Flying taxis, running on electricity and launching from easily accessible runways, may be in your future. Getting them certified, with consistent regulations, is the difference between the hangar and the air.
NASA is teaming with Virginia Tech on a three-year, multidisciplinary project involving several other universities and corporate partners. The space agency has committed nearly $6 million to their effort, in hopes of shortening development time by setting standards for conceptual designs, Virginia Tech researcher Darshan Sarojini said in a recent phone call.
Other goals include increased air travel accessibility for those far from large airports and electrified plane development that would slash operating and fuel costs.
“There’s many companies that are working on these concepts right now,” said Sarojini, an assistant professor at the university’s aerospace and ocean engineering department. “None of them have achieved certification.
“When an aircraft manufacturer is performing these design tasks, running simulations, running trade studies, they have to explore hundreds of parameters. They need to ensure that the aircraft is in the end certifiable. … The regulations are evolving as these airplanes are being designed and tested, so it’s a very rapidly evolving field, and in that way, this project is timely.”
Who is involved?
Researchers from the university’s aerospace and ocean engineering department, where Sarojini is an assistant professor, will lead a team that includes mathematics, advanced research computing and the Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership.
Auburn University, the University of California at San Diego, the Stevens Institute of Technology and Tuskegee University are on the team, along with industries including Boeing and Chesapeake-based Tidal Flight.
Virginia Tech’s multidisciplinary team brings design experience, along with expertise in a mathematical topic called uncertainty quantification, which, according to NASA, involves identifying flaws in models, discovering how those flaws might be useful and reducing both theoretical and realistic uncertainties.
Advanced research computing has a division called the Visionarium, where the key focus is big data visualization. The Visionarium provides services including fully immersive environments for science, engineering, research and education.
“For this kind of an aircraft design project, there are many, many variables, thousands of constraints that need to be looked at,” Sarojini said. “How do you run these simulations and look at all of the data and make sense of it in order to design? That’s what Visionarium brings.”
The Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership is a Federal Aviation Administration-designated testing facility for unmanned aircraft systems.
“That’s quite unique, because now we have a pipeline where we can run our simulation and all of our models,” Sarojini said. “We come up with an airplane that the mathematics say is optimal. But then we can actually go build that airplane and then use MAAP authorizations to fly it and then actually check … what happens when it’s flown.”
Getting onboard
Developers are working on all-electric planes that take off and land vertically.
“There’s quite a few of these companies that are looking at flying taxi concepts for urban mobility,” he said.
Others in the research and development stage use very short runways of the sort found at non-commercial airports. Sarojini’s team is looking at the possibilities that could arise from offering travel from those strips, which would increase accessibility.
“For example, I’m in Blacksburg. … The closest airport is Roanoke,” he said. “It’s about one hour away, but the big airports are Charlotte and [Washington] D.C., they are three to four hours away. We have an airport right next to us [the Virginia Tech/Montgomery Executive Airport] … but we don’t have commercial service here.”
First, a certified plane is needed.
“The high-level project is how can we bring a lot of those certification constraints up front into conceptual design with the goal of reducing the risk for manufacturers having to make these expensive design changes later and shorten the development time for an aircraft life cycle,” Sarojini said.
Hopes for the end of the three-year project include open-source methods and tools that manufacturers can use to build safe craft that will receive FAA certification. In short, a future that includes taxi flights.
The project is meant to do more than simply set up aviation designers for success. It aims to develop a skilled aeronautics workforce, too, starting with K-12 students and including the university students who participate in this NASA project, Sarojini said.
“We very much hope that our students will take these methods and eventually join those companies and apply these methods,” he said. “We have specific programs lined up to support middle school, high schools, community colleges, undergrad, senior design, master’s and Ph.D. students. So this entire pipeline, this workforce development, is something that we’re especially excited for.”
