Original Article

Proc IMechE Part G:

J Aerospace Engineering
Key aspects of electric vertical take-off 0(0) 1–14
! IMechE 2019

and landing conceptual design Article reuse guidelines:

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DOI: 10.1177/0954410019884174
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Alessandro Bacchini1 and Enrico Cestino

Abstract
The recent advances in battery energy density and electric propulsion systems for automotive applications are enabling
the development of the electric vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft. The electric VTOL is a new means of
transport that can fly like an aircraft and take off and land vertically like a helicopter, sometimes called personal aerial
vehicle. This paper compares it to the existing vehicles that may compete with it and addresses the estimation of its
performances in hover, cruise flight, and the transition phase. The main parameters affecting performances are then
discussed. Considerable space is dedicated to the battery mass to total mass ratio.

Keywords
Electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft, range, hover, transition, personal aerial vehicle

Date received: 25 September 2018; accepted: 20 September 2019

Introduction
network company, has launched a program to help
The recent advancements of battery storage, electric the development of VTOLs and has gathered partners
motors, and power electronics are bringing these tech- like Embraer, Pipistrel, Karem Aircraft, A3, and
nologies to a level that will enable the development Aurora flight sciences. In China, the drone company
of the electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft E-Hang has been testing the E-Hang184 passenger
(electric VTOL or eVTOL). In 2010, Moore1 quadrotor for more than one year.
explained the advantages of these technologies VTOLs are not a new concept. In the fifties and
applied to air travel. He proposed the new vehicle, sixties, a great effort was put into creating military
the electric VTOL, able to fly like an airplane and VTOLs. Many concepts were tested, but only the
take off and land vertically. As shown by Hepperle,2 Harrier, the Yak-38, the V-22, and the F-35 became
the energy density of the batteries is not enough operational. No VTOL managed to become operative
to completely electrify air travel. The range of the for commercial service yet.
electric aircraft is much shorter than the range of a The critical aspects of the electric motor technol-
conventional aircraft. However, the high battery’s ogy underlined by Moore1 are high reliability and effi-
specific-power and the small size of the electric ciency, very low noise and vibration, zero emissions,
motors enable vertical takeoff and landing designs. low engine weight, low maintenance, low cooling
These electric VTOLs are also called personal aerial drag, little volume required, and their scalability.
vehicle. Patterson et al.3 and Moore and Goodrich4 With electric propulsion, the dream of the fifties
studied them for on-demand aviation. Fredericks and sixties, a practical vertical take-off and landing
et al.5 analyzed hybrid-electric propulsion for VTOL aircraft for civilian use, can be realized. Creating
aircraft. Patterson et al.6 and Gohardani7 studied dis- such a vehicle would revolutionize the way people
tributed propulsion. Moore and Fredericks8 discussed commute. Traffic jams would be easily avoided and
the misconceptions about electric propulsion aircraft. commutes that take 1.5 h by car would take 15 to
McDonald wrote a paper on electric propulsion mod-
eling for conceptual aircraft design,9 and Langelaan et Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Politecnico di
al. studied aircraft design for extreme fuel efficiency.10 Torino, Torino, Italy
Lilium in Germany, Kitty Hawk and Joby
Corresponding author:
Aviation in the United States are developing and test-
Alessandro Bacchini, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace
ing their VTOLs. Airbus and Boeing are creating the Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, Corso Luigi Einaudi 40, 10129,
spinoffs A3 and Aurora flight sciences to develop and Torino, Italy.
test their own VTOLs. Uber, the transportation Email: [email protected]
2 Proc IMechE Part G: J Aerospace Engineering 0(0)

