Bauhaus Luftfahrt: Thinktank for climate-neutral Aviation

Technology Radar

The early detection of disruptive technologies and their ultimate physical performance capability is the key to long-term, sustainable innovations in aviation. The Technology Radar of Bauhaus Luftfahrt acts as an antenna for step-change technological advancements and radically new developments in the domains of energy, alternative fuels, materials, photonics, sensors and information. In order to quantitatively analyse and assess future technologies, a specially developed methodology based on scientific principles is used. As guidance to the future development of sound overall concepts, performance potentials are determined in the aeronautical context at various levels of complexity.

Trend Monitor

The air transport environment is constantly changing, facing many challenges, uncertainties and opportunities. Within the scope of the Bauhaus Luftfahrt Trend Monitor, manifold social, technological, economic, environmental and political developments are captured, analysed and evaluated in terms of implications for various stakeholders in aviation as part of an overall mobility system. Enabling an early and comprehensive detection mechanism and subsequent assessment provides insights for the aviation community and beyond regarding emerging and long-term developments, including the future of passenger travel, potential business applications, partnerships and strategic consequences.

Transition to Climate Neutrality

The research area Transition to Climate Neutrality focuses on the following research questions: Which pathways can lead aviation to CO2 neutrality by 2050? Which emission mitigation options show the best performance in terms of reduction potential, costs and entry into service? How can synergies between different mitigation options be maximised? And finally, how do changing ticket prices and an increasing environmental awareness among passengers affect the future demand trends in air travel? In light of such complex dynamics, scenario simulations are among the preferred methods to better understand the underlying mechanisms and to clearly show implications of different scenario outcomes.

Future Aviation Fuels

The research area Future Aviation Fuels addresses the following key questions: What quantities of renewable fuel can be produced in the future? Which technical production pathways are available for a long-term supply of renewable fuels? How do these pathways perform with respect to technical, environmental and socioeconomic criteria? And what are suitable measures to introduce the required volumes of sustainable jet fuel into the market? Fuel options with promising long-term potentials, like advanced biofuels from residues and waste streams or synthetic fuels from solar and wind energy, represent important research topics in this context.

Hydrogen Aviation

A holistic assessment of hydrogen as an aviation fuel is a central aim of Bauhaus Luftfahrt’s research activities. In this context, production processes and logistic chains are analysed in order to gauge their scalability and their ecological and economic performance. These assessments extend to the required hydrogen-handling infrastructure and related adaptions of airport procedures. Further, key enabling component technologies for hydrogen-powered energy and propulsion systems are conceptually investigated. Aircraft-integrated analysis sheds light on synergies. All learnings contribute to a refined understanding of the potential role of hydrogen with regard to aviation’s long-term target of climate neutrality.

New Long Range

For long-range air transport, there is no suitable substitution potential by other transport modes. This market segment’s development is in line with the growth of global air traffic and thereby contributes to a significant amount of the aviation climate impact. To address the unique set of challenges, opportunities and solutions comprehensively, the principle aspects of market- and technology-based impacts and solutions necessitate dedicated analyses and are therefore combined in this research area. In this context, Bauhaus Luftfahrt focusses its investigations on market structures, business opportunities and technology improvements as well as the aircraft concept synthesis specific to the long-range segment.

Urban & Regional (Air) Mobility

A new generation of fully electric-powered air vehicles enables completely new air mobility systems, which provide an additional option for urban and regional short-range transport. To fully understand the potential of such air solutions, the required ecosystem of stakeholders, such as users, vehicle manufacturers, vertiport and vehicle operators, authorities, governments and societies, have to be holistically considered, and benefits of adding them to existing transport systems have to be analysed. To what extent conventional aviation can benefit from these developments in the area of technologies, processes at the vertiports, flight management, regulations, certification.

Novel Propulsion Concepts

Advanced propulsion systems have become a key driver in overall aircraft design integration. This research area is dedicated to the development and initial evaluation of ultra-efficient and potentially disruptive concepts for future sustainable aero propulsion systems. Therefore, technological developments with high rele- vance to propulsion systems are constantly monitored and advanced alternative propulsion and power system configurations are conceived with a high level of technical creativity. Based on rigorous initial concept assessments, methodological enhancements for propulsion system predesign and performance synthesis are progressed and recommendations for further research and development are formulated.

(Hybrid-)Electric Aviation

The prospect of utilising significant amounts of electric energy for aircraft propulsion has opened up a novel design space for improved vehicular efficiency. Evaluating this potential requires the consideration of key technological advances and hurdles, infrastructural demands as well as the material availability and life-cycle emissions of electrochemical energy storage devices. Furthermore, studying new market opportunities and developing technical concepts to meet the key challenges of (hybrid-)electric energy and propulsions systems – such as electric waste heat management – contribute to a holistic understanding of the future role of (hybrid-)electric aviation.