DLR Design Challenge 2022 on Advanced Aerial Firefighting

Since 2017, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) has been organizing an annual student competition on conceptual aircraft design titled DLR Design Challenge. This education and training initiative is set to challenge the next generation of aircraft designers with topics tailored to current research questions in the field of aeronautics. This year’s challenge was about the development of an aerial firefighting system of systems including vehicle and fleet design with a strong emphasize on operationally-driven design aspects

Aircraft Architecture and Fleet Assessment Framework for Urban Air Mobility using a System of Systems Approach

This research article explores Urban Air Mobility (UAM) from a System of Systems (SoS) perspective in order to understand the impact of different fully electric UAM aircraft architectures on the overall SoS capability. For this purpose, a framework, combining aircraft design methods with an agent-based simulation, is developed. Thereby, not only different UAM aircraft architectures, but also fleet combinations, technology scenarios, and operational strategies are studied and evaluated for different success criteria. The UAM fleets are simulated for 24-hour operations, considering non-uniform passenger demand, dispatch of passenger as well as deadhead flights, aircraft architectural performance, load factor, energy consumption, and turnaround procedures. A large design of experiments, consisting of approximately 5,000 design points, is executed. Eventually, this article demonstrates the proof of concept for the proposed SoS framework and provides several parameter sensitivities for a given UAM scenario. For such complex SoS, analytical methods would not suffice for understanding complex and often nonlinear interactions. Therefore, the proposed simulation driven framework proves to be successful by providing sensitivity study results, linking subsystem, system (aircraft) and system of system (fleet) level. Thus, the framework allows for comprehensive understanding of the SoS design space and is important for successful deployment or optimization of UAM aircraft & fleet for a given city and operational context

Exploration of Aerial Firefighting Fleet Effectiveness and Cost by System of Systems Simulations

Wildfires are becoming a more frequent and devastating phenomena across the globe. The suppression of these wildfires is a dangerous and complex activity considering the vast systems that need to operate together to monitor, mitigate, and suppress the fire. In addition, the required cooperation spans multiple institutes in different capacities. Thus, the recognition of the wildfire suppression scenario as a System of Systems (SoS) is valid. Due to the dangers associated with firefighting and the increased occurrence, there is scope for the design of unmanned aerial vehicles for wildfire suppression. In this work, a SoS driven aircraft design, cost, and fleet assessment methodology is utilized together with a wildfire simulation to investigate several sensitivities relating to design and operational parameters. Further, this paper investigates their impacts on the measures of effectiveness, i.e. burnt area and operating cost. These two parameters enable the identification of optimal fleet size for wildfire suppression for a given scenario and aircraft definition

System of Systems Simulation driven Urban Air Mobility Vehicle Design and Fleet Assessment

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is increasingly becoming popular for Passenger or Cargo movement in dense smart cities. Several researches so far are focused on individual vehicle architectures such as multirotor or tiltrotor etc., but not much effort in a System of systems point of view where a homogenous fleet of vehicle with different passenger capacity, speed, and propulsive energy concepts are assessed in a framework for a successful UAM operations in a given city. An effort is made in this paper wherein, vehicle architecture is derived from the Concept of Operations (CONOPS) of scenarios such as urban and suburban operations and as well as propulsion subsystem for sustainable UAM. This paper approaches UAM aircraft design driven by System of Systems (SoS) approach and an agent-based simulation supports the vehicle architecture evaluation and fleet definition. The outcome of this study are: multiple aircraft design with subsystem architectures, ideal fleet size for the respective operational scenarios, autonomy and battery technology effectiveness on UAM throughput (to efficiently provide UAM on-demand service maximum passengers within 15 min wait time), and importantly, sustainability metrics such as total fleet energy required. Several System of Systems, system and subsystem level sensitivity research questions are addressed to understand the interlevel couplin

System of Systems Simulation Driven Wildfire Fighting Aircraft Design and Fleet Assessment

Large wildfires are increasingly occurring phenomenon in several since the past few years. The suppression of wildfires is complex considering heterogeneous independent constituent systems operating together to monitor, mitigate, and suppress the fire. In addition, the management of the disaster response involve multiple institutions in collaboration. Recognition of this wildfire fighting scenario, as a System of Systems (SoS) is valid. Aerial vehicles may play a big role in firefighting considering monitoring and suppression at early stages when the fire is still small. Thus, there is scope for designing a new Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) with a payload of 250 kg to 500 kg for aerial forest fire suppression, using a SoS wildfire simulation driven aircraft design approach, where the individual optimum performance of a system, especially of a new aircraft for firefighting, does not guarantee optimum overall firefighting mission effectiveness. Whereas an optimum combination of fleet, technology and operational tactics can effectively suppress fire. For this reason, this research focuses on four different aspects: 1) Applying the inverse design paradigm to a wildfire suppression air vehicle by coupling a fire propagation cellular automata model with a stochastic agent-based simulation of an evolved firefighting SoS. An efficient SoS framework to Evaluate fleet performance. 2) Four System of systems – system – subsystem interlinking research questions are addressed with corresponding sensitivity results. The impact of wildfire based on vehicle fleet size, vehicle architecture (Tiltrotor, Compound Heli, Multirotor or Lift cruise), payload carrying capability, response time and cruise speed. 3) The evolution of perfect combination of aerial vehicle fleet with different vehicle architectures, technologies and performances using simulations. 4) Obtaining a set of system level (aircraft level) Measures of Performance (MoP) for the large suppression UAVs that produce improved SoS-level Measures of Effectiveness (MoE) during an initial attack quantified by containment time and total fire burnt area. As addressed by research questions and results. The response time and Number of Aircraft has large impact on success of the firefighting mission. As the time advantage deteriorate, the wild fire expands exponentially

