The overall objective of the eMission project is the reduction of the primary energy required by an aircraft across all phases of an emission-free flight mission. A fully-electric STOL-capable aircraft is designed, equipped with mission-adaptive propellers (MAP) as well as energy harvesting propellers (EHPs) for the landing phase. Importantly, these two technologies can also be applied with hybrid-electric flight. The goal is to research the two technologies MAP and EHP, to develop specific applications for them, to test them in scaled flight tests, and finally to translate the findings to an aircraft in the regional scale (40-80 PAX).

Different goals and research questions were drafted for the various flight phases. For the start phase a reasonable trade-off must be identified between the energy requirement and the reduction of the noise emission resulting from the application of MAP on an aircraft equipped with a distributed electric propulsion (DEP) system for improved STOL-capabilities. For the climb, cruise and descent phases the goal is to reduce the energy requirement by using MAP to set the inclination angle of the propeller to the optimum setting for each phase. The goal for the landing phase is to solve the landing problem of DEP systems: the lift augmentation of DEP systems is directly coupled to positive propeller thrust. For phases with low (or negative) net thrust settings, such as the landing phase, this severely limits the lift augmentation potential of the DEP system. The proposed solution is the use of EHPs at the wingtip-mounted position (WTP) to harvest as much energy as possible and to thereby provide a large additional drag component and thus to increase the thrust and lift potential of the DEP system without affecting the net thrust of the aircraft. The research project eMission therefore aims to develop disruptive technologies which contribute to the electrification of aviation, providing a step towards the superior goal of emission-free and climate neutral flight.

The research project eMission is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) as part of the civil aviation research programme LuFo VI-3 (FKZ: 20M2248).