Endowment of the Institute

The Institute for Rotorcraft and Vertical Flight (formerly, Institute for Helicopter Technology) was founded in 2010 as an investment in high-quality engineering education by the company Eurocopter (now Airbus Helicopters). Therefore, it grants unique conditions for the close collaboration of academic education, basic research and applied engineering.

In both research and education, the Institute for Rotorcraft and Vertical Flight at TU München focuses on the overall system of the helicopter, while certain components such as the rotor system are analyzed in more detail. The classes offered by the department build on the more fundamental mechanical and aeronautical engineering classes of the aerospace curriculum, such as mechanics, thermodynamics, aerodynamics, control engineering. Within the focus area of vertical take-off and landing technology, these fundamentals are taken to the next level and being applied to the helicopters and VTOLs. Furthermore, helicopter-specific challenges are addressed in research and education, including helicopter aerodynamics and dynamics, flight mechanics and controls, design and architecture, systems engineering and certification.

Helicopter Design and Architecture

• Design and architecture methodology

• Design and architecture of unmanned systems

• Hybrid / electric propulsion concepts

Helicopter Systems

• Electro-mechanical actuator applications in flight controls

• Fiber-optic measurement system for flight state recognition

Flight Simulation

• Real time simulation of rotor downwash

• Highly realistic simulation of terrain, environment and obstacles for flight training

Physical Modeling

• Aeroelastic blade analysis

• Unsteady aerodynamics

• Nonlinear structural dynamics

• Rotor-Fuselage coupling phenomena

Flight Control

• Non-linear adaptive flight control
   
• Flight path and trajectory optimization