Scientific work with the aim of commercialising the findings. This is the main task of the Fraunhofer Society for the Promotion of Applied Research, founded in 1949. Whether the Albacopter flagship project will result in an economically scalable solution remains to be seen. However, the maiden flight of the experimental VTOL glider in the summer of 2025 was a success.
In the Fraunhofer Society's flagship projects, several Fraunhofer Institutes pool their expertise and, where appropriate, involve industry partners at an early stage. The overarching goal is to quickly translate original scientific ideas into marketable products. The aim is to develop concrete solutions based on practice-oriented research that are geared to the needs of industry. And which ultimately benefit Germany as a whole.
Energy-efficient and sustainable
A total of six institutions from the ‘Fraunhofer family’ are contributing their expertise to the Albacopter project, which was launched in 2021 under the leadership of the Fraunhofer Institute for Transportation and Infrastructure Systems IVI. By pooling expertise from various fields of research, the aim is to create a particularly energy-efficient flight system for the sustainable transport of goods and people in (densely) populated areas. Keyword: urban air mobility. ‘The Albacopter is intended to be an experimental aircraft that combines the manoeuvrability of a multicopter with the ability of an albatross to glide over long distances with minimal energy consumption,’ explained Prof. Matthias Klingner at the IAA Mobility in 2023. ‘Outstanding features of the experimental VTOL glider include drone airframes and cargo containers made from sustainable materials, power-dense coaxial drive units, powerful multi-sensor systems for environmental perception and function monitoring, and fail-safe on-board electronics with AI-based autopilot,’ continued Klingner, head of Fraunhofer IVI until 2024.
In line with the basic idea of ‘applied sciences,’ the Albacopter project addresses key challenges associated with the establishment of UAM services. A special feature of the interdisciplinary approach is that the Albacopter is both a test vehicle and a research object. This is because the specially developed subcomponents form the basis for the overall system. Taken on their own, however, they represent a practical technological advance that can be transferred to other areas of aerospace.
Successful premiere
After hovering and flight experiments in which the Albacopter in version 0.5 with a wingspan of 7 metres – still secured to a crane – was able to demonstrate how the individual components developed over four years work together, the eagerly awaited maiden flight took place at the German Aerospace Centre's National Test Centre for Unmanned Aerial Systems. ‘With the Albacopter, we have developed a conceptually novel, semi-autonomous aircraft for cargo transport,’ said Operations Manager Martin Leuner from Fraunhofer IVI, expressing his satisfaction and emphasising the high degree of innovation of the Albacopter. ‘The vast majority of its components and electronics are not off-the-shelf parts and programming, but developments from the Fraunhofer Institutes.’
> This article was written in cooperation with Drones, the magazine for the drone economy. www.drones-magazin.de