20 min with the VTOL. People could live in the coun- analyzed. Then the transition phase is analyzed, and
tryside, in the mountains or wherever in the middle of possible future works are proposed.
nature, up to 100 km away from the city where they
work and get there in only 20 min taking off from
Comparison with existing alternatives
their back garden and landing directly on top of the
skyscraper where they work. In the sixties, the tech- To be economically sound, an electrical VTOL
nology for this new vehicle looked ready,11,12 but must be better than existing alternatives: road trans-
noise, pollution, and cost prevented old VTOLs to port, rail transport, and helicopters. First, VTOLs
be adopted. Electric propulsion and the new capabil- are compared to road and rail transport, then to
ities of artificial intelligence in navigation and control helicopters.
provide a solution to these problems. Flying has significant advantages compared to
The possible impact of electric VTOLs can be road and rail transport: traffic jams are not a problem
compared to the impact that automobiles had on because the aircraft moves in tridimensional space,
our society. Cars allowed to live in the outskirts, in it flies directly to its destination, and it does not
bigger and cheaper houses, and they gave the freedom have to win rolling resistance. At low speeds, flying
to travel during weekends. In the same way, VTOLs is impractical because a large wing is required to pro-
will allow living further away from the city and into duce enough lift, while cars and trains only need
nature, respecting the ambient because electric pro- wheels. At high speeds, flying becomes excellent
pulsion produces no local polluting emissions. because a little wing is enough to produce the required
The revolutionary difference between VTOLs and lift, there is no rolling resistance, and the aerodynamic
passenger aircraft is like the difference between trains shape ensures a low drag coefficient. In Figure 1,
and cars. Trains must start from the railway station at the power required per passenger at different speeds
a fixed time scheduled by the railway company, cars for the car, the train, and the aircraft, is shown.
can be used when needed with no departure To represent the car, the Fiat Punto data is used, to
and arrival station. The same happens now: a conven- represent the train, the Frecciarossa 1000 train data,
tional aircraft requires an airport for takeoff and and to represent the aircraft, the Cessna 172 data
landing, an electric VTOL will be able to take off (Tables 1 to 3).
and land from a small strip of land when needed. The aircraft power required is computed for a
In this paper, electric VTOLs are compared to given velocity in level, unaccelerated flight13
existing alternative vehicles. The cruise and hover
flight conditions are analyzed deriving the equations Treq ¼ D ð1Þ
required to compute the range of an electric VTOL
and the minimum area of the vertical thrust system Preq ¼ Treq  V ¼ D  V ð2Þ
required for hover and take off. The main parameters
affecting hover and cruise flight are discussed, and the 1
Preq ¼ V2 SCD  V ð3Þ
tradeoff between battery mass and payload mass is 2

Figure 1. Road transport comparison, power required by car, train, and airplane, at different speeds.
Bacchini and Cestino 3

Table 1. Parameters of the Cessna 172 used to model aircraft wheels and the rail is lower than the rolling resistance
power consumption. of the tires on the tarmac, and because it has a smaller
frontal section per passenger. At higher speeds, the air-
Air density (Þ 1.225 kg/m3
craft becomes competitive with the car and the
Wing surface (S) 16.2 m2
train. Considering our assumptions, it becomes more
CD0 0.03 efficient than the car at about 220 km/h and more effi-
Weight 1100 kg cient than the train at about 265 km/h. In practice,
Oswald factor ("Þ 0.8 we find that considering the typical car (Table 2) with
Aspect ratio (AR) 7.32 four passengers, a trip by car usually is cheaper than a
Number of passengers 4 (including one pilot) train ticket. The price of the train ticket comprises not
only the cost of the energy, but also the cost of the
railway personnel, the train itself, and the infrastruc-
ture. In computing the cost of a trip by car, we do not
Table 2. Parameters of the Fiat Punto used to model car usually consider the cost of the car itself and the insur-
power consumption. ance. When there are fewer passengers and considering
the cost of the car and the cost of insurance, the car is
Weight 1000 kg
more expensive than the train. VTOLs will also be able
Cross-sectional area (ACS ) 2 m2
to fly directly from the departing point to the destin-
CL 0 ation, avoiding traffic jams and saving time.
CD 0.3 The helicopter is already able to avoid traffic but
f0 0.01 is not widely used. The reasons are the high costs of
k 6:5  106 s2/m2 helicopter operation, and the noise generated. The
Number of passengers 4 cost of helicopter operations consists of propellant,
pilot, and maintenance. Helicopters require many
hours of maintenance because they are highly com-
plex mechanical machines. The transmission and
Table 3. Parameters of Frecciarossa 1000 used to model train the rotor are single points of failure and need to be
power consumption. inspected routinely; the propellant cost is high
because the helicopter is less efficient in cruise flight
Weight 500 tons
than the aircraft; the pilot is the highest operating
Cross-sectional area (ACS ) 12 m2
cost. Creating a pilotless helicopter would remove
CL 0 the cost of the pilot. However, it might be difficult
CD 1.8 to certify. Autonomous helicopter flight in upright
f0 0.002 flight regime has seen considerable progress, but the
k 6:5  106 s2/m2 only way to perform autonomously more complex
Number of passengers 440 maneuvers is using neural networks.15 The process
of certification would be quite long, expensive, and
complicated, not much cheaper than building and cer-
CD ¼ CD0 þ kCL 2 ð4Þ tifying a new electric VTOL.
Noise generated by helicopters has three spectral
 
