T21.9 - An 8-Level Flying Capacitor Multilevel Converter for Electric Aircraft Pulse Deicing

Wednesday, March 19, 2025

4:40 PM – 5:00 PM ET

Location: Level Three, A313

Technical Lecture Presenter(s)

Nicole Stokowski (she/her/hers)

University of Illinois Urbana Champaign

Presentation Paper

Co-Author(s)

AF

Andrew Freeman

University of Illinois Urbana Champaign
Aria Delmar

University of Illinois Urbana Champaign
AR

Aidan Rodgers

University of Illinois Urbana Champaign
Jonathan Sengstock

University of Illinois Urbana Champaign
AS

Alex Solecki

University of Illinois Urbana Champaign
AS

Andrew Stillwell

University of Illinois Urbana Champaign

Commercial and small personal aircraft use a variety of methods to remove and/or prevent ice buildup on plane wings. Recent research into “pulsed-defrosting” techniques on small passenger aircraft has gained traction, which calls for controlled power systems that can provide the necessary energy to remove accumulated ice. This work looks at the design of a 3 kW, 8-level flying capacitor multilevel (FCML) converter, with over 99% efficiency, that can be used as a controlled energy buffer between the aircraft battery and the deicing mechanism. The prototype developed in this work lends itself to an extremely lightweight design (15 kW/kg), with no heat-sink due to good thermal performance. Additional work is done to prove the reliability of the prototype through environmental testing.