- Engineers at the German Aerospace Center are developing a transformable wing that is currently intended to reduce drag and replace functions of other parts of the plane’s design.
- A drone equipped with a morphing wing was used in the tests
- The Morphing Technologies and Artificial Intelligence Research (morphAIR) project has a budget of one million euros
A shape-shifting wing is being developed at the German Aerospace Center as part of a million-euro project that could redefine the traditional view of an airplane.
Instead of a tube with fixed wings and tailplane, future aircraft based on this technology could change shape to cope with changes in flight conditions, reduce drag, and even transform a portion of the wings to handle pitch control and other tailplane functions.
Engineers have tested the technology, part of the Morphing Technologies and Artificial Intelligence Research (morphAIR) project, with a 70-kilogram drone, equipped with a 3-meter-wide morphing wing.
How does the AI transforming wing work?
The transforming wing is based on a smooth surface with motorized components inside that can alter its shape. The success so far has led to the introduction of a follow-on program, UAdap (Unmanned Aircraft Wing Adaptation), to focus on reducing fuel consumption, making the plane’s surface less prone to drag, and potentially eliminating the tail altogether.
Look
On the team is Martin Radestock, senior adaptive systems engineer, who told Aerospace America that current wings are essentially inefficient: “Airplanes fly with turbulent flow over their wings, because they have steps and gaps.” [e.g. ailerons and flaps] between their control surfaces.
Smooth wings have no gaps, screws or rivets and are assembled in a completely different way than standard aircraft. The wing is described as a “transformable trailing edge” and appears to be a series of motorized arms controlled by an actuator that move left, right, up and down.
Morphing planes are nothing new
While morphAIR’s approach takes full advantage of modern technology, the concept of employing multiple aircraft profiles to suit different flight conditions and deployment purposes is an old concept that has been given new life.
The most famous implementation of this is “swing wing” technology, first tested in 1951 (the Bell These craft were able to move the wings rearward, sharpening their angle (to 68 degrees from perpendicular to the fuselage) for stable high-speed flight, while the “straight” wings (22 degrees) generated lift for short takeoffs, such as on an aircraft carrier, where the runway is short.
Interestingly, a Grumman Gulfstream II was equipped with morphing flaps as part of tests conducted by FlexSys in partnership with NASA and the US Air Force Research Laboratory, so morphAIR is not the only group investigating the next stage of flight.
Advances in aerodynamic flight technology and flight control made the swing-wing generation obsolete, but morphAIR’s intriguing revision of the concept of a craft that changes shape in the air could take it in a whole new direction.
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