SAO JOSE DOS CAMPOS, Brazil – Embraer and WEG, two of Brazil's largest high-tech manufactured products exporters, announced a scientific and technological cooperation agreement to jointly develop new technologies and solutions to enable electric propulsion in aircraft.
The partnership, in the context of pre-competitive research and development, seeks to accelerate the knowledge of the technologies necessary to increase the energy efficiency of aircraft from the use and integration of electric motors in innovative propulsion systems.
The electrification process is part of a series of efforts carried out by the aeronautical industry aimed at ensuring its commitments to environmental sustainability, as is already being done with biofuels to reduce carbon emissions.
The cooperation between the research teams will support the creation of technologies that can generate opportunities for future evolutions of new aeronautical configurations and the possibility of developing new market segments.
After testing these technologies in the laboratory, an aeronautical platform will be used for integration and testing of complex systems under real operating conditions. A small single-engine aircraft, based on the EMB-203 Ipanema, will be used as the test bed, which will carry out the primary evaluation of the electrification technology. The first flight of the electric powered demonstrator is scheduled for 2020.
The proposed scientific development of aeronautical electrification, using a technology demonstration platform, constitutes an effective and efficient pre-competitive research instrument for learning and training, as well as for the maturation of the technologies before they are applied in future products.
