South Korea’s Airbility to Work with Germany’s Schübeler on EDF Propulsion Technology for eVTOL Platforms

Air­bil­i­ty has signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MoU) with Schü­bel­er GmbH of Ger­many for strate­gic coop­er­a­tion in elec­tric duct­ed fan (EDF) propul­sion tech­nol­o­gy.

Under the agree­ment, the two com­pa­nies will pur­sue mul­ti-dimen­sion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion, includ­ing the joint devel­op­ment of next-gen­er­a­tion EDF propul­sion sys­tems for eVTOL plat­forms and joint par­tic­i­pa­tion in Korea–Germany inter­na­tion­al R&D pro­grams.

Jin­mo Lee, CEO & Co-Founder of Air­bil­i­ty, said: “Schü­bel­er is a glob­al­ly rec­og­nized spe­cial­ist in EDF propul­sion tech­nol­o­gy. By build­ing on the prod­uct-lev­el col­lab­o­ra­tion the two com­pa­nies have accu­mu­lat­ed, we will pur­sue full-cycle coop­er­a­tion span­ning joint R&D, new prod­uct devel­op­ment, and mar­ket expan­sion — lay­ing the foun­da­tion for Kore­a’s high-speed eVTOL tech­nol­o­gy to enter the Euro­pean mar­ket in earnest.”

Found­ed in 2023 by avi­a­tion spe­cial­ists from Hyundai Motor Com­pa­ny and the Agency for Defense Devel­op­ment (ADD), Air­bil­i­ty is a high-speed eVTOL devel­op­er that deliv­ers both ver­ti­cal take-off/­land­ing and high-speed cruise per­for­mance through its pro­pri­etary sys­tem inte­gra­tion capa­bil­i­ties.

The com­pa­ny devel­ops and man­u­fac­tures high-speed eVTOL air­craft includ­ing the AB-U10 and AB-U60, offer­ing mis­sion-based solu­tions for counter-UAS and dis­as­ter response (DFR, Drone as First Respon­der) across the defense, pub­lic safe­ty, and per­son­al avi­a­tion mar­kets.

Head­quar­tered in Bad Lipp­springe, Ger­many, Schü­bel­er is a lead­ing design­er and man­u­fac­tur­er of high-per­for­mance aero propul­sion sys­tems, serv­ing glob­al cus­tomers across the aero­space, auto­mo­tive, defense, and robot­ics sec­tors. The two com­pa­nies have arrived at this strate­gic part­ner­ship based on the mutu­al trust built through their ongo­ing tech­ni­cal col­lab­o­ra­tion.

Under the MoU, Air­bil­i­ty and Schü­bel­er will coop­er­ate across four key areas: (i) cus­tomiza­tion of EDF prod­ucts for Air­bil­i­ty’s eVTOL plat­forms; (ii) joint devel­op­ment of next-gen­er­a­tion EDF propul­sion sys­tems; (iii) col­lab­o­ra­tion on hybrid propul­sion sys­tem inte­gra­tion; and (iv) engi­neer­ing sup­port for air­wor­thi­ness cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

The agree­ment is expect­ed to serve as a key inflec­tion point for Air­bil­i­ty to extend beyond its domes­tic
tech­nol­o­gy base and build a glob­al eVTOL val­ue chain togeth­er with a proven Euro­pean
propul­sion tech­nol­o­gy part­ner.

Fran­cois Gern­er, Co-CEO of Schü­bel­er, added: “Build­ing on the col­lab­o­ra­tive expe­ri­ence we have devel­oped with Air­bil­i­ty, this strate­gic part­ner­ship is a nat­ur­al next step for both com­pa­nies. Togeth­er, we will devel­op next-gen­er­a­tion EDF solu­tions and set a new bench­mark for the glob­al eVTOL indus­try.”