CityAirbus NextGen will focus on electrical power distribution and HMI

Air­bus has select­ed Eaton and Crouzet to pro­vide the elec­tri­cal pow­er dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tem (EPDS) and the human-machine inter­face (HMI) for CityAir­bus NextGen. Their expe­ri­ence in elec­tri­cal pow­er man­age­ment and flight deck con­trols will help inte­grate the two sub­sys­tems into the prototype’s archi­tec­ture.

Air­bus head of UAM pro­cure­ment Ste­fan Hedt­stück said: “From full elec­tri­fi­ca­tion to advanced pilot­ing, they are key part­ners in our mis­sion to devel­op the fea­tures that will make our eVTOL a true game-chang­er for air mobil­i­ty.”

As provider of CityAir­bus NextGen’s elec­tri­cal pow­er dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tem, Eaton has mobilised its teams to cre­ate an opti­mal solu­tion to deliv­er elec­tri­cal pow­er from the Air­bus-designed bat­ter­ies to eight elec­tri­cal pow­er units.

The pow­er dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tem ensures that the eVTOL is fly­ing safe­ly, by com­pen­sat­ing for any reduc­tion in bat­tery per­for­mance dur­ing flight, and will be inte­grat­ed with­in the elec­tri­cal propul­sion sys­tem of the pro­to­type.

Eaton gen­er­al man­ag­er for engine solu­tions and elec­tri­fi­ca­tion Tyler Ford explains: “The use of the lat­est gen­er­a­tion elec­tron­ic and pro­tec­tive com­po­nents plays an impor­tant part in this endeav­our.”

Crouzet will equip CityAir­bus NextGen’s flight deck, hav­ing devel­oped a human-machine inter­face con­cept that com­plies with the most strin­gent require­ments for size, weight and safe­ty, where the pilot man­ages the tra­jec­to­ry rather than the atti­tude of the air­craft.

The actu­al con­trol of the pro­pellers is then man­aged by the advanced flight con­trol sys­tem, with the new pilot­ing inter­face sim­pli­fy­ing flight and reduc­ing pilot work­load.

Crouzet mar­ket­ing seg­ment leader Philippe Defrance added: “Air­bus and Crouzet joint­ly designed a HMI that allows pilots to fly CityAir­bus NextGen and to con­trol periph­er­al func­tions such as the radio and the autopi­lot. We worked side by side with Air­bus — a long term trust­ed part­ner — to shape the most ergonom­ic pilot con­trol device.”

Krish­na Jon­nala­gad­da, senior VP and gen­er­al man­ag­er of Eaton’s flu­id and elec­tri­cal dis­tri­b­u­tion divi­sion, con­tin­ued: “Eaton has a key role to play as an expert in pow­er sys­tems, selec­tive coor­di­na­tion and pow­er dis­tri­b­u­tion, and we are pro­vid­ing to Air­bus the lat­est of our inno­v­a­tive tech­nolo­gies and aero­space process­es.”

In May last year, Air­bus select­ed MAG­i­cALL to sup­ply motors for NextGen with a pro­to­type using a tai­lored ver­sion of MagiDrive.

Ear­li­er in March, Air­bus signed an agree­ment with Spir­it AeroSys­tems through its sub­sidiary to devel­op the wings of CityAir­bus NextGen.