This paper describes and discusses ways to improve future transport aircraft through integration within the power generation, distribution and utilization elements of the secondary power systems
Integration of hardware and functions along with power management and selection of a common single type of secondary power distribution is shown to offer advantages in cost, weight, fuel efficiency and reliability for the future transport aircraft fleet.
Strengths and weaknesses of recent integration efforts, primarily the Power-By-Wire concept are discussed and analyzed.
The concept of “revolutionary” versus “evolutionary” technology development and implementation is discussed and it is shown that in the case of secondary power system development, the process must be evolutionary. Also, a set of criteria relating to this implementation is given, and the ideal subsystem for starting this development is shown to be the Environmental Control System (ECS).
Some specific design work relating to implementing these concepts into a near term target transport aircraft is shown, and a novel subsystem design approach is given.