Aircraft Design
Research at the ILR focuses on aircraft design. On the one hand, this includes the development of new aircraft configurations. On the other hand, this concerns the integration of new technologies into classical aircraft configurations: for example laminar wings, electrified propulsion and system components or formation flight. Optimized integration, taking into account all relevant system levels, is the actual research task.
System designs are typically not evaluated on the basis of absolute values, but by relative comparison with reference configurations. For this purpose, the open reference aircraft database Central Reference Aircraft System CeRAS was established at the ILR on behalf of Airbus.
The main tool for ILR aircraft design is the design environment MICADO (Multi Disciplinary Integrated Conceptual Aircraft Design and Optimization). It is planned to make the software available to the research community as open source in the medium term. MICADO allows a complete design, a so called White Sheet Design, with variable detailing and a technology integration and evaluation for CS-25 and CS-23 aircraft. A MICADO derivative for the design of Unmanned Aerial Systems and Micro Air Vehicles is currently being developed.