CORDIScovery Vodcast- Episode #2 - Driving the future of sustainable mobility
This is an AI transcription.
00:00:15:22 - 00:00:18:12
Anthony Lockett
Hello and welcome to this special
00:00:18:12 - 00:00:41:09
Anthony Lockett
episode of the CORDIScovery Podcast. Today we're focusing on the future of energy and mobility. Two areas at the heart of Europe's transition to a greener, smarter and more sustainable economy. From smarter air traffic control to advanced electric vehicles and more fuel-efficient aircraft. Research and innovation are helping to reshape the way we travel.
00:00:41:14 - 00:01:04:18
Anthony Lockett
So, I'm joined today by representatives of three projects that have received funding from the EU Horizon Europe program, and these projects point to a future where mobility is not only more sustainable, but also more connected and resilient. First of all, we have with us Gabriel García Rodríguez, who is an industrial engineer by training with an academic background, also in market research and techniques.
00:01:04:20 - 00:01:31:06
Anthony Lockett
He has almost 20 years of experience in aviation, and he manages the ECHOES project, a new flagship project demonstrating space-based VHF combined with surveillance solutions to make flights safer, greener and more efficient. We also have with us Christoph Abart from Austria, where he works as senior project manager at AVL List Company. He's the technical coordinator of the HiEFFICIENT project.
00:01:31:06 - 00:01:56:03
Anthony Lockett
And now he coordinates the follow up activity, HiPower 5.0, supported under the Chips Joint Undertaking. And then we have Jerome, Dr Jérome Geneix, who is a core member of the team behind RACER, a high-speed demonstrator developed under the Clean Sky 2 European Research program. And on the RACER project Dr Geneix led the dynamic systems development.
00:01:56:05 - 00:02:20:22
Anthony Lockett
So, if I could turn to you first, Gabriel. On the ECHOES project, your aim is to extend VHF coverage into oceanic, polar, and other remote areas. Can you tell us why that's so important?
Gabriel García Rodríguez
Thanks. This project is a really huge project that we are about to finalize by the end of this year. The goal of this project is that we are extending the VHF coverage that it is now.
00:02:21:01 - 00:02:52:23
Gabriel García Rodríguez
Now, this is the more reliable in communication for aeronautical purposes, which is used currently and commonly in continental areas. We are extending it to oceanic areas. The good thing of this, or the key thing of this, is that, once the aircraft enters a few hundred kilometres in the ocean, it loses this coverage,
00:02:53:00 - 00:03:24:12
Gabriel García Rodríguez
this is VHF coverage; and it has to rely on other, like RF, which is older and less reliable, and others like Satcom. I would say Satcom is like 1 to 1 conversation, like telephone calls. But the thing, the good thing of VHF is that once you press the button, everyone in the frequency, listens to you and everyone is aware. It generates a general awareness.
00:03:24:12 - 00:03:45:17
Gabriel García Rodríguez
Okay, so this is a key point for security. Sorry not for security, for safety.
Anthony Lockett
Yes. What difference would it make in terms of safety?
Gabriel García Rodríguez
In safety, as I told you, once you enter in the oceanic, you lose the same type of communication, and then you have to rely on less and less reliable ones.
00:03:45:19 - 00:04:23:07
Gabriel García Rodríguez
And in order to keep safety, you have to put more separation between aircrafts. So, you, you, come from a continental where you can separate aircrafts, eight nautical miles to up to 50 or 80 nautical miles, depending on the space. So, well, this is really inefficient, but it is what it is because the oceanic regions are like this, but now we are going to change this with ECHOES.
00:04:23:09 - 00:04:54:09
Gabriel García Rodríguez
Indeed, in ECHOES, we achieve the first ever voice and data communication between aircraft and aircraft, and traffic controllers based in the space. And this is our real goal. All this without changing anything in the aircraft, because this is one of the key points, we are not changing anything in the aircraft, nor in the procedures of the pilots or the controllers.
00:04:54:11 - 00:05:20:15
Gabriel García Rodríguez
The application of this is instant. And, well, it saves a lot of money.
Anthony Lockett
It saves a lot of money, it's safer, more efficient. You mentioned space. I think your project relies on the launch of a constellation of over 200 low Earth orbit satellites to monitor aeronautical frequencies. How many of these satellites are actually up there in the sky right now?
00:05:20:17 - 00:05:42:00
Gabriel García Rodríguez
Okay, there are two. There are two satellites. And I'm going to make a little, appointment to what you said, because we are not monitoring frequencies. We are using some of these frequencies in order to provide services. Okay, and back to the main question. We have launch, in this space, we have launched to satellites.
