IDEAS Lab Takes Home Best Paper Awards at AIAA/IEEE Electric Aircraft Technologies Symposium

Two papers from Professor Gökçin Çınar’s Integrated Design of Environmentally-friendly Aerospace Systems (IDEAS) Lab have received awards from the 2024 AIAA/IEEE Electric Aircraft Technologies Symposium (EATS). Congratulations to U-M graduate students, Maxfield Arnson, Best Paper Award recipient, and Yi-Chih “Arenas” Wang, Best Student Paper Award recipient.

“I’m proud of my PhD students for their hard work and collaboration. The Best Paper Award was truly a team effort, with contributions from a diverse group of peers across universities, national labs, industry, and DOE ARPA-E. Yi-Chih also did fantastic work, earning the Best Student Paper Award. It’s a great achievement for our lab to have both papers recognized at the 2024 AIAA/IEEE EATS,” commented Professor Çınar upon the students receiving the awards. “These accomplishments reflect our commitment to advancing the future of aviation through sustainable solutions.”

The awarded authors will be recognized at an awards ceremony in January at the 2025 SciTech conference in Orlando, FL. 

Best Paper Award

The paper originated from a decision by the AIAA Electrified Aircraft Technologies Technical Committee (EATTC) to create a set of guidelines for electrified aircraft design. Professor Çınar serves as the Chair of EATTC, and initiated this effort as part of EATTC. This collaborative project, led as an independent study by Çınar, incorporated key contributions from co-authors across multiple institutions, all of whom are EATTC members.

Working with a diverse group of co-authors, from peers in academia, industry innovators, the Argonne National Laboratory and the Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), the team combined a wide variety of expertise. Focusing on guidelines for the design of electrified aircraft for sustainable aviation, the paper researched a way to decouple a power producer from a thrust producer while using alternative fuels. The paper also presents trade studies, incorporating guideline sets and reporting on the technical requirements of a battery or a liquid hydrogen fuel cell-powered aircraft.

Graduate Research Assistant Elias Waddington and Professor Phillip J. Ansell from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign contributed to the research by providing hydrogen fuel cell models for the team at U-M to utilize. “To evaluate a flight that uses fuel cells we needed a physical model for how much hydrogen those consume for a requested power output. Thanks to the team at Illinois, Elias Waddington and I were able to integrate the fuel cell tool that he wrote into a modified version of the IDEAS Lab’s Future Aircraft Sizing Tool (FAST) software,” explained Arnson. 

FAST is an open-source, MATLAB-based aircraft design and analysis software for advanced aircraft concepts, developed by the IDEAS Lab under the NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate’s Electrified Powertrain Flight Demonstration (EPFD) project. The support from NASA, particularly from EPFD leadership, played a crucial role in enabling analysis for a requested power output.

The team then worked on an electrified subsystem for power off-takes. With the expertise of Drs. Francesco Salucci and Nirmit Prabhakar from the Argonne National Laboratory noted how much power is needed not only to keep the aircraft in the air, but additional requirements for subsystems such as air conditioning for passengers or control surface actuation.

Additionally, this paper looked at how to standardize mission profiles. Dr.Jonathan Gladin from Georgia Tech provided information used for studies done at his institution to verify they were comparing the same information. “We wanted to continue usage of the existing mission profiles, helping to cement them as a standard practice for use in future research,” Arnson stated.

The research in this paper also used practical insights from Dr. Edward Lovelace from the electrified aircraft startup, Ampaire, and Peter de Bock from the Department of Energy. This allowed the team to use real-world examples that can be lost by running a strictly academic exercise. 

Arnson also highlighted that some papers discussing a concept for new alternative energy vehicles may leave out details on an aspect of the design, which are often points of contention in further discussions. This research attempted to address aspects of design that were neglected from the studies by recommending common practices for these models and creating some data-driven models to aid researchers in their estimates.

“Not only was it an incredible honor to win this award, but I was really happy with the interest level shown by my co-authors in joining this project in the first place. As a younger member of the aerospace community, it was an honor to work with established individuals and I commend the entire team for their enthusiasm. This paper would not have been possible without their technical help, in addition to guidance navigating the logistical process,” Arnson commented.

Authors on this paper included: Maxfield Arnson and Gökçin Çınar (University of Michigan); Elias Waddington, Phillip J. Ansell and Matthew A. Clarke (Illinois Urbana-Champaign); Reynard de Vries (Delft University of Technology); Francesco Salucci and Nirmit Prabhakar (Argonne National Laboratory); Jonathan Gladin (Georgia Tech); Mingxuan Shi (Boeing); Edward Lovelace (Ampaire); and Peter de Bock (Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E)). 

Best Student Paper Award

The study presented a model for different power management controls of High-Temperature, Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (HT-PEMFC) in a parallel hybrid-electric turboprop aircraft. Wang highlighted that in order to achieve the goal of reaching zero carbon emissions by 2050, integrating renewable energies, specifically hydrogen and fuel cells into sustainable aircraft configurations, will be essential to the industry.

Throughout the study, the team conducts system-level analysis to examine the integration and performance of various subsystems associated with the fuel cells as the propulsion system. These subsystems include the weight and volume demand of the liquid hydrogen tank, electric machines, and thermal management systems performing under different operating conditions and power split scenarios. Based on the findings, the research conducted a trade-off analysis of fuel consumption and passenger capacity across different design parameters. 

“In the field of fuel cells, achieving maximum power output is often a primary objective; however, this typically results in increased fuel consumption and larger hydrogen storage requirements,” Wang explained. “When applied to aircraft, while this kind of fuel cell system may contribute to a reduction in propulsion system weight, the substantial volume of the hydrogen tank can compromise passenger capacity. Therefore, identifying the optimal configuration that balances propulsion system weight and hydrogen storage volume is crucial for maximizing passenger capacity.”

Going forward, the team plans to continue exploring applications of different types of fuel cell technologies in aviation by conducting optimization studies focused on comprehensive system integration and diving deeper into high-fidelity thermal management modeling.

“I am thrilled to have had the opportunity to collaborate with Dr. Çınar for the first time,” commented Wang after receiving the award. “Her invaluable mentorship and guidance were instrumental in the development of this high-quality paper. I am truly grateful for her time, professionalism and unwavering support. I look forward to the possibility of delivering more outstanding papers together, helping to advance the technology of hydrogen fuel cells and bringing the vision of hydrogen-powered aircraft to life one day!”