How Formula One teams are helping to accelerate innovation in aerospace. TIM ROBINSON finds out more.

Split-second timings, hyper-intense competition and a focus on pushing the boundaries of technology. This description might apply to many sectors in aerospace but also to the ultimate high-speed motorsport – Formula One – a global enterprise with an audience of millions. While aerodynamics, CFD and wind-tunnels are the obvious factors in common between Formula One and aerospace – these racing teams are now putting their expertise and technology from high-pressure motorsport into aviation and other sectors.

Williams Advanced Engineering

The FW-EVX chassis is a showcase electric vehicle demonstrator for Williams power and composite technology.

One such racing team is Williams, based near Oxford, which has in its past seen such driving legends as Nigel Mansell, Damon Hill, Nelson Piquet, Ayrton Senna and Jacques Villeneuve to win trophies and acclaim. Formed by Sir Frank Williams in 1967 the team spun off Williams Advanced Engineering as its own ‘Skunk Works’ technology arm. Tracing its origin from projects in adjacent areas of motorsport (such as rallying with the Metro 6R4 rally), Williams Advanced Engineered has now expanded to work on technology challenges that range from hybrid-electric supercars, to HAPS UAVs and even aerodynamically optimised supermarket fridges.

Says Paul McNamara, Technical Director at WAE: “The resources we have in terms of facilities, people and R&D, can be utilised outside of Formula One. So the Advanced Engineering business was set up to facilitate that and has three purposes. One, a commercial purpose, to use the assets, the machine shops, the 3D printers, the simulators, the wind tunnels, the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) capability and the general materials capability. A second purpose is make to Williams a unique proposition for working with our partners or sponsors, because you can work with the Advanced Engineering business and directly benefit from the technology and approach in your business, not just marketing. Then the third factor of our business is effectively it provides an outreach beyond the Formula One community that may allow us to bring in materials, ideas, and concepts from other industries, such as aerospace, military and mainstream automotive, that in turn, benefit back to Formula One and the innovations that we can do here.”

In parallel, the push towards electric cars and the growth of Formula E as a motorsport to help drive this technology has also seen Williams develop extensive experience in batteries, power storage and power management – building on experience developing the Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) that was introduced in F1 in 2009. Between the start of Formula E in 2014 and the end of season 4 in 2018, WAE was the sole supplier of battery systems for the entire Formula E grid teams. These lithium-ion batteries not only needed to power Formula E cars at 225kph, but also were required to meet stringent FIA crash testing regulations. This technology (which only saw two on-track failures in four years of racing) saw WAE win a Queen's Award for Enterprise in Innovation in 2018 for these batteries.

As might be expected, WAE is also involved in transferring its Formula One expertise in advanced materials and batteries to other related automotive partners. For example, it has worked with Jaguar to develop the C-X75 hybrid supercar in just 18 months – which has a top speed of over 200mph, yet the emissions of a Toyota Prius. WAE built six C-X75 supercars to star in the 2015 Bond film, Spectre.

Another automotive partnership has seen WAE partner with Unipart Manufacturing Group this year, to launch the UK’s largest independent vehicle battery manufacturer Hyperbat. The first customer is Aston Martin, which will use these batteries in its first all-electric car -the upcoming Rapide E.

As a showcase for its battery and advanced materials technology for the electric automotive industry, WAE has created the FW-EVX, an integrated vehicle chassis, battery and power demonstrator that is 40% lighter than a typical EV chassis. It features thermodynamic cooling features built-in to the carbon fibre chassis which also uses two of WAE's latest advanced composites – RACETRACK (high volume 500,000 units from a press, per annum resin transfer moulding technology) and 223TM (‘foldable’ composite that can be stored flat before being turned into a 3D shape).

This expertise is now proving to be in high demand outside F1 and automotive as aerospace (and other industries such as defence) move towards hybrid-electric technology, or need cutting-edge, low-weight composites with innovative features.