00:05:42:04 - 00:06:14:05
Gabriel García Rodríguez
Two demonstrators, IOD-1 and IOD-2, which are currently flying. Currently we are performing tests with them, successful tests with them, and, well, they perform well.
Anthony Lockett
And what will it take to get from 2 to 200 and how long would that take?
Gabriel García Rodríguez
Okay. We expect it to have the constellation deployed by the end of the decade, 2030, 2031, and start providing services by then.
00:06:14:07 - 00:06:37:07
Anthony Lockett
Okay. Thank you very much, Gabriel. Let's come back to you in the discussion afterwards. But now I'd like to turn to Christophe from the HiEFFICIENT project. Your project aims to promote resource efficient and decarbonized transportation. Particularly, it focuses on electronic power circuits and systems of electrified vehicles, testing systems and charging infrastructure.
00:06:37:07 - 00:06:58:18
Anthony Lockett
So, all very topical, and I'm sure are of great interest to our listeners who may own electric vehicles or be considering buying an electric vehicle.
Christoph Abart
Well, all these power electronic circuits are at the heart of an electric vehicle, you know? So, you need to charge your vehicle, you need to drive your vehicle. And these components are mandatory to do these things, right?
00:06:58:18 - 00:07:22:15
Christoph Abart
So, when you're at home and we want to charge your vehicle, you need, for example, an onboard charger in the vehicle. And here you want to have as much efficient, component as possible. So, to lose, not money at the end. Then of course, when you are then thinking about the inverter, which is driving your e-motor, you want to get as much far as you can get with your vehicle.
00:07:22:18 - 00:07:58:02
Christoph Abart
Therefore, increasing efficiency is key. And when you're thinking about, components today, having 94, 95% of efficiency, we demonstrated components going up to 99% in that project. So, we're getting close to the maximum. And additionally, what we did in the project is also applying new semiconductor technologies to our solutions, reducing the volume, increasing efficiency and, also, increasing the reliability of these components. Because, in the future, there are new applications coming up like these Vehicle-To-Grid and Grid-To-Vehicle functionality,
00:07:58:02 - 00:08:18:13
Christoph Abart
so, you can charge your vehicle, but it can give the energy back to the grid to stabilize the grid. Because of these new renewables you have, not every time everything available. So, we can support, by electric vehicles, the grid. And therefore, you need increased lifetime. So, starting from the day in having 8000 hours of operation, you're going up to 200,000 hours of operation.
00:08:18:13 - 00:08:40:09
Christoph Abart
So, you see there's a quite a leap in reliability necessary. And this was investigated in the course of the project.
Anthony Lockett
Okay. And I believe your project relies on something called wide band gap technologies. Can you explain to our listeners exactly what that is and what the significance is?
Christoph Abart
Right, I can try to do that.
00:08:40:11 - 00:09:06:22
Christoph Abart
So, in the past you used silicon-based semiconductors, basically. That's the standard technology, which is durable. And well know over the last century, last decades, I would say. And a couple of years ago, wideband chip technologies made it to the market. They are favourable compared to silicon semiconductors based on efficiency, based on their properties, how it operates them.
00:09:06:24 - 00:09:30:06
Christoph Abart
And therefore, you can make things more compact, more efficient. And that's the benefit for the end user at the end, that helps you to improve all these components.
Anthony Lockett
Okay. What difference could, more efficient electronic power circuits make compared for example, to improved battery technologies? Which is going to be more impactful. Do we need both?
00:09:30:08 - 00:09:53:05
Christoph Abart
It will be both actually. So, of course you can increase the efficiency of the power electronic circuits, as I said, going from 94 to 99% there, that's bringing you 4 or 5% maximum. That's not the big game changer, I would say. But of course, when you are thinking about the batteries, we can increase the power densities over the next years, significantly, I would say.
00:09:53:11 - 00:10:11:23
Christoph Abart
So having just a half the size of the battery, that would make much more impact, I would say, because batteries, the thing in the vehicle, which is the weight, so to say. And here reducing the weight significantly will help you extend your driving range, or you can get, well you can charge it faster.
00:10:11:23 - 00:10:30:01
Christoph Abart
So, there are a lot of parameters which you can tune here, in that area.
Anthony Lockett
Right, and how near or far are we from seeing these more efficient electronic power circuits actually in vehicles?
Christoph Abart
Well, when we so we started already back in 2008 with another project which was called High Perform at that point in time.
