Electroaerodynamic aircraft propulsion

Electroaerodynamic (EAD) propulsion entails ionizing air and using electrostatic forces to create an “ionic wind”, which constitutes a propulsive stream. It has long been theorized as a potential method for aircraft propulsion. Such a propulsion mechanism is “solid-state” in the sense that it does not have moving parts. A major potential advantage of solid-state propulsion is the removal of noise associated with propellors or fans. Possible applications for near-silent propulsion could include small aircraft for surveillance, package delivery, environmental monitoring, or military and security applications. In addition, near-silent air handling may have applications in other domains.



The first airplane with solid state propulsion was flown by MIT in 2018. This demonstrated that it is technically feasible for such a vehicle to sustain flight under purely solid state propulsion. However, the flights were short at ~10 seconds and ~60 meters, and carried no payload, suggesting a long path to any practical application.



This talk will describe the principles of operation and design tradeoffs involved in EAD propulsion for aircraft applications, and the technical challenges that need to be overcome. Previous and upcoming vehicle designs and their test flights will be described. In particular, advances in EAD thruster architectures and vehicle designs will be described that make possible small payloads to be carried for 10s of minutes by an airplane with solid state propulsion.



In the longer term for EAD to be practical significant changes in thruster architecture will be needed. This talk will also describe a high thrust density architecture which could enable VTOL and other applications. The theory of this architecture will be described, along with initial experiments and potential vehicle designs that could utilize it.



Finally, the talk will conclude with future challenges and opportunities for EAD propulsion.