AIRSHIP is a Horizon Europe 48-month project funded under the HORIZON.2.5 - Climate, Energy and Mobility, with 7 partners from Spain, Portugal, Finland, Estonia and Luxembourg.
AIRSHIP envisions an innovative application of flying ships for transportation across archipelagos and inland waterways. These waterways hold potential for the airborne transportation of goods and people, often representing the only viable option in certain regions. Traditional transportation methods, such as airplanes and ships, face challenges: airplanes are costly and environmentally taxing, while ships, though capable of carrying larger payloads, are limited by speed. Additionally, both are low energy efficient at high speed.
Wing-In-Ground (WIG) vehicles, also known as ekranoplans, are designed and built to take advantage of the ground effect, which allows these crafts to fly with enhanced lift and reduced drag. WIGs inherit all the advantages of conventional airborne transportation while being more energy efficient and environmentally friendly, both from the carbon footprint and the acoustic noise pollution point of view.
AIRSHIP will study and develop new technologies in zero-emission power, on-board AI, and automatic flight control that overcome the technological problems that flying on the ground effect poses, allowing such vehicles to become autonomous so they can be effectively used in a wide range of business applications and services, leading to new aviation business models.
We aim to lay the foundations of a new class of fully electrical unmanned aircraft system, the UWV (Unmanned WIG Vehicle), that brings together speed, flexibility and energy efficiency.
The specific research goals are:
1. To develop innovative, zero-emissions, ad-hoc electrical propulsion power networks and related power management systems, interface power electronics, integrating solar and hydrogen energy sources with energy storage (batteries and supercapacitors).
2. To develop advanced guidance, navigation and control techniques leading to a fully autonomous vehicle tailored for the vehicle's features and environment at hand.
3. To develop cutting-edge AI techniques for onboard cognitive intelligence, providing self-awareness for enhanced adaptivity and resilience of vehicles beyond classical fault tolerance and situational awareness for increased safety in navigation.
4. To analyze the environmental impact, ELS issues, business scenarios and technology roadmapping to assess the technological, economic and sustainable feasibility of the envisioned vehicles and to engage with stakeholders and future end-users for data collection, communication, dissemination and exploitation of project activities and results, contributing to further actions aiming at raising the TRL level of the AIRSHIP technology line beyond the project funded period.
5. To demonstrate such technologies on fully functional proof of concept of an autonomous, fully electrical WIG vehicle.
