European Clean Sky Project (FP7) – EPOCAL

EPOCAL: Electrical POwer Center for Aeronautical Loads

JTI-CS – Joint Technology Initiatives – Clean Sky
from 2013-03-01 to 2015-07-31

EPOCAL is a European FP7-JTI project of the Clean Sky research program, in the Aeronautics sector.

The participants to the project:

• University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”;
• Aeromechs: whose brothers Rubino Guido and Luigi were responsible for the design, construction and testing of hardware and firmware codes of the SSPC (Solid State Power Controller) designed ad hoc. They have also dealt with all internal communications (CAN-BUS 2.0b) and external interfacing with third-party devices.

All parts of the project were developed and implemented at the Rubino brothers’ laboratory, now RubinoLab.

Description

The main objective of this project is been the development of an Electrical Power Center (EPC) for the “flight test” on AIRBUS ATR-72, which integrates with a dedicated control console (CC), enhanced with advanced electrical power management strategies (E-EM).

The main keypoints developed are been:

1. An EPC equipped with Solid State Power Controllers (SSPCs) designed ad-hoc that integrates the hardware and software protections of its functionality and regulates the power to the loads according to the energy management strategy.
2. Most recent technologies are been included in the electrical power center, referring to the recent state-of-art, in order to guarantee compliance with aeronautical standards.

Project have followed a typical workflow based on requirements analysis, specs derivation, design phase, physical implementation, testing phase, results analysis versus simulations and final equipment validation.

The EPC is one of the fundamental components for the correct functioning of all the electric and electronic parts of an aircraft, for this reason before the installation for the “flight test” on AIRBUS ATR-72-600, strict pre-testing was requested for the qualification tests to 10000mt, at a qualified third-party laboratory (more than 35 tests).

The qualification tests of all the parts for the flight were conducted at Celab (Latina), which certified the reliability of the device according to the most stringent aeronautical standards.

Here are some interior photos of the project “Epocal”

Photo of the “Epocal” equipment installed inside an ATR-72.

The device under the Clean Sky project, in March 2016, ranked among the first
10 best technology jobs on over 300 projects evaluated. In the future it will be reproduced for the installation of series on new aircraft.

Article: 

Electrical Power Center for Aeronautical Applications

European Clean Sky Project (FP7) – I-PRIMES

I-PRIMES: Intelligent Power Regulation using Innovative Modules for Energy Supervision

JTI-CS – Joint Technology Initiatives – Clean Sky
from 2012-06-01 to 2014-12-31

I-PRIMES is a European FP7-JTI project of the Clean Sky research program, in the Aeronautics sector.

The participants to the project:

• University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”;
• Aeromechs: whose brothers Rubino Guido and Luigi were responsible for the design, construction and testing of hardware and firmware codes of the SSPC (Solid State Power Controller) designed.

All parts of the project have been developed and implemented at the Rubino brothers’ laboratory, now RubinoLab.

Test of the I-PRIMES device:

Description

The main objective was the development of a hardware/software device capable of implementing an innovative energy management system (I-LPM) for an aeronautical power grid.
I-PRIMES is an advanced “intelligent” system for electrical loads, which optimizes consumption and uniforms energy demands in transient periods of power or when an electrical failure occurs.

The system uses a modular structure.

Each cell consists of a programmable device, an interface stage and an innovative power unit that implements a filtering technique on the 270Vdc line of small dimensions.
The “master” module was able to implement I-LPM and communicate the energy management strategy to the “slave” modules via CAN-BUS 2.0B. Some “slave” modules are “fixed power”, others with “variable power” to reduce consumption.

Features:

• Nominal voltage: 270V (DC)
• Maximum single cell power: 15kW
• Operating modes: ON / OFF – buck converter
• Line filters DC bus 270V @15kW
• CAN-BUS 2.0

TEST: RIG SAFRAN (Tolouse-Paris).

Invitations and presentations of the I-PRIMES project

• CIRA “Italian Aerospace Research Center” of Capua (12 Giugno 2014). Presentation of the I-PRIMES device at the “Clean Sky GRA Annual Review” meeting. During the meeting, the functions of the I-PRIMES device were shown in a conference room with a real-time demo to the Clean Sky project managers and executives of companies in the aeronautics sector.

• Stand “Clean Sky” al 49th Farnborough International Airshow (18 lug 2014 – 20 lug 2014). Selected to show and demonstrate the functionality of the I-PRIMES device.

UPGRADE

An upgrade of the project I-PRIMES with hardware/software extension is an EPC (Electrical Power Center) that is been projected and realized for “PERMIT TO FLIGHT LEVEL”.