By 2020, aircraft are supposed to be 50 percent more economical. Under the LamAiR project, DLR has developed a passenger plane configuration with a forward-swept wing which may contribute towards reaching this goal.
Every plane must overcome the resistance of the air. Under a project called LamAiR (laminar aircraft research), the DLR Institute of Aerodynamics and Flow Technology and the Institute of Structures and Design show how air drag can be significantly reduced.
The swashplate is the prevalent system to transmit control inputs from the pilot to the rotating blades of a helicopter. The Multiple Swashplate System (META) represents a unique, DLR-patented solution for active rotor control.
At present, civilian air transport is getting close to the limits of its capacity. Still, the demand and the traffic volume keep growing: the SESAR research initiative expects that Europe's air transport structures will have to increase their capacity by 73 per cent over 2005 until 2020.
Stiffened panels of carbon fibre-reinforced plastic (CFRP) are used to investigate the stability behaviour (buckling and post-buckling) of typical primary structures in aerospace technology, such as fuselages.
Technologies for future aircraft generations require significant reductions in flow resistance, fuel emissions, and airframe noise. Innovative morphing structures are the key technology for attaining this objective in the near future.
In aviation, selection and training are factors of special importance because these tasks are both highly specialised and minimally fault-tolerant. Although increasingly supported by computers, the human operator will still be at the centre of all aerospace activities in the future.
Navigating by GPS within a building is mostly difficult or impossible. The hardware that must be installed for WLAN positioning is very sophisticated. Navigation by QR code provides a cost-efficient approach to finding your way in a building.
The connectivity software developed by the DLR Institute of Air Transport and Airport Research innovatively maps the links between an airport and the international air traffic network.
In the future, fuels based on natural gas (gas-to-liquid, GtL) or biomass (biomass-to-liquid, BtL) will become more and more important as resources grow scarce and conventional kerosene becomes more expensive.
Cooling Centre is an integrative approach to an innovative centralised cooling system pursued under the ECOCENTS joint project to enhance the economic efficiency and environmental sustainability of aircraft.
Implementation of carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) structures in commercial aircrafts is increasing. Therefore DLR Centre for Lightweight Production Technology (ZLP) in Augsburg is intensively finding solutions to manufacture these large parts assuring their high quality and rentability.
In July 2011, ammunition containers exploded in a Cypriot marine base, severely damaging a power station nearby. 13 people were killed. As part of a European relief campaign, members of the DLR Institute of Communication and Navigation flew to the site of the disaster.
Commissioned in 2012, DLR's robotic midget helicopter superARTIS serves to develop and test demanding automated flight missions, supported by a sophisticated simulation environment.
IFAR, the International Forum for Aviation Research, is the world's only aviation research establishment network. It connects 21 institutions worldwide and operates on a voluntary, non-binding basis.