00:10:30:01 - 00:10:52:23
Christoph Abart
So, we were almost the first, bringing a wide band gap-based semiconductors to the automotive domain. And this at this point in time, it was silicon carbide. Yeah, that's one of these semiconductors. And this is quite common already. So, Tesla was the first one, bringing it to the vehicle. And now also the German OEMs are using it quite frequently already.
00:10:53:00 - 00:11:13:08
Christoph Abart
So that's in the market. Yeah. But the next step is now gallium nitride. Which is even more favourable in some applications. But this is not yet in the market. So, we focused in HiEFFICIENT quite a lot on this technology. To make it more durable and, really bring it to the market since you also had the automotive companies involved in this project.
00:11:13:10 - 00:11:35:14
Christoph Abart
So, this is for sure maybe the next game changer so to say, make it a little bit bold. But this will take a couple of years still, I think, to really driving on the road.
Anthony Lockett
Yeah, yeah. Okay. Thank you very much, Christoph. Let me now turn to share home from the racer project.
00:11:35:16 - 00:11:54:12
Anthony Lockett
You’re developing, or you aim to develop, a commercially viable aircraft that flies as fast as an airplane but can also hover like a helicopter. I think this isn't a totally new idea, but why is the time right now to be able to make some progress?
00:11:54:13 - 00:12:36:07
Dr Jérome Geneix
Yeah. You fully right Tony, it's not totally new. And it's now, decades later on Airbus Helicopters side that these different projects that are aiming for an increase of speed in the helicopter world. Now, let's say, we have, thanks to the previous demonstrator, which is named X cube, which was, a demonstrator a proof of concept. So, a demonstrator that we build from different parts from existing rotorcraft that we have in our fleet, we create a demonstrator just to check the viability in terms of engine quality, in terms of viability of the concept itself.
00:12:36:09 - 00:13:04:24
Dr Jérome Geneix
But this aircraft, by this way of manufacturing, has a lot of limitations, and it makes sense to have one step more advanced through a demonstrator of mission, an aircraft which is, let us say, representative in terms of payload and range and that could demonstrate the mission. And it's the aim of RACER.
Anthony Lockett
I see, and you're responsible for the dynamic systems.
00:13:05:04 - 00:13:30:11
Anthony Lockett
What are some of the technical challenges you've had to overcome in bridging this gap between traditional helicopters and fixed wing aircraft?
Dr Jérome Geneix
That is a lot, lot, it's difficult to list them, but I would say that the main, let's say, limitation today on conventional helicopter speed is not technical. It's physics.
00:13:30:13 - 00:13:52:10
Dr Jérome Geneix
It's, something that is quite difficult to fight against. It’s the limit of speed of the advancing blade, which is just the sum of the forward speed of the aircraft and the speed of rotation of the blade itself on the main rotor. And so, we don't want to cross the speed of sound, and to have some, let's say, vibrations and so on.
00:13:52:10 - 00:14:13:23
Dr Jérome Geneix
So, this is a physical limitation. And there is a lot of techniques to go over this limitation.
Anthony Lockett
Okay. And I think one of the use cases for such an aircraft would be in rescue situations. Could you explain to us what would be the advantages?
Dr Jérome Geneix
Yes. Of course, today helicopter missions are very variable.
00:14:13:23 - 00:14:54:02
Dr Jérome Geneix
There is a lot of different type of mission, but there is a lot of those missions where speed increase in a significant manner, could change things. All the mission where saving time means saving lives. So, search and rescue mission are the first one that you could go faster to an area where the people are injured and you maintain the capacity of the helicopter to be able to hover, to land in the unprepared area, and to rescue people? And the speed to allow you to bring them back directly to a hospital that has capacity to take in charge the people injured.
00:14:54:04 - 00:15:18:01
Anthony Lockett
All right. And how soon might we be seeing those kinds of rescue situations where people would be able to benefit from such an aircraft?
Dr Jérome Geneix
Today there is only one demonstrator. It's not at the moment a program. It's a demonstrator where we put in flight a different and new , and we are just at the beginning of the story.
00:15:18:01 - 00:15:44:05
Dr Jérome Geneix
The aircraft itself have only 37 flight hours, so we have to learn a lot again on this aircraft to collect data for the next step.
Anthony Lockett
Okay. Good luck with that. It sounds like a really ambitious and valuable project. Maybe I could, turn back to Gabriel. Obviously, you know, Horizon Europe is based a lot around the idea of collaboration with different partners.
00:15:44:05 - 00:16:09:17
Anthony Lockett
I'm sure your project is no exception. Can you explain to us, you know, what partners you brought to the table? How the collaboration worked? How you interacted with different stakeholders?
Gabriel García Rodríguez
Yeah. Of course. ECHOES is really big project. We are six partners in the consortium and an associated entity. The scope of ECHOES is geographically immense.
