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Decarbonisation of aviation relies on a combination of many incremental steps and outright technological breakthroughs. To succeed, both approaches need to exist inside a collaborative ecosystem. In this spirit, Airbus and two leading European research institutions, DLR and ONERA, are exploring how high-performance computing can improve our understanding of the relationship between aerodynamics and aircraft efficiency.
Tabletop exercises allow researchers to explore options and test scenarios in fields from military strategy and cybersecurity to disaster response planning. Now, NASA is using tabletop exercises to test how electric air taxis will fit safely into the national airspace – allowing passengers to one day hop across town or to a neighboring city by using new highways in the sky.
Cambridge engineers have used drones, handheld particle sensors and a new modelling framework to measure, map and characterise harmful shipping emission particles at both land and sea. It is the first time that multi-characteristic particle measurements – including lung deposited surface area (LDSA), black carbon, and particle number – have been performed in this way, and it is hoped that this research will inform environmental initiatives and support efforts to clean up the maritime sector.
Hummingbirds have extreme aerial agility and flight forms, which is why many drones and other aerial vehicles are designed to mimic hummingbird movement. Using a novel modeling method, researchers gained new insights into how hummingbirds produce wing movement, which could lead to design improvements in flying robots.