1 W2 1 components, the engine, the main rotor, and the tail
Preq ¼ V3 SCD0 þ 1 ð5Þ rotor. The engine noise of an eVTOL is lower because
2 2 VS
"AR
electric motors are quiet. The propeller noise can be
The power required for the car and train is the sum reduced because the rotor blade noise varies as an
of two factors: rolling resistance and aerodynamic exponent of the tip speed. With electric propulsion,
resistance.14 Equations (6) and (7) also consider the tip speed and thus noise can be reduced. A large rotor
component of the weight when the ground is not level is no longer needed because electric motors are highly
  scalable, a small engine can have the same efficiency
1 2   of a larger one. For combustion engines and turbo-
Fres ¼ mg cosðÞ  V ACS CL f0 þ kV2
2 generators, this is not true. A bigger machine is more
ð6Þ
1 efficient than multiple smaller ones. There could be
þ V2 ACS CD þ mg sinðÞ VTOLs designed for efficient hovering with mul-
2
tiple small propellers or VTOLs designed for an effi-
Preq ¼ Fres  V ð7Þ cient cruise with fewer and more powerful propellers
or ducted fans.
Figure 1 shows that, at low speeds, the car and the With this technology, the helicopter’s retreating
train are more efficient than the airplane. The train is blade problem can be solved. When a helicopter is
more efficient than the car because the rolling resistance in forward flight, the airspeed investing the advancing
between two hard surfaces, the steel of the train’s blade is the sum of rotational speed and flying speed,
4 Proc IMechE Part G: J Aerospace Engineering 0(0)

the airspeed investing the retreating blade is the dif- This equation can be simplified to the range equa-
ference between these two terms. The force produced tion for battery-electric flight
by the two blades is different. To compensate this
difference, the retreating blade flies at a higher angle 1 L mbattery
R ¼ E  total    ð14Þ
of attack up to the point where it stalls. As the for- g D m
ward speed increases, this effect increases as well.
At a certain speed, it is not possible to compensate In Figure 2, the results of the range equation for
anymore the difference of lift. This speed is the max- electric aircraft are plotted.
imum speed of the helicopter, and this phenomenon Figure 2 shows that the range of electric aircraft
explains why the helicopter’s maximum speed is quite is much lower than the range of passenger jets, but it
low compared to the aircraft’s maximum speed. is enough to perform short-distance commutes.
Helicopters are inefficient in forward flight because With this figure, we can compute the range of an
they are designed for hovering, their large rotor has eVTOL built with the 85 kWh battery packs produced
the retreating blade problem, and they cannot reap by Tesla for its Model S electric car which have an
the benefits of the wing-borne lift. energy density of 157 Wh/kg.16 We enter the graph
from the x-axis selecting the specified energy density,
we choose the battery mass fraction line (0.5 for
Electric airplane range instance), and on the y-axis, we can find the range
The mission of an eVTOL consists of two main for different L/D ratios of the vehicle. If this
phases: the cruise flight and the takeoff and landing. eVTOL has an L/D of 10, its range will be about
The range of an electric aircraft can be computed 200 km. The other point highlighted on the x-axis is
with the Breguet equations modified for electric flight. the energy density of a representative Li-Ion cell.
The derivation of these equations can also be found in The energy density of a single cell is higher than the
Hepperle.2 energy density of the battery pack because the battery
The range is the product of flight speed and flight time pack also includes the connections, casing, thermal
management system, and the digital control system.
R ¼ v1  t ð8Þ The Tesla value has been selected because these bat-
teries are used in a consumer product in a high-power
For battery-powered aircraft, flight time is equal to application, and they represent the state of the art of
the time to drain the battery high specific-power, high energy density batteries.
Equation 14 shows that to improve the range of an
mbattery  E electric aircraft, each one of the following five factors
t¼ ð9Þ
Pbattery has to be maximized.
The term E* is the energy density of the batteries.
where E* is the energy density of the battery, and The present lithium-ion technology has an energy
Pbattery is the power supplied by the battery. density of around 200 Wh/kg. It has been constantly
Inserting it into the range equation yields but slowly improving in the last century. Fuel cells
may provide higher E* and improve the range.17,18
mbattery  E However, their specific-power must be enough to
R ¼ v1  ð10Þ
Pbattery hover, which is the most power-demanding phase of
every eVTOL mission.
The power drawn by the battery is related to the The term total is the total propulsive efficiency and
power required for forward flight, Paircraft is expressed as the product of the efficiency of the
motor and the efficiency of the propeller. Electric
Paircraft motors have efficiencies in the order of 0.95 and pro-
Pbattery ¼ ð11Þ
total pellers or ducted fans can be designed to reach effi-
ciencies of about 0.8, then a reasonable value for the
The power required for forward flight is proportional total efficiency, as suggested in Hepperle,2 can be 0.75.
to the aircraft weight, lift to drag ratio, and flight speed Lift to drag ratio represents a measure of the
design overall aerodynamic efficiency and depends
mg on the configuration arrangement. At subsonic
Paircraft ¼ Daircraft  v1 ¼ L
 v1 ð12Þ
D speeds, the L/D is most directly affected by wingspan
and wetted area.
Combining the two previous equations and insert- The term 1/g cannot be controlled, but it shows
ing them in the range equation that on a low gravity high atmospheric density astro-
nomical object like Titan, electric flight could be a
mbattery  E practical way for exploration. In fact, on Titan, an
R ¼ v1  mg ð13Þ
L

