Hybrid Electric Propulsion System for a VTOL/Multirotor Aircraft

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.

Multiple projects at NASA could benefit from a scalable hybrid propulsion system. Bill Fredricks Greased Lightning project has expressed interest in integrating our 1kW genset as soon as it becomes available into his subscale Greased Lightning project. A phase III continuation of this work could be directly applied to multiple larger scale NASA projects. Mark Moore's Leaptech fixed wing vehicle demonstrator could use a scaled-up version of our hybrid propulsion system in his vehicle as a range extender. The Heist program with Sean Clarke could also use a higher powered version of our hybrid power source on their test stand to help them perform their power sharing and distribution studies.

There is a lot of interest in subscale hybrid propulsion systems to extend range on already built electric vehicles. Aerial camera operators who need extended duration for filming could have an immediate need for this technology once it is available along with any sUAV or drone that needs extended flight time. Scaling the hybrid propulsion system to larger sizes will enable new vehicle architectures allowing higher safety, reliability, and fuel efficiency. Many companies, including Boeing have expressed interest for both the subscale and larger scale systems.

This is a mature technology (TRL 7) — the realistic path in is usually NASA's Technology Transfer Program: licensing an existing NASA patent, or a Space Act Agreement to use NASA facilities/expertise directly. NASA also runs a startup licensing program with no upfront fee for companies formed to commercialize a specific NASA technology.

None of these are guaranteed paths for this specific project — TechPort itself doesn't have an "apply" button. Reaching out to the contact(s) above with a specific question is usually the fastest way to find out what's actually open.