Assessment of the Environmental Impact of Electric Taxi by means of Fast-Time Simulation

Abstract

The contribution of air transportation to pollution is significant, constantly growing and has a great impact on the climate change. According to SESAR D1 forecast, the number of IFR flights in Europe in the period of 2005 to 2025 is expected to increase by approximately 150% under the most optimistic conditions. Along with this enormous growth of traffic, people become increasingly aware of the environmental issues. Although the share of aircraft emissions (2-3%) is very small compared to total man-made emissions, it affects and contributes to pollution in the atmosphere. Seeking for a solution, the European Commission has launched the “Clean Sky” Joint Technology Initiative (JTI) which aims at solving these environmental issues. It is made up of six Integrated Technology Demonstrators (ITD) which main goal is to develop technologies that will bring into life ACARE’s 2020 platform: - 50% reduction of CO2 emissions through reduction of fuel consumption - 80% reduction of NOx emissions - 50% reduction of external noise The aim of work package “Smart Operations on Ground”, which is part of the “System for Green Operations” ITD, is the development of an electric motor for autonomous pushback and taxi. By taxiing with the help of an electric motor, which is installed at the main landing gear and supplied by the APU, a reduction of fuel consumption and emissions is expected, since the main engines can remain switched off during taxi. DLR’s goal as partner in this project is to demonstrate by means of Fast Time Simulations (FTS) the impact of this new technology regarding capacity, delay, emissions and noise.