Cranfield Aerospace welcomes Evolito onboard Project Fresson

Cran­field Aero­space Solu­tions (CAeS) has wel­comed Evoli­to as the motor and invert­er sup­pli­er onboard for its hydro­gen-pow­ered air­craft demon­stra­tor Project Fres­son, join­ing Reac­tion Engines and Ricar­do as tech­nol­o­gy col­lab­o­ra­tors show­cas­ing UK inno­va­tion redefin­ing the avi­a­tion indus­try.

Based in Oxford­shire, Evoli­to is the aero­space spin out of YASA, pio­neer of auto­mo­tive axi­al-flux elec­tric motors. Pro­duc­ing what it claims to be the world’s most advanced elec­tric propul­sion sys­tem, Evolito’s motors are small­er, lighter, and typ­i­cal­ly four times the pow­er den­si­ty of radi­al flux solu­tions, mak­ing them ide­al­ly suit­ed to the emerg­ing zero-emis­sions avi­a­tion mar­kets.

Evolito’s axi­al-flux tech­nol­o­gy uses up to 75% less iron and cop­per, and few­er per­ma­nent mag­nets than com­pet­ing radi­al solu­tions, mak­ing it lighter and more envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly.

For Project Fres­son, motor and con­troller unit mass (or weight) is an impor­tant ele­ment in the over­all mass of the hydro­gen elec­tric propul­sion sys­tem, which must be min­imised in order to max­imise the pay­load and range that the zero-emis­sions air­craft can achieve.

The motor also pro­duces effi­cien­cy ben­e­fits from its nov­el cool­ing sys­tems, mean­ing the unit nev­er over­heats and can run at max­i­mum per­for­mance at all times.

CAeS direc­tor of engi­neer­ing Rob Marsh said: “Evolito’s rev­o­lu­tion­ary motor is not just lighter and more effi­cient — it is also extreme­ly com­pact and has allowed CAeS to inte­grate and pack­age the tech­nol­o­gy effi­cient­ly, as part of the 240kW Fres­son fuel-cell propul­sion sys­tem that has been pack­aged with­in the Islander engine nacelle.”

Evoli­to chief engi­neer Mukesh Patel added: “It is great to see our D1500 motors pow­er­ing Cranfield’s hydro­gen elec­tric air­craft.

“The Fres­son project is the first appli­ca­tion show­cas­ing our high-redun­dan­cy 2x3 phase direct dri­ve elec­tric motor, pro­vid­ing indus­try lead­ing torque and effi­cien­cy to the air­craft. We are delight­ed to be involved with cut­ting edge ini­tia­tives, and this project is tes­ta­ment to tech­nol­o­gy inno­va­tion and its role in reshap­ing the avi­a­tion indus­try.”

CAeS is an UK-based avi­a­tion pio­neer which, via Project Fres­son, is devel­op­ing a hydro­gen propul­sion sys­tem for the Brit­ten Nor­man Islander, with the aim to deliv­er the world’s first, zero-emis­sions, reg­u­la­to­ry cer­ti­fied pas­sen­ger air­craft solu­tion by 2026.

In July Last year, Evoli­to acquired the busi­ness and assets of Chel­tenham-based aero­space bat­tery solu­tions com­pa­ny Elec­troflight.

Evoli­to Acquires Aero­space Bat­tery Com­pa­ny Elec­troflight to Cre­ate Full Pow­er­train Solu­tions Capa­bil­i­ty