UAVHE

RW1-79

UAVHE is a Barcelona-based engine manufacturer, founded in 2019 by engineers, software developers and computer numeric-controlled (CNC) machine technicians who were connected through high-performance, two-stroke manufacturing for jet skis, ultralight aircraft and paramotoring vehicles. Andrei Bogdanov, CEO of UAVHE, recounts: “All of us were dissatisfied with the pace of technical progress that these motorsport engines had undergone since the late 1970s. In 2019, you’d still see things like carburettors and poor-quality pre-mixes with terrible emissions.” Soon after UAVHE began seeking funding, Covid limited them to remote engine r&d. However, shutdowns by other engine manufacturers freed up copious engineering talent to help the group polish its designs through long-distance computational fluid dynamics (CFD), computer-aided design (CAD) and electronic control unit (ECU) programming. By the time Covid restrictions were lifted and UAVHE began building its factory, its first prototype was already assembled. That morphed into its first product, the PT1-124, a liquid-cooled, crankcase-injected two-stroke, largely based on what the team viewed as cutting-edge tech across motorsport (although today it is offered as a hybrid electric power plant for VTOL-based or -transitioning UAVs and some crewed aircraft, the company having pivoted over time from motorsport to the vast and growing uncrewed aviation industry). The development of Wankel-type rotary engines was something that interested Bogdanov and his team for some time, due in no small part to their popularity across ultralights and paramotoring. This motivated them to work on rotary designs and technologies that could overcome the problems typically associated with Wankels, including overheating, poor sealing between internal chambers, insufficient reliability and service life, and performance losses with altitude. “Reliability and stability are everything, especially for motorsport and professional uncrewed aircraft today. Obviously, power-to-weight ratio, horsepower and torque are important, but if any of those are a bit low, systems integrators can compensate by reducing weight at the vehicle level,” Bogdanov says. “They can’t compensate for an engine that fails in the field, and the loss of a high-end payload can be tens of times that of the engine. Consider the loss of the mission, especially one in urgent medical deliveries, search-and-rescue or defence operations, and then an engine failure can cause a loss that is priceless.” Hence, UAVHE has recently unveiled two supercharged Wankels with forced induction to prevent performance drops at high altitude: the RW1-79, an air cooled, 22 hp hybrid range extender, weighing 5.2 kg; and the RW1-300, a liquid-cooled, 62 hp engine, weighing 17.7 kg and featuring a gearbox for driving a propeller. Read more ? https://lnkd.in/dgwXnFeK #uncrewedsystemstechnology #autonomoussystems #wankelengine #UAV #VTOL