Engineering, drone and hydrogen expertises sought for a demonstrator of Green, Reliable and Modular Motorization for Light Aircrafts

The European Green Deal favoured efforts to decarbonize aircrafts, creating a unique framework to develop innovative propulsion solutions. Currently, drones and electric propulsion pods are both limited in terms of flight duration and range due to the limited autonomy of batteries. Customers require urgent & secured delivery of packages on long distances by transport drones, not affected by traffic jams. Other customers look at detecting defects on electrical lines or wind turbine blades by BVLOS (Beyond Visual Line of Sight) inspection drones flying a whole day without the need for recharging. Populations around airports are sensitive to the acoustic noise of aircrafts and ask for peace. New applications require directional fans of airships and hybrid-electric propulsion of large drones. The Belgian company is a multinational company active in the aerospace field. The company is addressing these antagonist requests : larger flight autonomy with decarbonized and silent propulsion. The intention is to design and develop a hybrid-electric powertrain, complying with these requirements and supplied with green power fuel cells and to fit it in an existing propulsion platform for flight testing. To accomplish that, the company is in need of different companies or academic profiles to conclude research or technical cooperation agreements in the fields of engineering for light aircrafts or drones and green propulsion. The objective is to develop a modular, reliable and green aircraft at a TRL 6 in a time horizon of 5 years. Reliable operation will be ensured through a fault-tolerant architecture of the electric motor drive, associated with mechanical redundancy and partial discharges controls. Safety and regulation analysis will be part of the process. Modular: The purpose is to build a modular architecture that can be scaled-up to various sizes of propulsion systems and UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) platforms. There will be a possibility to upscale (or downscale) solutions successfully tested. Green: Biofuel-based fuel cells associated with high performance batteries will constitute the primary source of energy. Several biofuels will be traded-off in their liquid or vapour phases : Hydrogen (H2), Methane (CH4) and Ammoniac (NH3). Aircraft. The final product addresses light aviation motorization delivering powers of 20 to 100 kW at a successful TRL 6. The technology developments will be enriched with economic and business assessments during the development of the product. A five years horizon will be considered for the business case. An estimation of the total cost of ownership and a business plan for deploying the technology in various aeronautic applications, within five years, will be produced.