Design and simulation of a system with one ton payload
Design and simulation of a system with one ton payload
Overview of the research topics of the ALAADy project
In the ALAADy project (Automated Low-Altitude Air Delivery), a validation campaign is being conducted in which the aircraft configurations are simulated in the application scenarios.
With the ALAADy (Automated Low Altitude Air Delivery) project, DLR is conducting research into automatic and unmanned air transport. Particularly innovative in this project is flying at very low altitudes below 150 meters with a relatively large aircraft (greater than one ton payload). In the project, special attention is paid to the safety of such a system, the technical feasibility and the economic benefits. For special applications, such as time-critical delivery of spare parts or humanitarian aid, aircraft configurations and airspace integration concepts will be developed, investigated and evaluated. Recently published EASA approaches for demonstrating and evaluating the safety of such systems will be considered. Whether automated transport can be realized with these novel concepts of safety demonstration is one of the essential question researchers are addressing. To this end, the entire system, including the operation of the transporter, is being investigated in a realistic simulation environment.
Special challenges
A particular challenge is the holistic approach of this project, in which the interaction between technical implementation and its reliability, the associated operational safety and costs are examined. A comparable automatic aircraft of this size does not exist in the civil sector, so that many unanswered questions must be raised and answered here.
Another exciting area is the question of operating licenses. Approaches exist for very large and certifiable aircraft. In addition, novel approaches for small drones of a few kilograms are being developed by EASA at the moment. However, the aircraft envisioned in this project bring with them characteristics of both classes: full certification will drive up the cost of the proposed configurations so much that they would no longer be economical. However, any potential damage that could be caused by a drone with a ton of payload is greater than for small drones. The ALAADy project will investigate the extent to which these novel risk-based approaches can be safely applied to larger drones and what the limitations of these approaches are.
Research topics
Unmanned aircraft today do not exhibit the technical reliability that would be required for certification to manned aviation standards. Two strategies have been identified to deal with this reduced reliability. First, a not inconsiderable amount of effort can be invested in improving reliability. ALAADy, on the other hand, is concerned with the second option: to ensure adequate safety by imposing constraints on operations, similar to current EASA publications. Specifically, risks relevant to the intended operation are to be investigated. Automatic monitoring of operational limits is intended to ensure reliable compliance with approved operating conditions. In order to evaluate whether this approach is both economically reasonable and technically feasible, the ALAADy project was initially realized as a concept and simulation study
Work areas of the project are:
Configuration studies of suitable aircraft concepts and alternative propulsion concepts.
Definition of application scenarios and evaluation of economic viability
Safety investigation and risk assessment through the application of new EASA procedures (SORA: Specific Operations Risk Assessment)
Risk-based path and motion planning
Integration concepts in the lower airspace
Automatic in-flight safety monitoring
A validation campaign will be conducted to simulate aircraft configurations in the application scenarios. In order to consider the aspects of airspace integration, overall system simulation will be coupled with an existing air traffic simulation. These simulation campaigns will be used to discuss and validate the results of the work packages. From the configuration study at the beginning of the project, another project was started with the goal to realize a prototype. Humanitarian aid is another possible application of these concepts.
