Investigation of Electric Propelled Aircraft Performance

With increasing use of electric-powered aircraft, there is a need for accurate mission planning tools. Electric aircraft differ from conventional ones in a few aspects, most notably in the efficiency with which the energy they carry on board is converted into the mechanical one. Expressing the efficiency of the electrical propulsion system as the product of the efficiencies of its constituents (battery, controller, motor and propeller), semi-empirical models are suggested for each one of them. They served as the basis for a mission planning tool that demonstrated good accuracy when compared to the actual flight performance.