The UK government has recently pledged £218 million in funding towards aerospace projects to help the nation lead the way on greener air travel. The projects will include innovations to develop greener, lower carbon and more efficient aircraft systems such as engines, landing gear, wings and sensors.
The funding, is being delivered through the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) Programme, which provides funding for research & technology projects that maintain and grow the UK’s competitive position in civil aerospace, and is delivered by a partnership of the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI), the Department for Business & Trade and Innovate UK.
Sheffield researchers from the Faculty of Engineering are collaborating with 11 other industry, academic and research partners on one of these projects - LANDOne which is a £37.8 million project to deliver new lighter, lower maintenance and greener landing gear systems, using digital methods.
As part of this project, Sheffield’s Faculty of Engineering is involved through two teams from the Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering (ACSE). The first, led by Professor Ashutosh Tiwari, working with Windo Hutabarat and Marc Auledas Noguera, will have a digital manufacturing focus, looking at improving the assembly process of landing gears and the rigging of landing gear doors. The second team, led by Dr Andy Mills working with Professor Visakan Kadirkamanathan, will have an operational focus on extracting enhanced landing gear state information from cameras and other far-field perception sensors.
Professor Tiwari, who is also RAEng/Airbus Research Chair at the University of Sheffield, said: “Finding innovative solutions for complex aircraft systems cannot be done alone and we are looking forward to working with our partners on this project to introduce new processes and digital technologies for landing gear systems, reduce manufacturing costs, and increase aircraft availability - the aim is to move the aerospace industry in the UK towards a decarbonised future.”
Dr Andy Mills added: “Increasing the intelligence of aerospace systems through new sensing and processing technology continues Sheffield University’s contribution to sustainable aviation of the future.”
Minister for Industry and Economic Security, Nusrat Ghani, announced the funding at the Paris Air Show and said: “We’re growing the economy and supporting high-skilled, high-wage careers across the UK by backing our world-leading sectors like aviation.
“We want to achieve net zero air travel by 2050, and I want UK firms to lead the way developing the exciting technologies of the future. Backing our innovators will attract even more investment and create massive export opportunities for British firms.”