Power flow management strategies for a local DC Distribution System of More Electric Aircraft

The local DC Power Distribution System of More Electric Aircraft has to be able to sustain bidirectional power flow to and from electromechanical devices. Because the mechanical source (Turbine Engine) is unidirectional, some storage and dissipation systems are necessary to store or/and dissipate the returned energy to maintain the DC bus voltage to the reference value. Different power management strategies are proposed and compared. The development of experimental test benches is necessary to validate these strategies. In this paper, we present a 3kW test bench, emulating a unidirectional source that supplies a bidirectional load with the help of a hybrid system using supercapacitors and a dissipation system. The experimental validation of the power management strategies is presented in this paper too.