Zephyr

High speed motorsport helps out one of the slowest aircraft - Airbus Defence's solar-powered Zephyr UAV. (Airbus Defence)

For example, WAE has been partnering with Airbus Defence for about two years now to assist in the development of its Zephyr solar-powered UAV, which earlier this year shattered the absolute endurance record by staying aloft for 25 days in the summer. Says McNamara: “They came to us. They had an issue that they wanted us to look at and knew they needed to improve their energy storage. They became aware of us through motor sport, electric motor sport, Formula E, and thought okay, come and have a chat with us.”

In particular, Airbus were keen to engage William’s expertise on a challenging problem of how to manage the battery cells – which for a stratospheric UAV flying at 70,000ft experience extremes in temperature and pressure. While the flattened battery cell is not soft, it is not rigid either, and thus the volume can expand depending on the charge and pressure. With Williams experience in battery management systems, keeping them a certain temperature, monitoring them, and designing cases, “it was about us designing a case that allowed us to control the pressure in the cell across state of charge and across the altitude” says McNamara.

This assistance not only covers batteries and power management, but also allows Airbus to tap into WAE's other areas. Says Stuart Olden, Business Development Director, Defence and Security, WAE: “under the MoU we're also engaging with them on lightweight structures for the platform as well. They're quite interested in keeping abreast of technology and materials, both on the cell chemistry side and on the composites side, as they go forward to understand how they can progress the life of the platform.”

Composite cockpits

BAE Systems' new simulation centre has a adaptable simulator cockpit from Williams as its centrepiece. (Williams Advanced Engineering)

Another aerospace company tapping into William Advanced Engineering is BAE Systems, which used the company to help design and develop its new simulation and training centre and, earlier this week, signed a milestone agreement to pursue a long-term partnership in technology, skills and expertise, such as cockpit designs, augmented reality and advanced materials.

Williams was first brought to supercharge BAE Systems Warton training and simulation centre with its F1 magic. BAE wanted to have, as the centrepiece of this facility, a highly adaptable, multifunction flight simulator cockpit, that could be quickly reconfigured to replicate Hawk, Typhoon, F-35 or advanced designs still on BAE drawing boards. Explains Olden: “We've been engaged with them for maybe three years now, helping them with the design of their training simulator facility up in Warton. And have done, I think it's three or four simulator platforms for them now.” After building a Hawk cockpit initially, Williams were brought back again. Says Olden: “they wanted to look at an alternate simulator that assists them with ergonomic assessment and trials for different customers. So they wanted to have something that they would be able to adapt and move around. The relationship of that with Formula One drivers and racing seats, and being quite adaptable and manage that process.”

“Then the final one, that we just delivered, was a training simulator, but also it had to be modular, because they wanted to utilise it for future upgrades of that particular aircraft. So they wanted to be able to change the panels around inside, they wanted to be able to change the look and feel of the cockpit, whether it was digital displays, or going back to traditional displays, depending on who they were engaging with at the time. They also wanted to use it for ergonomics, and they wanted to use it for a demonstrator. So it had to be a number of different things to different customers and activities that were undertaken.”

“I think that modular, flexible approach again played into our hands. We are used to being quite adaptable in changing what we're delivering for our racing teams on a regular basis” he says.

Interestingly, this partnership was sparked by a BAE visit to Williams’ F1 simulators and impressive museum, were an idea was sparked about a simulator centre that could not only be used as an engineering resource but also as a customer ‘showroom’ to assist in marketing its aircraft and training solutions. Says McNamara: “They were interested in how they could re-engineer their simulator room so it was sort of a bit of a selling tool to their potential customers as well, which we do a certain amount of that.” This then moved on from styling to driver and pilot ergonomics “it got progressively more technical” notes McNamara.

