VTOL experimental platform ALBACOPTER®
Transferring parts of urban traffic into the air is no longer a dream of the future. Within the Fraunhofer lighthouse project ALBACOPTER® , a flying experimental platform with the vertical take-of and landing capability of a multicopter and the aerodynamic advantages of a glider is to be developed and approved for test and demonstration flights.
Under the leadership of the Fraunhofer IVI, the goal is to realize several variants and expansion stages of platforms for the demonstration of the individual technologies. Thus, in a first step, the all-electric ALBACOPTER® 0.5 with a maximum take-off weight (MTOW) of 125 kg is being developed.
Six Fraunhofer Institutes (IVI, LBF, ICT, IOSB, IEM, IMS) are contributing their competences and technologies from the fields of mobility, materials science, energy and propulsion technology, mechatronics, microelectronics, sensor, communication, automation and production technology as well as artificial intelligence to this ambitious research project. As IOSB, this includes flight planning or routing, real-time diagnosis of critical conditions in flight, and the development of the "digital twin" of the ALBACOPTER®.
About the lighthouse project »ALBACOPTER®«
Urban-Air-Mobility Overall Simulation
By means of a digital twin, technologies can be tested in early development phases in the overall application case, but also for rare and critical scenarios. For this purpose, a virtual image of the ALBACOPTER® is created during development on the basis of the Fraunhofer simulation platform OCTANE and validated on real data - from flight dynamics and propulsion technology to E/E system, sensor technology and AI to realistic environmental scenarios. The developed models are elaborated and evaluated by experts from the participating Fraunhofer institutes. Applications include hardware-in-the-loop simulation of powertrain and control electronics as well as training and testing of AI. The models are flexibly available for further applications beyond the scope of the project.
to the »OCTANE« WEBSITE
Fraunhofer Institute of Optronics, System Technologies and Image Exploitation IOSB 