 v1 electric aircraft powered by a radioisotope generator
D total
might be able to fly for years.
Bacchini and Cestino 5

Figure 2. Range of an electric airplane for different L/D, varying the energy density of the batteries and at different values of the
battery mass ratio.

m
The battery
m ratio has vast effects on the range. Figures 4 and 5 provide data about standard values
This parameter can be increased reducing as much of the lift to drag ratio and the speed of the different
as possible the weight of the structure, the electric aircraft.
motors, the power electronics, the computers, the The battery mass fraction can be reduced to increase
other systems, and the cabin furniture. the payload fraction. However, reducing the battery
The total weight of the VTOL can be considered as fraction means reducing the range. On the other
the sum of empty weight, battery weight, and payload hand, if the payload is reduced to increase the battery
weight.19 In Figure 3, the empty weight fraction, the mass and the range, the number of passengers is
fuel fraction (in the case of electric aircrafts the fuel reduced, and the cost of the trip per passenger in
m
fraction corresponds to the parameter battery
m ) and the terms of electric energy increases. This cost can be
payload fraction of many representative aircraft, rotor- computed writing the payload mass fraction as19
crafts, and VTOLs are plotted. The first group of vehi-
mpayload mempty mbattery
cles represents fixed-wing propeller-driven aircraft. The ¼1  ð15Þ
operating empty weight fraction varies from 77% of m m m
the old Spitfire to 40% of the Pipistrel Alpha Electro, Assuming, as payload, one passenger and his lug-
which is built using composite materials. The Alpha gage weighing mpayload ¼ 100kg, the total mass can be
Trainer and the Alpha Electro are two versions of computed
the same aircraft, the difference in their empty weight
fraction is because the gas engine is more massive than mpayload
m¼m  ð16Þ
the electric motor. Commercial jet airliners have empty payload
m
weight fractions of about 50%. Helicopters have empty
weight fraction varying from 50% of the Chinook to and the battery mass
60% of the smaller R-22. The E-Hang 184 is built of
mbattery
composite materials and has an empty weight fraction mbattery ¼ m  ð17Þ
of 44%. The V-22 and AW609 tiltrotors and the Yak- m
38 and Harrier VTOL jets have empty weight fractions Then the cost of the maximum amount of energy
of about 60%. Fighter jets have empty weight fractions that can be stored in a battery of that size is computed
of about 67%. The vehicles with the lowest empty
weight fraction are the Rutan Voyager and the Energy cost ¼ mbattery  E  c ð18Þ
GlobalFlyer designed to fly around the globe. The
Rutan Voyager has an empty weight fraction of 22% where E* is the battery energy density in Wh/kg, and c
and the GlobalFlyer of 16%. Rockets have empty is the cost of the energy. E* ¼ 200 Wh/kg and
weight fractions even lower, in the order of 8%. c ¼ 0.12E/kWh are assumed.
6 Proc IMechE Part G: J Aerospace Engineering 0(0)