With the latest agreement, this collaboration with BAE is now set to expand even further. It also has wider ramifications in that with BAE Systems now involved in the most significant UK military aircraft design project in 40 years, tapping into cutting-edge expertise and technology from outside the traditional aerospace sector will be key in delivering Team Tempest as part of the UK’s Combat Air Strategy.

Baby pods and F1-inspired fridges

The BabyPod uses crash resistant F1 technology to protect infants. (Williams Advanced Engineering)

Other defence customers include General Dynamics, which is using Williams’ power and data distribution and management system on the British Army’s new Ajax armoured scout vehicle – the first ever fully digitised AFV for the Army. Thales, meanwhile, has used WAE’s wind tunnels to test and refine a new bio-warfare detector, the Biological Surveillance and Collector System (BSCS).

WAE’s innovation has also been applied to other, more unusual uses. Its BabyPod, for example, leverages the teams expertise in crumple-proof safety zones for F1 drivers to survive high-speed crashes, into an almost-indestructible composite medical transport pod for infants. Strapped into an ambulance or EMS helicopter, this provides an ultra-safe way of protecting babies during rapid emergency transport.

Another unlikely beneficiary of F1 aerodynamics are supermarket fridges. Jointly developed by Aerofoil Energy and WAE, it uses miniature F1 car wing style aerofoils in front of the shelves which help to keep cool air inside the fridge. This simple device, which also can be easily fitted to older fridges, can save 30% of a supermarket’s annual energy costs.

This technology flow from F1 to other sectors is also not all one way. One company that Williams has invested in, via its Foresight Williams Technology Fund ,is Geospatial Insight, based in Oxford’s Harwell Cluster, that has the potential to help F1 drivers come first by using satellite imagery analysis of tracks.

And, with the intense competition and rivalry in Formula One, protecting car and technical secrets is a top priority – and Thales has been helping Williams in reinforcing its cybersecurity.

EVTOLs - a huge target

Future business opportunity?

Williams believe that there will be big opportunities in the fast-growing eVTOL sector of aerospace. Its expertise in electric power systems and in lightweight structural composites that combine several functions are tailor made for this fast growing sector – and WAE already sits on ADS’ Urban Mobility Group. Says McNamara: “we're quite interested in these sort of electrical airborne taxi-type concepts. Because it does potentially bring together our lightweight story, because you can deploy lightweight structures in those, as well as lightweight battery concepts. It is a natural area of interest for us.”

Opportunities for Williams in the eVTOL revolution not only involve the ‘air taxis’ themselves, but also the whole electric power infrastructure that might be needed to quickly recharge (or swap) batteries at future ‘vertiports’. Says: Olden: “ We're engaged quite heavily looking at not only the platform itself but also the infrastructure elements. There will be a huge demand obviously for the charging of these platforms. That's where our battery technology, rapid charging capability comes in, to be able to integrate the battery technology into those ground stations. So we are looking at basically on and off platform technology. The eVTOL market is a huge target. And we are talking to a number of people in that market.”

Big Data and NATS

Using F1 racing analytics to speed up the UK's airspace. (NATS)

It is not just Williams that has been the only F1 team that is aiming to accelerate innovation in aerospace. In November, UK air traffic service provider NATS and McLaren Deloitte – a big data spin-off from the F1 team, announced a partnership to bring racing data analytics to air traffic management, to speed up and optimise traffic flow. In every F1 race, McLaren will predict and model millions of variables to give its drivers the advantage. This expertise, combined with Deloitte’s analytics, will now be applied in model airspace flow and tactical decisions by ATM controllers to optimise airspace capacity and cut delays.





Summary

Williams F1 visitor centre - the worlds largest private collection of F1 cars.

Formula One, is not just a motorsport that thrills fans around the world – but has in the past pioneered many technologies and advances that eventually end up in everyday cars. Today, however, the faster pace of change, and the coming electric revolution in automotive and aviation, along with advanced materials and big data, means that there are even more opportunities and areas where F1’s relentless quest for speed can accelerate innovation.

Tim Robinson