00:16:09:17 - 00:16:40:19
Gabriel García Rodríguez
We are performing trials in the South Atlantic Corridor, which goes from Europe to South America. And we are performing this test with the satellites with real pilots and with real controllers in five different airspaces, from Portugal, from Spain. Also, we are counting on communication service providers that cover the data part of the project.
00:16:40:21 - 00:17:10:18
Gabriel García Rodríguez
Also, airlines, they are key participants because they are the end users. And we have among our contributors TAP Air Portugal, Iberia, Plus Ultra, Tui, Vueling.
Anthony Lockett
And how about, I mean, you mentioned the airlines, you mentioned air traffic controllers. Are they waiting impatiently for this new technology to be available, or is there some resistance or scepticism?
00:17:10:20 - 00:17:43:04
Gabriel García Rodríguez
No, no, to be honest, they are. They are. Because mostly pilots, and controllers because air space is big. But oceans are also really, really big air spaces. And with this technology, pilots are able to have a far better communication that they have now, and they have tested it, and they have seen that the quality is more than acceptable.
00:17:43:06 - 00:18:06:09
Gabriel García Rodríguez
And also, controllers. So indeed, they are waiting for this.
Anthony Lockett
I see. And Christophe, AVL List is a family-owned company with a long history. What new partners have you been able to work with in these projects? High efficiency and HiPower 5.0. And what would have been some of the challenges and the pluses of these collaborations?
00:18:06:13 - 00:18:32:04
Christoph Abart
Well, as I said before, we started already with HiPerform in 2018, and since then we made a consortium out of roughly 30 partners. Now, in HiPower it’s already 45 partners. So, it grew over the last two years. And the consortium is really a big one because we wanted really to have the full value chain within Europe providing this automotive solution.
00:18:32:04 - 00:19:05:00
Christoph Abart
So, we’re starting really from the semiconductors having for example, Infineon, Imec, supporting with the semiconductor devices. So, we developed new semiconductor devices within the project and brought them to the application. So, you need everybody in between as well to do that. And starting from the semiconductors, we had of course, a lot of RTOs and universities involved, developing new basic technologies as well as helping in the design of the components and then going up to the automotive OEM.
00:19:05:00 - 00:19:26:15
Christoph Abart
So, we had Mercedes-Benz in, next time we have Ampere in, really working on solutions coming to the end users. And in between there are also tie up ones like a Valeo, Tesco, which are also taking up this technology. So, you need a really a big variety of different companies to make this project a success.
00:19:26:17 - 00:19:52:08
Christoph Abart
And, within the project, we also had two different streams, so-called use cases, developing different demonstrators, we had not just one demonstrator. We had more than 12 demonstrators in it, in HiEFFICIENT, really, showing that the semiconductor devices in different applications related to the automotive domain.
Anthony Lockett
Okay. Thanks. And Jérome, I think you're working with a lot of industrial partners for RACER, probably other partners.
00:19:52:10 - 00:20:20:06
Anthony Lockett
What is their vision for the for the project?
Dr Jérome Geneix
Yes. You're right, we have 40 different partners spread all around Europe in 13 different countries. So, it means communication is key. And it constrains you to formalize a bit more if you work only by yourself. And this has a really positive drawback at the end. The aircraft has a maturity as a demonstrator
00:20:20:08 - 00:20:53:02
Dr Jérome Geneix
That’s very good with very few flights. We managed to demonstrate our target speed of 220 knots on only seven flights.
Anthony Lockett
So, 220 knots is the maximum?
Dr Jérome Geneix
Yes. So as an order of comparison, conventional rotorcraft is 140 knots. So, 50% more speed. And this is not done at any cost. So, as you mentioned at the beginning of the discussion, our aim is to have a cost-effective aircraft.
00:20:53:02 - 00:21:11:08
Dr Jérome Geneix
So, simplicity is a key in this. It's a huge partnership. It was also the key to this exchange; to make it, to keep it simple, let say.
Anthony Lockett
So, it was a real teamwork?
Dr Jérome Geneix
Yeah. It is.
Anthony Lockett
Okay. Thanks. I'm afraid that's all we have time for this episode, I'd like to thank very much, our guests for joining us.
00:21:11:08 - 00:21:37:23
Anthony Lockett
And, to you, for listening into this episode. You can follow us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and check out the podcast homepage on the Cordis website. Subscribe to make sure the hottest research in EU funded science isn't passing you by, and you can find more information and project examples on the Cordis website, on the European Commission's research and innovation websites and in our online magazine horizon.
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