Advances in helicopter electric tail rotor drive

Abstract

A recent EU JTI Clean Sky funded programme investigated the feasibility of powering the tail rotor of an intermediate-class helicopter electrically. The initial research and development program concluded that it was possible to produce a fault-tolerant permanent magnet electrical machine drive that has the required power density and integrity potential, but many challenges remain to produce a practical implementation, and still further challenges exist to develop a system that assures success at the certification phase. Now that the JTI programme has concluded, this paper presents an update on the activity outlining the developmental and experimental test activities that have led to a full scale demonstrated on a static aircraft and attempts to identify future opportunities.