Figure 3. Empty weight, fuel, and payload fraction of existing aircraft, rotorcraft, and VTOLs.20

Figure 4. Lift-to-drag ratio of the different aircraft and rotorcraft types.20

Bacchini and Cestino 7

Figure 5. Flying speed of different aircraft and rotorcraft types.20

Figure 6. Energy cost to perform the maximum range trip at different empty weight fractions (mempty/m) varying the battery to the
total mass ratio (mbattery/m).

In Figure 6, each line represents an empty weight dramatically as the payload fraction approaches zero.
technology level. The graph shows that, for a given Good electric aircraft designs will be at the beginning of
empty weight fraction, the range can be increased, the rapid increase. The ones remaining on the left are
increasing the battery weight fraction and the energy losing additional range at little cost, the ones on the
cost required to achieve that range. Each curve increases right have huge total mass and high operating costs.
8 Proc IMechE Part G: J Aerospace Engineering 0(0)

ascent are the most power demanding phases of the

Take-off and landing VTOL flight; for this reason, the battery pack is sized
The first analysis showed that to improve the range, to provide enough power for hover plus a margin.
the total mass and aerodynamic drag must be The power available is written in this form because
reduced. For takeoff and landing, a system consisting this is the maximum power that can be extracted
of propellers or jets is required. This system is massive from the batteries. The total mass  of the vehicle is
mpayload mbattery
and increases the drag of the eVTOL. The range of the mpayload ; multiplying it by m gives the total
m =
eVTOL reduces as the drag increases. The vertical
battery mass; multiplying again by kp the total
thrust system can be made smaller increasing its
power available is found. The power found is not a
power, or it can be mechanically retracted inside the
physical limitation to the maximum power available.
fuselage like Krossblade Aerospace’s SkyProwler.21
It can be significantly augmented using supercapaci-
Another idea is to use the same system that provides
tors. However, this means reducing the energy density
thrust during forward flight to generate the thrust
of the battery plus supercapacitors pack. Decreasing
required for hover. This is the idea adopted by
the energy density E*, the range of the eVTOL
Lilium.22 Even if these and other techniques may be
decreases.
used to reduce drag, the area occupied by the vertical
thrust system can be used to evaluate how much the The thrust has been rewritten following the same
mpayload
vertical takeoff and landing capability affects the procedure. The total weight is mpayload = g and it has
range. With the disk actuator theory,23 the minimum m
been multiplied by the thrust to weight ratio desired.
vertical thrust system area required for an electric
VTOL is estimated. The result of the disk actuator Equation (20) can be rearranged to show the disk
theory applied to hover is actuator area required
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi  3
T3 T mpayload
P¼ ð19Þ W mpayload = g 1
2A m
A¼ 2 ð21Þ
mbattery
= 2
mp mpayload =m kp
P is the required power to hover, T is the thrust or m

the weight of the eVTOL,  is the air density, and A is  3

the actuator disk area. Equation (19) shows that the mpayload
 
mpayload
power required to hover decreases as the disk actuator =m g3 T 3
A¼ 2 ð22Þ
area increases. To have the best vehicle for hover, the mbattery
= 2 W
disk actuator area must be increased. However, this mpayload mpayload =m kp
m
large disk actuator area increases the aerodynamic
drag in forward flight. This formula is valid for free  3
    1
propellers, but it can be easily extended to ducted fans m
g3 T 3 1 2 payload =m
knowing that, without viscous losses, a ducted fan of A¼ mpayload m 2 ð23Þ
the same size and same power can produce 25% more 2 W kp battery =
m
mpayload
thrust than a free propeller.24 For missions with short =m
hover time compared to cruise flight, the vertical
   2
thrust system area can be reduced as much as possible g3 T 3 1 1
to reduce the drag it produces in cruise flight. The A¼ mpayload    2
2 W kp mpayload m
smallest disk actuator area required to provide m battery m
enough vertical thrust for vertical takeoff and landing ð24Þ
can be computed rewriting equation (19) for a bat-
tery-powered eVTOL The final formula is
vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
3ffi    2
u g3 T 3 1 1
u T mpayload A¼ m
 u W mpayload g   2 ð25Þ
mbattery t =m 2 W kp mbattery
mpayload m m kp ¼ ð20Þ m
payload
m 2A
The disk actuator area is directly proportional to
where mpayload is the payload mass,
 kp is the specific- the cube of the gravity and inversely proportional
power of the batteries, mbattery
 m the battery mass
is to the atmospheric density. This fact has exciting con-
fraction, mpayload m is the payload mass fraction, W T
is sequences for planetary exploration. A Martian quad-
the thrust to weight ratio of the vehicle, and g is the rotor is feasible and can be tested in Earth’s
gravity acceleration. atmosphere at about 12 km altitude where the param-
g3
In equation (20), the power required to hover and eter 2 has the same value it has in the Martian atmos-
g3
the thrust produced are rewritten. Hover and vertical phere just above the ground. On Titan the 2
Bacchini and Cestino 9

