By Nick Nagel HE LAST SEVERAL DECADES have witnessed an everincreasing drive toward more electric aircraft (MEA). This drive stems from the need to improve efficiency and reduce lifetime operating costs of the aircraft. Recently, work has focused on the all-electric aircraft (AEA) in which everything, including propulsion, is powered by electric machines (Loff 2016, Aubert 2017). While electric propulsion for small aircraft is within current technical capabilities, there are still limitations prohibiting this in larger aircraft. A large commercial transport plane such as the Boeing 777 or Airbus A340 requires the propulsive power to be 60 MW or more (Bowman et al. 2016). Even assuming the use of size- and weight-optimized electric machines, the challenge T Actuation Challenges in the More Electric Aircraft ©ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/EYEGELB Overcoming hurdles in the electrification of actuation systems. Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MELE.2017.2755266 Date of publication: 26 December 2017 38 I E E E E l e c t r i f i cati o n M a gaz ine / DECEMBER 2017 2325-5987/17©2017IEEEhttp://www.ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/EYEGELB