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F l y O R B s. o r g
What is an ORB and why is it revolutionary?
An ORB (Omni Requirements Bus click to see etymology) is an aircraft that is not a helicopter, not an airplane, not a drone and definitely not a “flying car.” It is a new class of air vehicles that replace complex mechanical systems with advanced electrical systems to improve flight efficiency.
Lilium
Lilium is a German aviation startup based in Munich. They have conducted unmanned flights of their 36-engine all electric vertical take off and landing ORB. It is intended to carry five passengers one hour at over 180 mph.
Kitty Hawk
The Kitty Hawk Flyer is multi-copter ultralight ORB that has flown over a thousand manned test flights to include demo flights at Oshkosh AirVenture. The production model will be released in 2017 and does not require a pilot license.
Aerospace Revolution
Going Beyond the Hot Air
History shows that leaps in propulsion technology have marked different eras of flight. From 1783, until the first electric flight in 1973, human flight was propelled by hot air, first by heating air in the Montgolfier Brothers’ balloon, then rapidly heating (i.e. combusting) the air in the Wright Brothers piston engine, and eventually heating much more air in the turbine and rocket engines that propelled the world into the jet and space age. Today it seems that there is the potential for a dramatic shift--for the first time in history humans could be regularly lifted off the ground by something other than hot air.
While electric power has been used for decades, recent developments in mobile electric power systems coupled with advanced materials and digital electronics have created the possibility to transition into the next aerospace age propelled by electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) technology. On the surface, eVTOL technologies in ORBs might seem like an incremental improvement or even a counterintuitive regression, but further study shows the potential to revolutionize transportation.
Technology
Electric Power Systems:
From electric power tools, to electric lawnmowers, to electric cars, improvements in battery energy density and the reliability, weight, and power of electric motors has dramatically increased the practicality and number of electrically powered systems in just the last few years, all while reducing the need for power cords, gas cans, and internal combustion engines. The performance-per-cost metric of these technologies has been doubling every 3-5 years (for the same dollar you are will get double the performance in 3-5 years).
Advanced Materials:
From improved composites, to plastics, to promises of graphene, to 3-D printing, the ability to increase strength and easily manufacture complex shapes while reducing size, weight, and cost opens a world of new opportunities for aerospace design. Cost performance doubling time is approximately 5-7 years for these technologies.
Digital Technologies:
This development is the one that is probably most widely recognized. Computing power that a few decades ago filled multiple rooms has since increased by orders of magnitude and been miniaturized to fit in the palm of your hand. In an aviation context, the ability to create highly complex electronic flight control systems that were once only possible in large airliners like the Airbus A320 and expensive fighter jets like the F-16 are now available for micro drones that can be purchased in the corner store. As Moore's Law predicts, the doubling time in digital technology is of 1-2 years, and sometimes faster.
When looking at these three technologies, the speed that they are developing, and the significant impact that they could have on aviation, it is no surprise that the Airbus Chief Technology Officer has proclaimed to a gathering of American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics members that the world is in the midst of an aerospace revolution.
Click to watch the Airbus Chief Technology Officer describe the broader aerospace revolution
Result
Mechanical Simplicity:
The propeller and jet age required complex mechanical and thermodynamic processes to manage fluids, air, and combustion to ensure a controlled explosion is efficiently converted into a turning turbine or propeller. When comparing the hundreds of complex moving parts in these hot air propulsion systems to an electric motor with one rotor held in a stator by two bearings it is possible to imagine the reduced manufacturing and maintenance costs that might be realized in a system with much higher reliability.
Distributed Electric Propulsion:
Engineering requires designing under constraints. Since its inception, powered flight engineering has been highly constrained by finding the right location for a large engine with its associated fluids and mechanical systems. Using distributed electric propulsion with a broad range of engine sizes that can be put in various locations the engineering constraints reduce dramatically and enable the developer to create more efficient and revolutionary designs.
Radical New Design:
The ability to distribute mechanically simple electric motors of a desired size on an advanced material structure and precisely control those motors with light, small, low-power micro-electronics creates a vast new design tradespace, opening a whole new world of possibilities. The images of newly flown prototypes show the radical design opportunities.
By understanding the basic physics behind these new technologies it becomes clear that ORBs offer an opportunity for safer, simpler, more affordable, readily available, quieter and cleaner air transportation. This might be the reason that the number of published articles on this technology and its potential uses has more than doubled in 2017. Besides the physics and public interest, data show a potential phase-shift in aviation technology.
In just the last few months, engineers and flight test professionals have successfully prototyped and conducted first flights of ORBs. Most of them are being done with commercial funding to develop one to six person vehicles for a new airborne urban mobility market. Two of them are preparing for production by the end of 2017. A dozen more are currently being prototyped for first flights over the coming months in a fierce competition between startups as well as large firms like Airbus, Bell, Embraer and Uber. Additionally, vast venture capital and highly-talented human capital is rapidly flowing into these endeavors. Finally, major CEOs, billionaires, and politicians are risking personal credibility supporting ORB projects. These are market perturbations that few would have predicted five years ago and might indicate the degree of potential disruption in the aerospace market in the near future.
Opportunity click here
*ORB etymology: The Latin word “omnibus” means “for all.” In the early 19th century, it was adopted as the English word to describe a four-wheeled public vehicle with seats for passengers, i.e. transportation that was meant for all. Later it was abbreviated as “bus.” By the 20th century the term was used in other ways, e.g. “Universal Serial Bus (USBs)” for computers and “satellite bus” for spacecraft. In that sense, there is the implication of modularity of attachments or payloads. Frequently, in public policy, the term omnibus is associated a single piece of legislation that combines a variety of provisions that might not necessarily be related into a single bill. The name Omni Requirements Bus (ORB) incorporates all those meanings as a transportation system that is meant for all. It could fulfill the needs of many users as modular system for a broad set of unrelated requirements. The acronym ORB, a round object, gives deference to “The Jetsons” and their animated orb-shaped vehicles of the future.