The human arsenal has always been expansive beyond all known limits, but at the same time, it still hasn’t seen an element more significant than that desire of ours to improve at a consistent pace. We say this because the stated desire has already fetched the world some huge milestones, with technology emerging as quite a major member of the group. The reason why we hold technology in such a high regard is, by and large, predicated upon its skill-set, which ushered us towards a reality that nobody could have ever imagined otherwise. Nevertheless, if we look beyond the surface for a second, it will become clear how the whole runner was also very much inspired from the way we applied those skills across a real world environment. The latter component, in fact, did a lot to give the creation a spectrum-wide presence, and as a result, initiate a full-blown tech revolution. Of course, this revolution then went on to scale up the human experience through some outright unique avenues, but even after achieving a feat so notable, technology will somehow continue to bring forth the right goods. The same has turned more and more evident in recent times, and assuming one new development ends up with the desired impact, it will only put that trend on a higher pedestal moving forward.

The researching team at Massachusetts Institute of Technology has successfully developed a specialized 1-megawatt motor, which is purposed around the idea of electrifying the aviation industry. To understand why this is such an important development, we must take into account how, despite our advancements with the autonomous vehicle technology, it has only helped those small-sized planes in taking a flight so far. This is because, for larger commercial vehicles, there is a need to install megawatt-scale motors. Once installed, these motors will be propelled by hybrid or turbo-electric propulsion systems where an electrical machine is coupled with a gas turbine aero-engine. Coming to MIT’s megawatt motor, it is made up from a high-speed rotor which boasts a magnets’ assortment with varying orientation of polarity. Next up, it has a compact low-loss stator which fits inside the rotor and contains an intricate array of copper windings, while simultaneously boasting an advanced heat exchanger that keeps the components cool during the torque transmission process. Then, there is also a distributed power electronics system made from 30 custom-built circuit boards that precisely change the currents running through each of the stator’s copper windings at a high frequency.

“I believe this is the first truly co-optimized integrated design,” said Zoltan Spakovszky, the T. Wilson Professor in Aeronautics and the Director of the Gas Turbine Laboratory (GTL) at MIT, who leads the project. “Which means we did a very extensive design space exploration where all considerations from thermal management, to rotor dynamics, to power electronics and electrical machine architecture were assessed in an integrated way to find out what is the best possible combination to get the required specific power at one megawatt.”

Interestingly enough, as a way of mitigating risk, the researchers have built and tested each of the major components individually. Not just that, they did so to also make sure that every single part could operate within conditions exceeding normal operational demands.

When quizzed regarding the technology’s future, the researching team cited the possibility of using it to power regional aircraft and conventional jet engines. There is further room for dedicating it towards supporting multiple fans distributed along the wing on future aircraft configurations. In case that’s not attractive enough of a value package, then we must mention how the researchers are also optimistic about scaling it up to multi-megawatt motors, something which can make the setup a mainstay across the largest of planes.

“I think we’re on a good trajectory,” said Spakovszky. “We are not electrical engineers by training, but addressing the 2050 climate grand challenge is of utmost importance; working with electrical engineering faculty, staff and students for this goal can draw on MIT’s breadth of technologies so the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. So we are reinventing ourselves in new areas. And MIT gives you the opportunity to do that.”