Coordinated Model Predictive Control of Aircraft Gas Turbine Engine and Power System

Motivated by the growing need to accommodate large transient thrust and electrical load requests in future more-electric aircraft, a coordinated control strategy for a gas turbine engine, generators, and energy storage is developed. An advanced two-generator configuration, with each generator connected to a shaft of the gas turbine engine, is treated. Model predictive control maximizes system performance and protects this system against constraint violations. The controller design is exploits rate-based linear prediction models. In addition, an auxiliary offset state improves the match between the linear prediction model and the nonlinear system. The auxiliary offset state allows the system to be controlled over the large operating range without requiring multiple linearizations/controllers. The advantages of different energy storages are also compared to complement the two-generator configuration in a more electric aircraft. Primary results indicate that the coordinated model predictive control with an auxiliary offset state yields better performance than other control strategies, and it successfully controls the considered system to satisfy specified requirements over a large operating range. The battery-ultracapacitor pack allows improvement of the overall system performance.