Figure 7. Thrust system area required function of the battery Figure 8. Thrust system area required function of battery
specific-power for various battery to total mass ratios. specific-power for various total mass.

parameter is extremely low due to the low gravity

and high atmospheric density. This fact makes
Titan suitable to be explored by flying machines.
Using the same radioisotope thermoelectric generator
used by the Curiosity rover, a VTOL for Titan
could be built.
The disk actuator area is proportional to the cube
of the thrust to weight ratio. This parameter must be
higher than 1 to provide a margin for vertical takeoff
and landing.
The disk actuator area is directly proportional to
the total mass of the vehicle, limiting the total dimen-
sion of electric VTOLs. Existing designs cannot be
scaled up because the mass is proportional to the
cube of the reference length, while the thrust system
area is proportional to the square of the reference Figure 9. Thrust system area required function of the battery
to total mass ratio for various total mass.
length. Equation (19) shows that the power required
grows with the mass raised to the 1.5 power.
The disk actuator area is inversely proportional to
the square of the battery specific-power. This fact is Table 4. Data used for hover computations.
essential when considering alternative power systems
Gravity 9.81 m/s2
such as fuel cells. At the present technology level, the
fuel cell specific-power is lower than the battery spe- Density 1.225 kg/m3
cific-power. Fuel cells might be used if coupled with Thrust to weight 1.3
supercapacitors, which increase the power for takeoff Total mass 750 kg
and landing. However, supercapacitors have very low Battery specific power 800 W/kg
energy densities, which reduce the total energy density Battery mass ratio 40%
of the power system.
Finally, the mbattery m ratio is found once again. The
disk actuator area is inversely proportional to the Batteries have higher specific-power than fuel cells,
square of this parameter, meaning that the higher this and this is their advantage.
parameter is, the
 smaller the disk actuator area required The mbattery m is essential both for hover and
is. The mbattery m ratio has also been found in the range range. It should be at least 30% to have a small ver-
analysis. Increasing this parameter improves the range tical thrust system area.
and allows to hover with a smaller disk actuator area.
Transition from hover to forward flight
Some numerical values of the thrust system area
required, computed with equation (25), are shown in The phase in which the VTOL is accelerating from
Figures 7 to 9. The values used for the computations hover to cruise flight is called transition. This phase
are listed in Table 4. has been problematic for VTOLs of the fifties and
High specific-power, in the order of 800 W/kg, is sixties because the lift provided from the thrust
required to have reasonably small thrust system areas. system and by the wing varies nonlinearly. There
10 Proc IMechE Part G: J Aerospace Engineering 0(0)

