Overview

We are an interdisciplinary team at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) and the Fraunhofer IISB. Within our Project Silver we are developing innovative electric vertical take-off and landing aircrafts, “eVTOLs”. With our prototype Night Fury, codename “NF2”, we competed with international student teams in the NFC – the New Flying Competition in Hamburg in October 2020. And we took the crown! We have a history in developing innovative electric vehicles and power electronics. Ever since our founding over a decade ago we have been fortunate enough to present our research results at internationally leading science conferences and industrial fairs like the PCIM Europe and the AIRTEC Munich. Now with our entrance into the research field of electronic aviation we are especially keen on competing against other student teams to prove ourselves in direct competition. So what makes the new iteration of our project special? - 1. Designed with experience - To ensure an efficient flight we have drawn upon our experience with gliders and copters. The concept of Night Fury is based on leading glider designs combined with thoroughly simulated and tested quad-plane designs. With the expertise of our team members, the support of our sponsors and partners as well as the ability to use state of the art workshops and test benches. - 2. Developed electronics - Our history in developing our own power electronics with scalability in mind proved to be a privilege. A self-developed battery pack with its own control unit combined with our efforts in designing our own ESCs distinguish the Night Fury from conventional designs that rely solely on purchased electronic components. - 3. Control engineering - To ensure that our aircrafts can withstand nordic wind and temperature conditions we pay attention to highly dynamic and robust PID and filter settings by using state of the art techniques in control engineering and tuning.