DLR German Aerospace Center

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2017

Smart autopilot promises to keep flying safe

Intelligent autopilot and cockpits designed by virtual reality could ease the burden on pilots and make flying safer for Europe's airline passengers.

Online supermarket pick and pack robots

Ocado, the world's largest online-only supermarket, has been evaluating the feasibility of robotic picking and packing of shopping orders in its highly-automated warehouses through the SoMa project, a Horizon 2020 framework programme for research and innovation funded by the European Union.

2015

Optoforce Ltd

2013

DLR researchers unveil a new kind of range extender for electric cars

Scientists at the German Aerospace Center, DLR have developed an entirely new kind of drive concept to extend the range of electrically powered vehicles. The free-piston linear generator is a combustion engine that generates electricity.

Free Piston Range Extender Inherently Generating Electricity

Deutsches Zentrum, Germany

2012

Electric Wheel-Hub-Drive for Aircraft Application - Airbus trial

DLR German Aerospace Center, Germany

Reaching a wider e-mobility community

IDTechEx is once again meeting its promise to allow a wider community of e-mobility players to compare notes. As its name implies, {{Electric Vehicles Land Sea Air USA 2012|www.idtechex.com/evusa}} in San Jose California March 27-28 lets you meet people not present at events with a narrower product and geographical focus. This unique forum is vital to those widening their scope in the EV value chain, leaving behind those with tunnel vision.

2011

DLR Airbus A320 ATRA taxiing with fuel cell-powered nose wheel

Back in March IDTechEx reported on the work of DLR who had recently finished development on a fuel cell-powered electric nose wheel. The system is now out of the laboratory and onto the runway for real-world testing in collaboration with Airbus.

Electric Vehicle Range Extenders - Rival Approaches

Led by the Japanese and with Hyundai of Korea, the Europeans and the Americans coming up fast, we are in the decade of the hybrid vehicle, with much more being spent on them than on pure electric vehicles. This is because traction batteries alone cannot affordably provide sufficient range in most of the large applications by land, sea or air.

Electric vehicle range extenders - a large new market

This article shares some of the research in the new IDTechEx report, {{Range Extenders for Electric Vehicles | http://www.idtechex.com/research/reports/range-extenders-for-electric-vehicles-2011-2021-000276.asp}}. We are in the age of the hybrid electric vehicle which is strongly outselling the pure electric vehicle in market value though not in numbers over the next decade.

New developments with electric aircraft

There was extensive coverage of manned and unmanned electric aircraft at the recent "Electric Vehicles Land Sea Air" in Stuttgart Germany with considerable questioning by a fascinated audience.

Fuel Cell Powered Airport Ground Support Equipment GSE

DLR German Aerospace Center, Germany

Electric Wheel-Hub-Drive for Aircraft Application

DLR German Aerospace Center, Germany

Airliners become electric vehicles

Aircraft are becoming more electric even to the extent of having electric traction just like an electric car. Curiously this is starting at the light and heavy end, with medium sized feeder aircraft adopting electrification later.

Much Bigger e-mobility picture revealed

Electric vehicle parts are not evolving: they are changing completely. Sometimes, the traction battery will be replaced by a supercapacitor or supercabattery and the dumb skin of the vehicle by smart skin. Energy harvesting and range extenders are new key enabling technologies and AC motors are often replacing DC motors. This is an industry in ferment.

Two devices will replace lead acid traction batteries

It is like waiting for a bus. You wait and wait then two come at the same time. Alternatives to short lived, toxic lead acid traction batteries, with their indifferent performance, have been sought for over 100 years. Now both lithium-ion batteries and supercapacitors are near to replacing lead acid traction batteries in the many traction applications where they are still used.

New e-mobility event is better for component suppliers

Those making subsystems, components and materials for electric vehicles gain little from meeting only the high profile electric car companies at e-mobility events. The queue is very long to supply these companies and the pricing is often extremely challenging. By contrast, a look at the big picture of electric vehicles by land, water and air reveals a huge number of often highly profitable niche applications.

Off-road electric vehicles see rapid change

The highly successful manufacturer of conventional off-road vehicles, $2 billion Polaris Industries Inc. (NYSE: PII) has recently launched a pure electric Neighbourhood Electric Vehicle NEV. Now it has added the leader in that sector encompassing closed communities rather than open highways. Global Electric Motorcars LLC (GEM), a wholly owned Fargo, N.D. based subsidiary of Chrysler Group LLC. GEM is a leader within the low-speed vehicle market, with approximately $30 million in sales during the 2010 calendar year. Since the company was established in 1998, it has placed more than 45,000 electric-powered NEVs on the road worldwide.

Electric vehicles become electronic

About 80% of the value of a military jet aircraft lies in the circuitry, up from almost nothing a century ago. Civil airliners are about 50% electric and electronic, whereas the family car is around 30% so far, all these percentages steadily rising. The point is that an aircraft has far more than the radar, communications and other instruments accessed by the pilot: it is a sea of sensors, fuel controls and servo systems in the engines, wings and elsewhere. Even the family car adds much more than the satnav, phone, proximity sensors and other electronics directly assisting the driver, the MEMS accelerometer controlling the air bags being just one of an increasingly huge number of out-of-sight safety and other measures controlled by circuitry.

Global benchmarking for e-mobility at last

Best practice in e-mobility first occurs in very different countries and with very different vehicles. The most useful events on the subject therefore need an international speaker lineup.