may be a lack of control power25 as mobile surfaces lift produced by the wing.
do not receive enough airspeed to be effective, and
reaction control systems lose effectiveness. Tv ¼ W  L ð26Þ
Besides the engineering challenges posed by each
different configuration, it is interesting to study the It varies from the total weight of the VTOL when it
dimensions of the wing to optimize the VTOL for is hovering, to zero after the stall speed. The horizontal
its mission. For a conventional aircraft, the wing sur- thrust is computed in order to have accelerations lower
face of an aircraft is constrained by the stall speed than an imposed threshold of 3 m/s2, chosen to ensure
requirement. VTOLs do not have this constraint, a comfortable passenger experience. To perform this
and their wing can be optimized for cruise flight. In computation, full power is considered and the thrust
Figure 10, a free body diagram of the transition of angle producing the required Tv is computed
two different VTOLs is shown.
Configuration A has a smaller wing than configur- Tv
 ¼ sin1 ð27Þ
ation B’s, its stall speed is higher, and the transition Tmax
phase will require more energy. However, configuration
A is more efficient at high speeds having less drag.
Configuration B has a bigger wing. It requires less
energy to reach the stall speed, but it has more drag. Table 5. Data used for transition computations.
At fixed cruise speed, an optimal wing surface can Total mass 500 kg
be found to reduce the mission energy costs. The influ- Cd0 0.022
ence of the wing surface on the energy required to get K 0.03
from hover to cruise flight is analyzed. The aspect
Wing surface 2 m2
ratio of the wing and the cruise speed are fixed. The
Thrust system area 6 m2
data used in the following calculations are listed in
Table 5. Battery power 147 kW
A vectored thrust eVTOL is considered. The thrust Total efficiency 75%
system can provide a maximum thrust constrained by Aspect ratio 10
the power available, and it can be vectored to produce Cruise speed 300 km/h at sea level
vertical thrust and horizontal thrust. The vertical Maximum horizontal acceleration 3 m/s2
thrust required is computed as the weight minus the

Figure 10. Free body diagram of the transition from hover to forward flight for two VTOLs. Configuration A has a smaller wing
surface while configuration B has a bigger wing surface.
Bacchini and Cestino 11

Then the maximum available horizontal thrust is on the left in Figure 11, configuration B represents
computed VTOLs on the right in that figure. At low wing sur-
face, the energy required is high because high power is
Th max ¼ Tmax cos  ð28Þ required to supplement the little lift produced by the
wing at low speed. The energy required drops as the
With this thrust the acceleration is computed as wing surface increases. Then, the energy required
maximum available horizontal thrust minus aero- increases again, when the increase in wing surface cre-
dynamic drag divided by the total mass ates an unnecessary increase in wetted area. The inte-
gration with the Euler method is the reason why the
Th max  D curve in Figure 11 is not perfectly smooth.
a¼ ð29Þ
m With the same data, it is possible to analyze the
power required at every flight speed. The power
If this value is less than the maximum acceleration required is the sum of its two components, horizontal
allowed amax , the value found of horizontal thrust is and vertical.
kept, else a new value of horizontal thrust is computed
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
as the maximum allowed acceleration times total mass
Tv 3
plus aerodynamic drag Pv ¼ ð33Þ
2A
Th ¼ amax m þ D ð30Þ
Ph ¼ D  v ð34Þ
To compute the total energy required for the tran-
sition, the power required has been integrated in time. The vertical component is computed like in equa-
This process has been carried out with a simple Euler tion (19), with the disk actuator theory. The horizontal
method that updates the speed at each time step. component is computed multiplying the drag by the
flight speed. These two sources of power requirements
vnþ1 ¼ vn þ a 
t ð31Þ are plotted in Figure 12. In a vectored thrust VTOL,
the balance between vertical and horizontal thrust is
Then lift, drag, horizontal thrust, and vertical achieved tilting the motors, in a lift þ cruise configur-
thrust are computed again for each time step. The ation controlling the power given to the motors.
energy consumed at each time step is computed multi- In Figure 12, it is possible to see that there is no
plying the average power of the two successive time advantage in flying at a speed slower than the stall
steps by the
t speed providing the required vertical thrust with the
motors instead of the wing. The power required would
En ¼ Pavg 
t ð32Þ be higher and time would be lost flying at lower
speeds. The minimum of the required power is after
The total energy required to get from hover to cruise 3= .

is computed adding all the energies of the steps from the stall speed, where CL 2 CD is the maximum. The
horizontal speed equals zero to cruise speed. speed that allows having the highest range is the speed
The results of these computations are plotted in at which L/D is the maximum, and it is higher than
Figure 11. This image shows the energy required the speed of minimum power required. For commer-
to get to cruise for different wing surfaces. cial applications, the optimal speed might be higher
Configuration A discussed earlier represents VTOLs because it would allow saving additional time.
Another consideration suggested by Figure 12 is that
for an electric VTOL the wing surface should not be
designed for takeoff and landing requirements, but it
should be designed for cruise and maneuverability,
minimizing the total energy required for the mission.

