NASA Puffin Low Noise, Electric VTOL Personal Air Vehicle NASAPAV 2009-11-11 | Conceptual design focusing on the ability of a redundant electric propulsion system to provide new capabilities for Vertical Takeoff and Landing aircraft. Specifically utilizing electric motor variable rpm to accomplish a low tipspeed prop-rotor (400 ft/sec tip speed at hover and 200 ft/sec at cruise) to accomplish an order of magnitude reduction in community noise for close proximity operations (30-40 db reduction). The variable rpm capability also achieves a 25% improvement in prop-rotor efficiency through operation at optimal advance ratios.
NASA Puffin Personal Electric VTOL - Updated Version NASAPAV 2015-05-16 | Updated version of the Puffin tailsitter personal Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) aircraft. This is an electric aircraft developed by NASA to investigate the opportunities that new electric propulsion technologies offer to enable new forms of On-Demand Mobility that could promote a dramatic improvement in regional productivity.
NASA Vehicle System Program 2005 NASAPAV 2013-03-05 | A description of the different vehicle concept efforts underway in 2005 by the Vehicle Systems Program at NASA Aeronautics.
Dual Spiral Wing NASAPAV 2010-02-28 | A concept from 2002 that was never completely analyzed due to control issues. This is similar to the single spiral duct, but with two ducts to assist in achieving roll control. The main difficulty of this concept is the difficulty of analysis due to the extreme coupling between the wing aerodynamics and propulsor - which invalidates simple aero methods.
NASA Puffin Electric VTOL1/3 Scale Initial Hover Tests NASAPAV 2010-02-19 | Initial hover tests of the powertrain (including full cyclic rotor control). The current configuration includes a dummy wing, in place of the fiberglass body which will be added soon. The purpose of this sub-scale demonstrator is to investigate the simplifying assumptions of transition analysis (that is, hover to forward flight).
NASA Albatross Dynamic Soaring Open Ocean Persistent Platform UAV Concept NASAPAV 2010-01-20 | This concept investigate the feasibility of a dynamic soaring (DS) UAV that will have an endurance on the order of months. This capability is enabling for numerous civil missions from ocean and atmospheric science to fishery surveillance and monitoring. Many of these missions are simply not feasible do to the cost of operating a fueled aircraft with limited endurance. An aircraft such as this could be built in the thousands. They would distribute themselves over the oceans of the planet providing a robust surveillance network that has persistence which is only limited by the reliability of the hardware. This aircraft is based on the Albatross which in habitats the southern oceans by Antarctica. The typical Albatross weighs about 25 lbs. They have an aspect ratio 16 wing with an 11 foot span. They are estimated to have an L/D of 27. Since there are few static soaring opportunities over the ocean, the Albatross uses a technique called Dynamic Soaring (DS) to maintain flight. Dynamic soaring is a figure eight-like flight maneuver that takes advantage of horizontal wind gradients to maintain flight speed and altitude. The albatross can travel over 1000 km per day without ever flapping their wings through the constant use of such maneuvers, while able to tack any direction with independence of wind direction The Albatross is also able to lock their shoulder joint to rest their muscles and even capable of sleeping while performing the DS flight maneuvers. This UAV Concept has the same weight and size of the Albatross and would be propelled by the wind alone utilizing this same DS technique. Tip turbines on the wing tips extract power from the tip vortex to power the payload and recharge the batteries. When the wind dies the aircraft has the ability to safely land on the surface of the ocean. Solar cells will be used to keep the payload and other electronics running. The tip turbines can also be used as propellers to provide takeoff thrust and at other times to provide auxiliary propulsion to allow the aircraft to maneuver away from an obstacle.
Samarai Quiet Roadable VTOL Concept NASAPAV 2010-01-20 | This vehicle attempts to achieve full electric redundancy, including the event of a blade failure. It is named after the Samara (a single blade rotor - or Maple seed), attempting to integrated several of these counter weight balanced single rotors into a platform. Six blades is the minimum number of blades while being able to maintain control about all axes, with any single blade being able to fail.. It also tries to take advantage of highly responsive electric rpm change to eliminate cyclic and collective blade control. The animation shows some of the basic principles of this concept, as well as a low noise transition. This concept utilizes 400 ft/sec tip speeds, with high solidity blade/wing panels. The blade/wing panels are positioned so the structural loads are mutually sized for both rotor and wing panel bending moment issues. This vehicle would integrate new technologies, such as laser scanners for the front blades that can prevent blade strike by watching for any blade strike possibility, and take advantage of the ability to stop a single blade very quickly (on the order of 1 second) since the electric motor can also be used as a brake. While highly compact, we have already shown that the Oswald efficiency factor is greater than 1.7 through a vortex lattice analysis, due to the highly non-planar triple wing layout (so while the vehicle can fit in an 8 box with blades inward the effective span at cruise is 20. The discloading is only 6 lb/ft2 for this concept (assuming a 1320 lb weight for 2 passengers), so the power required is quite reasonable, while avoiding the slow cruise speed of rotorcraft through this stopped-rotor implementation. This concept is a hybrid solution, with a cruise engine (Rotax 914) in the back that also provides power to an alternator at hover, to minimize the batteries required. This vehicle has a sizable range, not like the fully electric tailsitter.
