Skip Navigation
Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Tech Transfer

Hybrid Electric Propulsion System for a VTOL/Multirotor Aircraft, Phase II

Completed Technology Project

Project Introduction

LaunchPoint Technologies proposes to build a scalable hybrid electric propulsion system. LaunchPoint will build and fly a 1 kW hybrid electric vehicle and will build and bench test a 6 kW hybrid power source to demonstrate scalability to much larger systems. During the phase I, LaunchPoint showed the feasibility of a manned hybrid electric VTOL vehicle that can achieve the speed and fuel efficiency of a high aspect fixed wing aircraft while still providing VTOL capability for a commuter-type application. Using Fly-By- Wire techniques and applying it to electric aircraft propulsion can lead to highly reliable architectures which we call "Propulsion-By-Wire", providing a tremendous increase in reliability and safety of the vehicle compared to conventional VTOL architectures. In this phase II we propose to develop the hybrid power source (Battery, BMS, Gen-set, and hybrid controller) portion of a "Propulsion-By-Wire" system for 2 power levels. LaunchPoint will build and fly a 1 kW hybrid electric vehicle that will meet notional airworthiness requirements for flight over people, and will scale the hybrid power source to 6kW proving the potential scalability of the system. More »

Anticipated Benefits

Primary U.S. Work Locations and Key Partners

Technology Transitions

Share this Project

Organizational Responsibility

Project Management

Project Duration

Technology Maturity (TRL)

Technology Areas

Target Destination

Light bulb

Suggest an Edit

Recommend changes and additions to this project record.
^