Future work
In this article, the range, the hover, and the transition of
the electric VTOL have been discussed. To better ana-
lyze eVTOL design, three work topics seem promising.
First of all, a comparison of the many different
eVTOL configurations should be carried out.
Multirotors are less-complex machines and may be
better suited for short-range missions. Lift plus
Figure 11. Energy required to get from hover to cruise cruise, and vectored thrust electric VTOLs seem
speed function of the wing surface. more promising for longer-range missions.26
12 Proc IMechE Part G: J Aerospace Engineering 0(0)

Figure 12. Power required for any flight speed.

Analyzing the eVTOL configuration, the second the main parameters that affect these phases have
topic arises. Should an electric VTOL have a tail like been derived.
a conventional aircraft? A tail would provide more sta- The range achievable by electric VTOLs with the
bility, but it would increase its weight decreasing the present battery technology is in the order of 200 km,
battery to mass ratio, the range, and the payload. enabling long-range commutes. The factors affecting
The third topic for possible future work is the it are the lift to drag ratio, the propulsive efficiency,
comparison between different power sources. In this battery energy density and the battery mass to total
study, we assumed electric VTOLs powered by bat- mass ratio. The tradeoff between battery mass and
teries. Fuel cells and internal combustion engines or payload mass has been further studied.
turbine þ battery hybrids may be good alternatives. Electric VTOLs must be designed as a compromise
between hover efficiency and long-range, high-speed
cruise. High hover efficiency requires large disk actu-
Conclusions ator area, which increases the parasite drag during
The state of the art battery energy density does not cruise flight. For missions with short hover time com-
allow to electrify the aviation industry. Long-range pared to cruise flight, the vertical thrust system area
electric jets cannot be built yet, regional electric air- can be reduced as much as possible to reduce the drag
craft could be built to service small distance routes in it produces in cruise flight. The equation to compute
the order of 500 km, but some problems may remain the smallest disk actuator area required to provide
concerning the lack of reserves for holding at the des- enough vertical thrust for vertical takeoff and landing
tination airport and the infrastructure that must be has been derived (25). It shows that this area is pro-
added to current airports. However, this same tech- portional to the cube of the thrust to weight ratio,
nology and the advantages of electric propulsion proportional to the total mass of the vehicle, inversely
enable the creation of a new means of transport, the proportional to the square of the battery specific-
electric VTOL. power, and inversely proportional the square of the
This new means of transport could be better battery mass to total mass ratio.
than road and rail transport because it does not This analysis highlighted the importance of the bat-
get stuck in traffic jams, flies straight to the destin- tery mass to total mass ratio that affects both range
ation and does not have to win the rolling friction. and hover capabilities.
Electric VTOLs have the chance to be also better than The transition phase has been analyzed, and some
helicopters. Helicopters are not widely used because remarkable results have been derived. The wing of an
they are too expensive and noisy. The cost is due electric VTOL must not be sized for the takeoff and
to the propellant, the maintenance, and the pilot, landing requirement, but it can be smaller and opti-
which are all components that would not be mized for cruise.
required for electric VTOLs. Noise can be reduced
distributing the electric propulsion and optimizing Declaration of Conflicting Interests
the architecture. The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
The cruise flight, the hover, and the transition respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of
of an electric VTOL have been analyzed, and this article.
Bacchini and Cestino 13

Funding 15. Abbeel P, Coates A and Ng AY. Autonomous helicop-

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, ter aerobatics through apprenticeship learning. Int J
authorship, and/or publication of this article. Robot Res 2010. DOI: 10.1177/0278364910371999.
16. Tesla Model S, Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Tesla_Model_S (accessed 20 December 2018).
ORCID iD
17. Correa G, Santarelli M, Borello F, et al. Flight test
Alessandro Bacchini https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6490- validation of the dynamic model of a fuel cell system
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14 Proc IMechE Part G: J Aerospace Engineering 0(0)

Pv power required to produce vertical V speed

thrust W weight
Ph power required to produce horizontal
 road or railway slope
thrust
" Oswald efficiency number
R range
total propulsive efficiency of the eVTOL. It
S wing surface
consists of the efficiency of the elec-
t flight time
tronic converter and controller, the
T thrust
electric motor, and the propulsive effi-
Th horizontal thrust
T ciency of the propeller
W thrust-to-weight ratio
 pi
Treq thrust required
 air density
Tv vertical thrust
v1 flight speed