Electric Flight in Extreme and Uncertain Urban Environments

Abstract

In a typical application scenario for electric aircraft, the emerging urban air mobility is faced with uncertain environmental conditions. To investigate the potential influence of uncertainties, this paper first develops comprehensive models of aircraft rigid body motion and electric propulsive performance. The urban environment model is built with emphasis on wind speed and the heat island effect. Thereafter, a flight guidance law augmented with nonlinear dynamic inversion is proposed to facilitate the performance evaluation of electric aircraft. Multiple simulations at various dates, times, and with different battery aging statuses are conducted. The results show that the battery aging effect and ambient temperature change are the most important factors that influence the aircraft performance. Suggestions to enhance the performance are given based on simulations.