Context and Challenges

ODE4HERA is part of the Hybrid-Electric Regional Aircraft (HER) thrusts of the Clean Aviation programme. The HER thrust is 1 of 3 and entails driving research and innovation (R&I) activities toward inventive (hybrid) electrical power structures and their integration, as well as advancing technologies towards demonstrating novel configurations, onboard energy strategies, and flight control systems. The Clean Aviation programme centres on three focal points, each supported by focused R&I endeavours aimed at enhancing the energy efficiency and reducing emissions from forthcoming aircraft. These focal points will advance technologies and facilitators, utilize critical knowledge and skills, and mitigate risks associated with identified technologies and solutions requiring additional development, validation, and demonstration to optimize their impact.

Clean Aviation Hybrid-Electric Project Landscape [based on CAJU 01/2024]

The Clean Aviation programme is led by the Clean Aviation Joint Undertaking (CAJU). The CAJU is the EU's flagship programme driving research and innovation to make aviation more sustainable and climate-neutral.

By harnessing the expertise of both public and private sectors and developing state-of-the-art technologies, CAJU aims to revolutionize aircraft performance by the 2030s, aligning with the EU's goal of achieving climate neutrality by 2050. The CAJU serves as a focal point for collaboration among diverse stakeholders across Europe, including the aeronautical industry, SMEs, research institutions, and academia, fostering a culture of innovation and pioneering new ideas. 

As a European public-private partnership, Clean Aviation is dedicated to pushing the boundaries of aeronautical science, creating technologies that significantly reduce aviation's environmental impact and ensuring the benefits of air travel for future generations. [Summarized based on description aligned with CAJU, https://www.clean-aviation.eu/]

The CAJU mission

The Clean Aviation initiative is part of a broader strategy supported by the European Green Deal, which seeks to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. The Green Deal includes substantial funding for projects that address the climate crisis and protect biodiversity, with the €1 billion Green Deal call under Horizon 2020 being a notable example.
Horizon Europe, the EU's primary funding programme for research and innovation from 2021 to 2027, plays a critical role in this strategy. It allocates over 35% of its budget to climate-related research and innovation, leveraging national and private investments to foster new technologies and sustainable solutions. 
This synergy is essential for driving systemic changes towards climate neutrality and supporting the EU's ecological and economic transitions (Research and innovation).

The challenges of an HER aircraft

Complexity From a System Perspective: Triple Number of Parameters 

Hybrid-electric aircraft architectures present a different order of magnitude in system complexity than conventional propulsion systems, with around 4800 model parameters and 23 millions parametrization mappings in comparison to the conventional propulsion systems 1800 and 3 million. With the introduction of new hybrid-electric technologies, the aeronautic industry faces novel propulsive integration challenges such as liquid hydrogen tank integration in the fuselage. A radical rethink of established system functions allocation and new operational phases like battery recharging are also required.  

Additionally, there is a layer of complexity added to the design process as it requires a multi-disciplinary design approach including unconventional disciplines. For example, equipment electro-magnetic compatibility assessment. A lack of state-of-the-art or pre-existing knowledge also increases the challenge due to lacking of a clear reference mark, to which to bench mark the newly developed technology. 

All together, these lead to HER aircrafts being around 10 times more complex than a traditional aircraft, providing new challenges for the researchers in the ODE4HERA project.