Design Process of Propulsion Motor for Electric Aircraft Considering Flight Profile

This paper presents a design process of a propulsion motor intended for manned electric aircraft, with a focus on energy consumption throughout an entire flight profile. The study begins by introducing the first manned electric aircraft in South Korea, KLA-100X, that underwent a successful flight test. This aircraft serves as the foundation for establishing the design specifications and criteria of an improved motor design. We then present a motor design process aimed at maximizing overall flight duration, where energy consumption—determined by input power and the duration of each flight phase within the flight profile—is established as a key design objective. For optimization, an elitist genetic algorithm is employed, along with electromagnetic finite element analysis for the evaluation of precise motor characteristics. Through the proposed process, an optimized motor model was derived,…