SC²I Distinguished Seminar (Joint IoT & INTR Event) | Low and Medium Altitude Hydrogen Turbine Electric Aviation for Remote Sensing, Logistics, and Air Taxi
Drones and air taxi using batteries are not practical. To increase speed, distance, fuel economy, payload, and altitude, I invented a hydrogen gas turbine generator called TReX for Turbine Rocket Experiment.
Using hydrogen as fuel, gas turbine as engine, and my polygon electric generator to power electric turbofans, we achieve a fuel economy of 1kWh per seat per 100 km, better than high speed rail. TReX can fly a distance of 2000km for 8 passengers plus a pilot at speed of 600 km per hour at an altitude up to 5000 meters of a medium altitude.
The breakthrough will be a revolution for aviation. With near vertical take off and landing and a small form factor of 4 meter long and 4 meter wingspan, this blended wing body TReX can go on road and requires no airport, no schedules, no airlines, no passenger aggregation at aviation hubs, and best, no carbon dioxide.
Using carbon fiber composite and 700 bar hydrogen, TReX can go 2000 km on 20 kg of hydrogen. Maximum Take Off Weight (MTOW) is 1 ton for 10 seats, versus 300 tons for 300 seats for A350.
We achieve a 90% reduction per seat of MTOW, and together with hydrogen a 95% reduction of energy usage compared with the 25 kWh per seat per 100 km of A350 and A320 neo.
TReX looks and flies like a short fat rocket with rocket aerodynamics. Level flight has the familiar 3-axis control of pitch, roll, and yaw.
TReX will be a complete paradigm shift for low and mid altitude aviation, allowing convenient, fast, clean, cheap logistics and air taxi over 2000 km distances. AI and IoT will allow safe flying and route planning on demand. Humans and goods can travel 3D in air instead of 2D on roads.
Joseph Y Hui is professor emeritus at Arizona State University. He got his BS, MS, and PhD from MIT on satellite, wireless communications and information theory. His PhD was titled Fundamental Issues of Multiple Accessing.
He worked at Bellcore where he pioneered broadband switching, writing a seminal book on the subject.
At Rutgers University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, he shifted to internet and multimedia communications.
Later at Arizona State University, he worked on virtual and cloud computing. Since 2010 he felt the field of communications and networking is satiated and what the world needs now is the 3E of Energy, Environment, and Education. He wrote an encyclopedic book called What’s the Matter with Energy.