The vehicle of claim 1 further including control logic that controls selective connections between adjacent bus bars.

5. The vehicle of claim 4 wherein the control logic further controls selective connection between bus bars and batteries.

6. The vehicle of claim 4 wherein the control logic further controls selective connection between bus bars and motors and/or motor controllers.

7. The vehicle of claim 1 wherein the ring topology connects motors/rotors on one side of the vehicle to other motors/rotors on the same side of the vehicle.

8. The vehicle of claim 1 wherein the ring topology is configured to selectively connect the plural batteries together in parallel and/or to selectively connect the plural motors together in parallel.

9. The vehicle of claim 1 wherein the ring topology is configured to selectively connect plural bus bars together, the bus bars connecting motors to batteries.

10. A method of operating an electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle comprising adapting in the event of detected failure by:
selectively coupling and decoupling rotor motors and/or motor controllers M 1 , . . . MN to bus bars B 1 , . . . BN;
selectively coupling and decoupling batteries P 1 , . . . , PN to the bus bars B 1 , . . . BN; and
selectively coupling and decoupling bus bars B 1 , . . . BN to one another.

11. An electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle comprising:
a first plurality of left side rotors;
a first plurality of batteries connected so each battery is connected to power an associated left side rotor;
a second plurality of right side rotors; and
a second plurality of batteries connected so each battery is connected to power an associated right side rotor,
wherein the first plurality of batteries are connected in a network that enables plural rotors to selectively share a battery.

12. The electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle of claim 11 wherein the second plurality of batteries are connected in a network that enables plural rotors to share a battery.

13. The electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle of claim 11 wherein the first and second pluralities of batteries are connected in a network that enables the first plurality of batteries to power right side rotors and vice versa.

14. The electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle of claim 11 wherein the first plurality of rotors are coaxial.

15. The electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle of claim 11 further including a tail rotor powered by the at least one of the first plurality of batteries and/or at least one of the second plurality of batteries.

16. The electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle of claim 11 wherein each rotor is powered through a gearbox by a pair of motors, each motor of the pair of motors is assigned a respective battery, and the batteries assigned to the pair of motors can be switched so that the pair of batteries can power one motor of the pair upon failure of the other motor of the pair.

Assignees

• Embraer Sa

Inventors

• Demizu Ricardo Takeshi
• Graves Júlio Cesar

Classifications

• H02J7/96

  in response to battery voltage · CPC title

• H02J7/855

  with circuits adapted for supplying loads from the battery · CPC title

• H02J7/50

  acting upon multiple batteries simultaneously or sequentially · CPC title

• B64D35/08

  characterised by the transmission being driven by a plurality of power plants (for hybrid-electric power plants B64D35/022) · CPC title

• B64D27/34

  All-electric aircraft · CPC title