This thesis presents the design, simulation, and testing of a rudimentary series hybrid power system. The motivation came from an aviation start-up company who had conceptual plans for a bespoke Vertical Take-off and Landing (VTOL) aircraft that was to be powered by a hybrid powertrain. The project objective was to produce a methodology for the design of a hybrid system, as well as create a basic practical testing platform for a system that was representative of the one designed for the aircraft.

A powertrain element sizing procedure was created using provided preliminary values for the power required by the aircraft’s three ducted fans during a flight mission. Commercially available components were selected, theoretically allowing the 157 kW powertrain to provide the aircraft with a one hour of flight time and a three minute emergency reserve in the battery pack. A power follower hybrid operating principle was chosen to determine the power distribution between the commercially available powertrain elements at incremental steps over the prescribed one-hour mission. An iterative algorithm then determined the size of the battery pack such that a set of performance criteria were satisfied.

A 150:1 scale physical test rig based on the aircraft powertrain was then designed, simulated, and constructed to serve as a high level testing platform. The test rig was used to validate the proposed Energy Management Strategy (EMS). This determined the power distribution during the flight mission and managed the battery State of Charge (SOC). The test rig was first simulated in Simulink in order to develop the fuzzy logic controller based EMS and understand the expected dynamics of the system. The test rig successfully completed a 20-minute flight mission and was able to control the battery SOC in a manner that matched the theoretical results of the simulation and initial sizing algorithm. However, further testing is required to draw additional conclusions about the EMS’s suitability for up-scaling.