NASA Hybrid Electric Hyper Efficiency Aircraft Concept NASAPAV 2009-12-22 | Very high efficiency concept that utilizes a boundary layer ingestion propulsor on the fuselage, as well as wingtip propellers. A single speed combustion engine drives the rear fuselage fan at very high efficiency, due to the Goldschmied fuselage propulsor. The wingtip propellers are driven by batteries to provide extra thrust for takeoff and climb, and act as wingtip vortex turbines at cruise to extract energy to recharge the batteries. The combination provides a variable disc loading propulsion system that can attempt to achieve optimal cruise efficiency (~200 passenger mpg, or 50 mpg with 4 people at speeds of 125 mph).
Carter Copter PAV Concept Analyzed Under NASA Study Contract NASAPAV 2009-12-22 | A two-place Carter Copter autogyro analyzed as part of a NASA SBIR research proposal to study Personal Air Vehicle potential concepts. The vehicle folds to a somewhat compact configuration for limited hanger space, or possibily slow use on side streets.
NASA Tanzenflugel VTOL UAV Concept NASAPAV 2009-12-22 | NASA 'Dancing Wing' concept that attempts to achieve power matching for Vertical Takeoff and Landing, and the cruise condition.
NASA/MLB Dos Samara VTOL Concept NASAPAV 2009-12-22 | Vertical Takeoff and Landing aircraft concept that uses single blade rotors (Samara - or maple seed). The single blades are stopped in cruise to avoid the trailing edge stall problem of conventional rotorcraft. The blades are designed to operate at low tip speeds (~300 ft/sec), which also coincides with the sizing to carry the cruise loads as wing panels. Each Samara blade utilizes swashplateless technologies such as the Heli-flap, to provide full cyclic and collective blade control. The overall purpose of the concept is to achieve matching of the power required in hover and at cruise.
NASA Spiral Duct ESTOL Concept NASAPAV 2009-12-22 | Extremely Short Takeoff and Landing advanced vehicle concept based upon the coupling of the Lippisch Aerodyne and Custer Channel Wing. Designed to takeoff of at a speed of just 30 mph, with ground distances of less than 150 ft. The outer panels are freewings (able to freely pivot) so that the vehicle is less gust sensitive (which is a major ESTOL problem). Developed as part of the NASA Personal AIr Vehicle project under Mark Moore.
NASA Two Person VTOL Concept Using Circulation Control Nacelle NASAPAV 2009-12-07 | Small vertical takeoff and landing concept that uses circulation control (coanda blowing) on the nacelle to create variable disc loading.
NASA Five Person VTOL Business Jet NASAPAV 2009-12-07 | VTOL business jet that utilizes circulation control nacelle technology, along with a damped brake nacelle tilting mechanism. The use of circulation control on the nacelle permits variable disc loading depending on whether the aircraft is in hover or cruise flight. This concept is based on the work performed collaboratively between NASA and Grumman on the Tilt Nacelle 698 concept back in the 1980's under the leadership of Bob Kress.
Fabrication of Low Cost NASA Personal Air Vehicle Concept NASAPAV 2009-11-16 | A NASA advanced concept for a highly affordable personal aircraft, capable of utilizing an automotive engine, and achieving significantly lower community noise.
NASA Low Cost and Low Noise Personal Air Vehicle Concept NASAPAV 2009-11-11 | Personal Air Vehicle concept designed for low manufacturing cost and low community noise. The concept also permits multiple engine integration solutions without CG shift problems, for either low cost (automotive LS-1 direct drive Corvette engine), high efficiency (advanced turbo-diesel engine), or high performance (twin pack turboshaft engine).
NASA VTOL AIrcraft Circulation Control Nacelle Test NASAPAV 2009-11-11 | Circulation Control Nacelle experiment showing the use of penumatic blowing at the trailing edge of an engine nacelle to achieve higher or lower disc loading in the backplane of the exhaust. Application potential includes the ability to externally expand flow to have lower velocites at the ground of a VTOL aircraft, to reduce ground erosion and Foreign Object Damage kick-up.
