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EmbraerX Begins Simulated Flights Of EVTOL Air Taxi

Graham Warwick July 24, 2020

An engineering flight simulator represents EmbraerX’s lift-plus-cruise eVTOL vehicle.

Credit: EmbraerX

EmbraerX has begun “flights” of an engineering simulator for its electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing air taxi.

The innovation arm of Embraer says the milestone underlines that the Brazilian manufacturer is applying the same development process to the new vehicle that it has used for its commercial aircraft.

“What differentiates us is our vehicle development expertise,” Andre Stein, head of strategy for EmbraerX, told Aerospace DAILY. “We know what the right building blocks are and when to do things. We certified the E2 on time and on budget, unlike others,” he said, referring to the E-Jets E2 airliner family.

Using the simulator in Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil, to develop the flight control laws and human-machine interface (HMI) will help ensure the first flight of the electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing (eVTOL) vehicle will be successful, Stein said. He did not reveal when it is planned to fly.

EmbraerX’s eVTOL is an all-electric lift-plus-cruise vehicle with eight rotors for vertical lift plus tandem wings and dual-shrouded pusher propellers for forward flight. Carrying four passengers, the vehicle will be piloted initially, but is being designed to become autonomous eventually.

The eVTOL has Embraer’s fifth-generation of fly-by-wire (FBW) flight control system and the fixed-base engineering simulator has the same flight control laws and HMI planned for the vehicle. This allows the pilot to be immersed in the operational environment to test the eVTOL’s controllability, said Luiz Valentini, EmbraerX engineering manager.

While Embraer has experience with fixed-wing FBW, it has not previously developed control laws for the hover. The company is looking at different ways of controlling the vehicle in vertical flight, including evaluating fixed-pitch propellers, which are simpler but can provide only limited control via rpm.

EmbraerX is planning simplified vehicle operations, offloading some functions to the FBW from the pilot, potentially reducing the skills and training required and expanding the available pilot base. “We’re testing not having pedals, to simplify commands for the pilot,” Valentini said.

After a series of experiments with pilots and nonpilots to test different control arrangements, EmbraerX has developed a simplified HMI based on dual sidesticks that it thinks is a good starting point. “We still expect it to evolve quite a bit,” he said.

In addition to flying subscale models to refine the control laws, Embraer is testing actual components to increase the accuracy of the simulation. “Models are good for flight physics, but the components are not reproduced. We include both sources of information,” Valentini said.

The FBW system is being designed from the outset to enable control to transition to autonomy from the pilot over time. “FBW controls the aircraft; something else makes the decisions. We have built the FBW from the beginning to receive information from another source of decisions,” he said.

Commissioning of the engineering simulator is a milestone in Embraer’s rigorous, gated development process. While the company has not announced any dates for its eVTOL, “we take delivery on schedule very seriously,” Stein said. “We make sure when we commit that we will achieve that date.”