Aircraft

Solid-state, ion-drive airplane silently flies with no fuel or moving parts

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A new MIT plane is propelled via ionic wind
MIT
A new MIT plane is propelled via ionic wind
MIT
A general blueprint for an MIT plane propelled by ionic wind
MIT

A team of MIT engineers has flown what was long thought impossible – a heavier than air craft that needs no moving parts for achieving powered lift. The 5-lb (2.3-kg) prototype with a 16-ft (5-m) wingspan doesn't use propellers, turbines, or fans, but instead relied on a silent stream of ionized air to maintain steady flight on an indoor course of over 197 ft (60 m) at MIT's duPont Athletic Center.

The principle behind the MIT team's 10 recent test flights is called "electroaerodynamics" and uses an ionic wind to create thrust. The idea isn't new. The effect was first observed in the 1920s, and thanks to the work of Major Alexander de Seversky and others, it has gained a niche following in aeronautical and hobbyist circles.

The basic idea is to build a grid consisting of a series of wires or lengths of foil, with one set acting as a positive electrode and the other as a negative electrode. When charged, the positive electrode strips the electrons away from surrounding air molecules, which are then attracted to the negative electrode, and as they rush along, they collide with neutral molecules and push them. This creates a tiny, but measurable thrust.

Until now, the problem has been that electroaerodynamics has been little more than a lab bench toy with its practical applications limited to things like electronic air purifiers. This is because the technology doesn't scale very well. The amount of thrust can be increased by making the craft bigger, but doubling the size only increases the grid's surface area by its square, while the craft's volume, and hence its weight, increases by its cube.

A general blueprint for an MIT plane propelled by ionic wind
MIT

The result is the tiny flying machine quickly becomes too heavy to lift itself, which is why most such machines have been tiny gossamer things dependent on outside power tethers to barely hover – a far cry from de Seversky's dream of passenger-carrying ioncraft silently whisking commuters to and fro.

According to MIT, the breakthrough came as a result of Steven Barrett, associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, being inspired by the silent fictional shuttlecraft of Star Trek. Taking this as his starting point, Barrett and his team worked for nine years on an ion propulsion system that needs no moving parts.

They managed this by making a glider-like drone with an airfoil made up of thin wires toward the leading edge and thicker wires aft, looking like a radio antenna from the early 20th century. These act as the electrodes to move the air molecules and provide forward thrust. Meanwhile, inside the fuselage is a bank of lithium-polymer batteries and an electrical system devised by Professor David Perreault's Power Electronics Research Group in the Research Laboratory of Electronics to supply 40,000 volts to the electrodes. It's bit primitive, but it does fly instead of merely hover or glide.

"This was the simplest possible plane we could design that could prove the concept that an ion plane could fly," Barrett says. "It's still some way away from an aircraft that could perform a useful mission. It needs to be more efficient, fly for longer, and fly outside."

According to Barrett, the new ion flyer has a lot of potential applications, from silent, non-polluting drones to supplemental propulsion for more conventional aircraft. To this end, the team is now working on improving the efficiency of the design, increasing the electrode array's surface without adding too much weight, and devising new flight control mechanisms.

"It took a long time to get here," says Barrett. "Going from the basic principle to something that actually flies was a long journey of characterizing the physics, then coming up with the design and making it work. Now the possibilities for this kind of propulsion system are viable."

The video below discusses the first ion wind flight, and the research was published in Nature.

Source: MIT

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18 comments
SimonClarke
If you double the size while you do double the volume by a cube you don't increase the weight by a cube. Aircraft design weights engineer of over 20 years experience.
The are many factors that increase weight, pure volume isn't one of them. an interesting fact on metal strength if you increase the thickness by a third, you double the strength.
Derek Howe
Wow, very cool, Hope this gets them additional funding to continue to scale it up, I would of never though in my life I'd see an aircraft perform a powered flight, without using an kind of engine or motor. Super impressive.
Grumpyrelic
"Solid-state, ion-drive airplane silently flies with no fuel or moving parts" Huh? If it doesn't require fuel then why the batteries. Oh! I get it. We are flogging electric vehicles because they don't use any fuel either. So why do we hook them up to a coal fired generator every night?
Martin Winlow
@Grumpyrelic - You might do that but there’s no reason why you couldn’t be plugging in to renewably generated electricity. It is only your politicians and their golfing buddy Big Oil (and Coal) that is holding you/us back! Get some PV and an EV and ‘register your disaproval’ (and save a fortune at the same time)!
mark41
The curved upper surface of a wing is what generates lift as it causes air to flow faster, reducing pressure on the upper surface.
Wouldn't the ion propulsion system be better put above the wing instead of below?
mark41
Flight behaviour in the event of a failure of the ion propulsion system may be better with the propulsion system below the wing instead of above. The drag would destroy lift.
michael_dowling
I remember ion drives from Popular Mechanics/Science back in the sixties. They showed how you could construct one with balsa wood and wires and high voltage generator. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wtd2iyXB8lg
watersworm
Great glider !
Kpar
Marvelously droll!
I can hardly wait for the wind tunnel tests.
Can you dial a wind tunnel down to 8mph?
toyhouse
40,000 volts on the wires! Program it to circle pesky areas as a mosquito zapper,....or whatever.