Volume 01 | Issue 28 | December 14, 2020
Electric Milestones, AI Innovation, Ravn X

Welcome back to the Future of Aerospace, where each week we dive into a few of the trends rapidly defining the next generation of aircraft and aerial markets.

During their Dec. 12 test flight, Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo failed to reach space due to an ignition problem. Read their full statement on what happened here.

Uber Technologies is making a $75 million investment in Joby Aviation that includes the acquisition of Uber’s electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) company, Uber Elevate, more on that here.

THIS WEEK: While Uber Elevate's acquisition by Joby Aviation and Joby's subsequent military airworthiness approval dominated aviation industry and mainstream technology headlines last week, three other companies developing electric and hybrid-electric aircraft–Ampaire, Hyundai, and Volocopter–confirmed new program milestones.(Electrification & Sustainability)

During a Dec. 9 Global Symposium on the Implementation of Innovation in Aviation panel hosted by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), industry experts from Thales, Airbus, and EHang talked about new artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies that they're developing. (Autonomy & AI)

Alabama-based Aevum Inc.'s Ravn X drone plans to offer the U.S. Space Force and other customers launches to Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) within three hours of tasking.(UAS Integration)



Thanks for reading.

—The Future of Aerospace Team
Three Electric Aircraft Developers Make Program Milestones to End 2020
Image: Ampaire

While Uber Elevate's acquisition by Joby Aviation and Joby's subsequent military airworthiness approval dominated aviation industry and mainstream technology headlines last week, three other companies developing electric and hybrid-electric aircraft–Ampaire, Hyundai, and Volocopter–confirmed new program milestones.

Here, Aviation Today provides an overview of the three companies and their latest advancements toward enabling electric flight operations in the near future.



Ampaire
  • California-based electric aviation power company Ampaire became the first to complete a demonstration flight of a hybrid-electric aircraft along an actual airline route, according to a Dec. 9 press release.

  • The first demonstration occurred in Hawaii on Nov. 22, completing a 20-minute flight between Maui’s Kahului Airport across the island to Hana and back on a single charge.

  • The demonstration marks a major milestone for Ampaire, occurring 17 months after the maiden flight of their electrified Cessna 337 above California's Camarillo Airport.

  • Now, Ampaire is flying an upgraded version of the 337 with a 300-horsepower piston engine in the rear and a 160 kilowatt-capable (kW) electric power unit in front, with a battery pack integrated into what they describe as an under-fuselage aero-optimized shell.

  • Ampaire envisions operating the first passenger-carrying electrified flights by 2022.


    Volocopter

  • Volocopter committed to launching its first air taxi services in Singapore, as the German electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) maker expects to start operating the first routes there within the next three years.

  • In preparation for the launch, Volocopter has founded Volocopter Asia Holding and hired Hon Lung Chu as its Head of Asia Pacific in Singapore, according to a Dec. 9 press release.

  • Under a working arrangement on airworthiness certification established between the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), Volocopter will obtain approval for its VoloCity air taxi through CAAS.

    Hyundai

  • Upon publishing its new "Strategy 2025" roadmap around next-generation electric vehicle development, Hyundai provided some details about its roadmap for eVTOL development.

  • According to the strategy, Hyundai plans on developing "a family of air vehicles both in passenger and cargo areas," and a hydrogen fuel cell powertrain for UAM as well.
Hyundai plans to introduce an air cargo unmanned aircraft system (UAS) with a hybrid powertrain by 2026, according to a Dec. 10 press release.

That will be followed by the launch of an all-electric eVTOL model designed for intra-city operations in 2028.


Read the full story here.
Aevum's Ravn X Drone to Offer Rapid Launches to Low-Earth Orbit
Image: Aevum Inc. CEO Jay Skylus stands alongside a Ravn X autonomous launch vehicle (Aevum Inc.)

Alabama-based Aevum Inc.'s Ravn X drone plans to offer the U.S. Space Force and other customers launches to Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) within three hours of tasking.

The 80-foot, 55,000-pound drone with a wingspan of 60 feet is to have second and third stages that will carry payloads up to 500 kg. to LEO.

