Descripción del proyecto
Un nuevo avión más respetuoso con el medio ambiente que un coche
El equipo de Dufour Aerospace se propuso obtener experiencia práctica en materia de diseño, construcción y vuelo de una aeronave eléctrica tripulada a través de su primer avión, el Hamilton aEro 1. La financiación europea lograda por aEro, permitió a Dufour trabajar en su nuevo proyecto: aEro 2. Este nuevo avión despegará y aterrizará en vertical, como un helicóptero, gracias a su diseño de alas batientes, y volará a velocidades de hasta 320 km/h, como un avión normal. La combinación de propulsión eléctrica y grandes hélices silenciará su actividad en comparación con los helicópteros y aviones tradicionales. aEro 2 dará lugar a un transporte aéreo rápido al mismo coste por kilómetro de un automóvil, pero con menos impacto medioambiental.
Objetivo
From both a cost & environmental standpoint, the future of aviation is electric. Although the traditional aircraft fuel still provides higher energy densities than the batteries, an electric-airplane movement has begun.
More than 50 companies have announced passenger carrying vertical take-off & landing (VTOL) projects & the sector has never received so much coverage from mainstream media. There is a global race to deliver aircraft that will be able to service the air transportation needs of modern congested cities.
Yet, most of this development is done from scratch, with little regard to the already proven technologies. Moreover, aviation history shows that disruption is extremely difficult (both technologically & from the certification point of view) & that the most adopted solutions are usually modern revisits of reliable designs. This is the approach we are taking with our novel aircraft.
aEro2 is built on the success of our aEro 1 electric conventional take off & landing aerobatic plane. The eVTOL aEro2 will use a modular hybrid-electric power system. Three key features differentiate it from the competition. It is:
- built on proven aircraft designs;
- reuses all electric propulsion already validated on our TRL 9 aEro 1;
- Can take off/land both as a conventional fixed-wing aircraft & as a rotor craft.
Uniquely among the VTOL manufacturers, we chose a more reliable strategy to bringing an electric aircraft to reality. We built & tested aEro 1—a fully electric conventional airplane using a retrofitted Silence Twister. We validated that all systems work as expected in 60+ hours of flight time. Now we are building aEro 2—the proper VTOL. aEro 2 is a 500kg 2-seater aircraft that can travel at 320km/h up to 800km, land and take off vertically and produces very low noise. We are planning to address 3 market segments in aerobatics, pilot training & finally urban air transportation, reaching €15m in revenues & 50 FTEs by 2023.
Ámbito científico
- humanitieshistory and archaeologyhistory
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesenvironmental sciencespollution
- engineering and technologymechanical engineeringvehicle engineeringaerospace engineeringaircraftrotorcraft
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuels
Programa(s)
Convocatoria de propuestas
Consulte otros proyectos de esta convocatoriaConvocatoria de subcontratación
H2020-SMEInst-2018-2020-1
Régimen de financiación
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinador
3930 VISP
Suiza
Organización definida por ella misma como pequeña y mediana empresa (pyme) en el momento de la firma del acuerdo de subvención.