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Designing a Sustainable and Connected Future for Aviation
Designing a Sustainable and Connected Future for Aviation

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Insights based on workshop at nasscom Design and Engineering Summit 2022

Aviation industry has taken a commitment to become net zero by 2050. Transitioning to sustainable routes requires complex, costly, and mature technologies, coupled with direct collaboration across the value chain. This can be looked at through reduction of emission across the industry, which will address the majority of the sustainability related questions for the sector. To achieve net zero in aviation, according to Mckinsey’s report titled “Making net zero aviation possible”, 5 key levers are highlighted – reducing travel demand; efficiency improvements; use of sustainable aviation fuel; novel propulsion methods including electric, hydrogen etc; and carbon dioxide removal.  

Today we are the cusp of re-imagination of aircrafts. The aircrafts are expected to undergo a sea change in the near future. At the same time, aircraft engines are also expected to undergo a massive transformation, along with the ecosystem. With aviation coming back to pre-covid levels, the flights have to be made more affordable, sustainable, and include radical innovations and research.

Civil aviation industry contributes about 2% of the greenhouse gases. This figure has doubled in the last 10 years. To reach net zero emissions, the aviation industry has taken a target of using 10% of their fuels from green sources from the current less than 2% levels.

Looking at some facts, advancements in technologies and usage of eco-innovation leads to significant differences in emissions -

  1. Around 65% of emission reduction are expected to come from replacing current jet fuel with SAF.
  2. Around 19% of emission reductions are expected to come from carbon trading.
  3. Around 13-20% reductions are expected to come from technological advancements and improvements, whether it is aircraft and propulsion systems.

Various companies are exploring urban air mobility to reduce burden on the roads, and these can be used in non-availability of pilots as well, due to some of them being autonomous. On the other end, aircraft manufacturers are also exploring sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) and partnering with manufacturers to improve their production and are working towards making aircrafts SAF compatible. In addition, green manufacturing across plants is also being followed. They are exploring hydrogen related projects by testing hybrid electric propulsion systems.

In propulsion, several key technologies can be looked into –

  1. SAF
  2. Electrification of actuation systems, and hybrid motors
  3. Hydrogen
  4. Connected aircrafts includes flight path optimisation, leading to 2-3% in fuel savings.
  5. Advanced materials and lightweight materials to make aircrafts lighter.

Replacing the current jet fuels with SAF is expected to require an investment of $1.5 trillion. Not just the sustainable production, but sustainable ways of supplying the SAF also needs to be taken into consideration. It is simply not efficient for airlines to replace their fuel with SAF as it is currently 3X more expensive. Therefore, in addition to the advancements made in technology and innovation, support from the govt. is necessary to bring down the costs, either through policy advocacy, investments, encouraging private participation, and research. Research on alternate fuel sources, apart from SAF, such as green hydrogen is also needed.

In addition, digital technologies are being used for improving development cycles, reduce costs, and constant upgrades of the aircrafts. The regulators must certify those technologies to move into a sustainable future. In addition, more effective air space management by the govt. is needed to make it more time efficient and cost effective.

Currently, emerging technologies are constantly explored to reduce fuel consumption. Use of sensors in the engine and using data analytics for efficient engine operations, predictions of weather disruptions in advance to keep the aircraft in the air for less time, leading to reduced fuel usage, connected flights sharing live weather disruptions for efficient flying time etc. are already being explored and put into operation.

Some exciting projects being explored by various companies across the value chain for a designing a sustainable and connected future in aviation includes –

  1. Companies like Collins Aerospace are working on many projects on electric propulsion, where they are witnessing significant fuel savings. They are also working towards a hybrid aircraft, which is currently at prototyping stage. They are also exploring full electric aircrafts, which can potentially take approx. 50 passengers for 500 NM.
  1. Some companies like GE are working on indigenous designs for next generation propulsion systems out of its Indian R&D centre. They have also partnered with Airbus for hydrogen propulsion aircrafts, with Boeing for electric propulsion systems. In addition, additive manufacturing also plays a big role in reducing the overall weight of the aircraft, thereby reducing fuel consumption, which the company is also exploring extensively.
  2. Companies like Honeywell are exploring GPS based landing systems to enable multiple approaches to land aircrafts, manage runways without ILS requirements, reduce time for the aircraft in the air. They are also deploying alternate navigation sensors to take advantage of tailwind and reduce fuel consumption.
  1. Boeing is exploring electric and autonomous aircrafts. In the civil and military aircrafts, truss-braced wing, which increases the lift and increases the life to drag ratio and makes it more fuel efficient.

The future remains very exciting and the world is eagerly waiting for a better, greener, affordable ways of air travel.


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Vandhna Babu
Principal Analyst - Research

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