Exploration of Aerial Firefighting Fleet Effectiveness and Cost by System of Systems Simulations

Wildfires are becoming a more frequent and devastating phenomena across the globe. The suppression of these wildfires is a dangerous and complex activity considering the vast systems that need to operate together to monitor, mitigate, and suppress the fire. In addition, the required cooperation spans multiple institutes in different capacities. Thus, the recognition of the wildfire suppression scenario as a System of Systems (SoS) is valid. Due to the dangers associated with firefighting and the increased occurrence, there is scope for the design of unmanned aerial vehicles for wildfire suppression. In this work, a SoS driven aircraft design, cost, and fleet assessment methodology is utilized together with a wildfire simulation to investigate several sensitivities relating to design and operational parameters. Further, this paper investigates their impacts on the measures of effectiveness, i.e. burnt area and operating cost. These two parameters enable the identification of optimal fleet size for wildfire suppression for a given scenario and aircraft definition

Sensitivity analysis of aerial wildfire fighting tactics with heterogeneous fleets using a system of systems simulation framework

The rise in the average global surface temperature has caused wildfire seasons to expand leading to more incidents with severe intensities causing a significant increase in suppression expenditures, losses, and casualties. In addition, the larger number of wildfire incidents gives rise to higher carbon release that stays in the atmosphere, therefore, further intensifying global warming. Fire incidents vary substantially in complexity from the point of view of required and available firefighting means which makes for a challenging multi-level complex problem. System of Systems (SoS) approach can be used to investigate such problems taking into accounts various factors such as response time, firefighting tactics, fleet composition, available agents, and resources. This study uses a SoS simulation framework for overall wildfire suppression mission modeling. It builds upon the research previously performed by the authors by introducing: 1. An extensive analysis for the effect of wildfire environment parameters on fire spread. 2. Multiple suppression tactics which open the door to new solutions for wildfire fighting in addition to revealing nuanced trends at the system of systems level by using SoS framework. 3. A heterogeneous fleet composed of various suppression drones with different airframe configurations, payload capacity, flight velocity, and powertrain architecture

Urban Air Mobility Vehicle and Fleet-level Life-Cycle Assessment Using a System-of-Systems Approach

Can Urban Air Mobility (UAM) systems constitute viable and sustainable mobility solutions? This question has increasingly been concerning scientists, companies, policy makers, and authorities as more and more UAM vehicle concepts are seeing the light of day. In order to come closer to answering this question and to demonstrate the dependencies and impacts of the numerous parameters used to describe a highly complex system of a fleet of UAM vehicles operating in an urban environment, this paper employs a System of Systems (SoS) approach. A collaborative SoS framework with an agent-based simulation is introduced, which connects the UAM vehicle design, fleet performance, vertiport network, and re-energizing infrastructure with a Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA). The framework is used to simulate four exemplary UAM fleet-operation scenarios based on two cities and two operational modes, namely urban and suburban operations. Different vehicle design configurations, e.g. multirotor and lift + cruise vehicles, are evaluated in each scenario based on respectively realistic Concepts of Operations (CONOPS). Additionally, two different points in time, namely 2025 and 2050, are considered and assessed for powering the vehicles by taking into account the characteristics of batteries as well as the underlying electricity mix for their operation. Lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide battery and lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries are considered. The SoS framework helps to asses various UAM metrics such as the average wait time for a passenger, the ideal number of aircraft needed for transporting all passengers within given time, the energy required on a vehicle and fleet level, sustainability metrics, e.g. the global warming potential associated with the energy carriers and many more. The capability to explore a wide design space and to visualize the dependencies between the system parameters and their impacts on different SoS metrics provides stakeholders with a helpful tool for their decision making

Can Urban Air Mobility become reality? Opportunities, challenges and selected research results

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is a new air transportation system for passengers and cargo in urban environments, enabled by new technologies and integrated into multimodal transportation systems. The vision of UAM comprises the mass use in urban and suburban environments, complementing existing transportation systems and contributing to the decarbonization of the transport sector. Initial attempts to create a market for urban air transportation in the last century failed due to lack of profitability and community acceptance. Technological advances in numerous fields over the past few decades have led to a renewed interest in urban air transportation. UAM is expected to benefit users and to also have a positive impact on the economy by creating new markets and employment opportunities for manufacturing and operation of UAM vehicles and the construction of related ground infrastructure. However, there are also concerns about noise, safety and security, privacy and environmental impacts. Therefore, the UAM system needs to be designed carefully to become safe, affordable, accessible, environmentally friendly, economically viable and thus sustainable. This paper provides an overview of selected key research topics related to UAM and how the German Aerospace Center (DLR) contributed to this research in the project "HorizonUAM - Urban Air Mobility Research at the German Aerospace Center (DLR)". Selected research results that support the realization of the UAM vision are briefly presented.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures, project HorizonUA