What are the Next Steps for Aevum?
  • The Ravn X debut launch for national security payloads is scheduled to occur in the second half of next year for the Agile Small Launch Operational Normalizer (ASLON)-45 mission from the Cecil Spaceport in Jacksonville, Fla.

  • While the U.S. Space Force is counting on companies, such as SpaceX, to provide more responsive launch services, Aevum believes that the Ravn X reusable autonomous launch vehicle (AuLV) will provide more flexibility to military commanders.

  • Jay Skylus, CEO of Aevum Inc.: “Aevum is entirely focused on rapid, responsive launch to space. This capability is hard to measure and value in peacetime. Imagine a scenario where an adversary attacks and successfully destroys SpaceX’s launch pads in Florida and California, making them unavailable for our U.S. warfighters.”

  • Commercial pricing for a dedicated Ravn X launch is between $4 million and $8 million, as the U.S. Air Force and Space Force examine proliferated LEO constellations of small satellites to meet national security needs at a fraction of the cost of traditional heavier, national security satellites.

  • In October last year, the Air Force announced that eight companies, including Aevum, would have the chance to compete for up to $986 million in launch services as part of the Orbital Service Program (OSP)-4 effort to rapidly launch small- to medium-sized payloads into space.
Skylus: “Aevum’s autonomous launch capabilities are operational on any runway of a mile in length. This can, in wartime, include large farm lands. Similarly in spirit, Ravn X fits into Space Force’s plans in ways that most people are not currently imagining. Resiliency in space means we can access the space domain no matter what, without conditions. Regarding responsive launch specifically, responsiveness matters most when the airspace is contested.”

Read the full story here.
How Is the Aviation Industry Innovating with AI?
Image: Airbus completed a test flight with its AI-enabled fully automatic vision-based take-off and landing technology. (Airbus)

Ready or not the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in aviation is here. Industry professionals say the use of AI/ML can increase speed, efficiency, workload, and safety to enable more complex technology like autonomous vision-based navigation and data ecosystems.

During a Dec. 9 panel at the Global Symposium on the Implementation of Innovation in Aviation hosted by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), industry experts from Thales, Airbus, and EHang talked about new AI/ML technology companies are developing.

AI Use Cases in Aviation
  • Romantic Redon, head advisor on AI at Airbus: “One example of what we do with artificial intelligence on advanced data analytics is really the way we look at our COVID response. So we've built different types of analytics to really analyze the way traffic is evolving, the way airlines would swap their aircraft to go for bigger or smaller aircraft, also to look at the correlations we have between traffic on restrictions, which are applied worldwide. Ultimately we wish we could predict the way the traffic would be stopped. For the services reeling from COVID-19, this is really important for the decision making at the time being.”

  • Edward Xu, chief strategy officer at EHang: “The flight of EHang AV requires no pilot at all and the passengers don't need to have any piloting skills, they will only need to select the destination airport on the onboard tablet...With the intelligent navigation system and accurate GNSS positioning, the airports and the flight paths will be joined by EHang and the local aviation authorities to ensure the reliability of communication and the flight paths to avoid any conflict on the way.”

  • Beatrice Pesquet-Popescu, director of research and innovation at Thales ATM: “We use AI processes to build more quickly, more interoperable systems. With automatic speech recognition, we help controllers to do their job easier. Machine learning also helps in monitoring system performance and detecting anomalies, doing predictive maintenance, and increasing the system resilience. And last but not least, the new machine learning algorithms allow the creation of smart twins for our ATC centers for performing continuous improvements through simulations, and also help buyers to make their operations greener by optimizing for tactical and strategical impact.”
While there were many innovative use cases discussed, the overarching conclusion was that the implementation must be driven by safety.

Jean-Marc Cluzeau, principal advisor to the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) executive director: “A European ethical approach to AI is central to strengthen citizens’ trust in the technology. Only if AI is developed and used in a way that respects widely shared ethical values, can it be considered trustworthy. Therefore, there is a need for ethical guidelines to be built on the existing regulatory framework.”


Read the full story here.
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