School of Engineering

Aerospace Engineering

F16 aircraft in level flightVision

Working at the heart of the UK aerospace eco-system, the Aerospace group provides transformative advances in aeronautics and space technology for the 21st century.

The group integrates fundamental advances across specific disciplines to deliver new architectures for affordable, sustainable, and innovative air transport and space operations.

Scholarly academic leadership, complementary discipline expertise, powerful software, and the School numerical and experimental facilities grow hand in glove to deliver aerospace industry transformative advances.

Strategy and strands

The Aerospace research group brings together the School of Engineering disciplines in the aeronautical and space research themes of:

  • Autonomous air vehicles
  • Electrically powered aircraft
  • Green propulsion
  • Laminar-turbulent flow control
  • Silent flight
  • Satellite technology

Current research projects

The group is keen to lead or take part in collaborative research projects and consortia. Informal discussions can be initiated with either the Head of Group or any of the group members directly.

AeroTraNet2 - FP7 Aeronautical Training Network

European Coordinator

Aldo Rona, BEng, PhD, SFHEA, Associate Professor, Head of Group

Project work packages

  • WP1: Leicester: CFD of jets with strong shock-associated noise
  • WP2: Cerfacs: LES of dual-flux coaxial jets
  • WP3: UNIROMA TRE: Wavelets and velocity-pressure analysis methods
  • WP4: VKI: Dual flux jet experiments
  • WP5: IMFT: Jet shear layer instability and ad joint techniques
  • WP6: GE Power: Knowledge management and uncertainty quantification
  • WP7: INSEAN: Pressure-velocity coupling experiments
  • WP8: Airbus France: Cross-read with flight test data
  • WP9: U. Greenwich: Reduced order parametrized models

Main results

  • 9PhD's
  • ANTARES noise extractor
  • Shock-associated noise
  • Knowledge capturing GE tool
  • Dual stream jet receptivity map

Autonomous decision making - autonomous air traffic control

Lead

Xuefang Wang, BSc, PhD, FHEA, Lecture in Control Engineering

Project work packages

  • WP1: Decision making for autonomous vehicles
  • WP3: Drone landing - conflicts between objective and safety
  • WP4: Safety-critical cooperative control algorithms design

Main results

  • Between 07/2021 - 09/2023
  • Publications/workshops
  • Intelligent algorithms designed based on AI and machine learning can dynamically manage low-altitude air traffic
  • Drones and other aerial vehicles can operate autonomously with the help of onboard AI systems
  • Hierarchical high-level decision-making framework (Future air mobility systems: High-level decision making + Path planner + Low-level control).

New Investigator Award EPSRC - Determining the Effects of Competing Instabilities in Complex Rotating Boundary Layers

Principal Investigator

Dr Zahir Hussain, BA, MA (Cantab), PhD, MRAeS, FHEA, Lecturer in Fluid Dynamics, National Lead of the Boundary Layers and Complex Rotating Flows UKFN SIG 

 

Project work packages 

  • WP1: Neutral stability analyses for complex geometries
  • WP2: Energy analyses and flow dissipation
  • WP3: Competing effects of crossflow and centrifugal instabilities

Main results

  • Chebyshev Spectral Solver (CheSS)
  • Competing Boundary Layer Instabilities
  • Complex 3D geometry neutral stability curves

Royal Academy of Engineering - Self-Monitoring and Resilient Control for Electrified Powertrain

At the limits of adaptive systems: constrained adaptive control

Co-Investigator
Emmanuel Prempain, PhD, Associate Professor in Control

Adaptive control systems are able to adapt themselves to changes by using algorithms which update their parameters; simply put, they are self-tuning controllers.
This is a very appealing feature and, in principle, allows a controller to evolve in order to enhance its performance or to increase its tolerance to uncertainties.
In some niche aerospace applications, adaptive controllers have proven to be very successful.
At the same time all control systems have limits on the "input" they apply to a system. If these limits are not accounted for properly in controller design, they can cause the system performance to degrade and may even drive it to instability.
This research was the first to address the gap in handling input constraints for adaptive control systems.

 

Tailplane stall study - Electrically powered aircraft, autonomous air vehicles

Nadjim Horri, MEng, PhD, FHEA, Lecturer in Aerospace Control

Project work packages

  • WP1 – Static stability analysis and derivation of the tail efficiency factors, M. Bromfield (Now Birmingham University), PI.
  • WP2 - Flight dynamics and simulation analysis for different tail efficiency factors, N. Horri, CoI.

Main results

  • Between 03/2019 and 03/2021
  • Coventry University and AIBN

Additionally, members of the Aerospace Engineering group also participate in projects and research within the Green Energy Technologies and Systems group, such as:

  • ERA – Hydex, Energy Research Accelerator, University of Leicester Lead.
  • EPSRC-DTP programme, Project 2438289 (2020-2024).
  • Hi-Scale: From Materials to Devices - European Cooperation in Science and Technology, COST Action project CA19108. WG1 lead.
  • EPSRC Superfem, Project No. EP/S025707/1. Superconducting Ferromagnetic Metamaterials Enabling the Development of Resilient High Voltage/High Current Transmission Systems (SuperFem).
  • Solar Boost British Council Newton Fund, Project No. 413871894. Boosting solar energy capacity of Indonesia without compromising protected areas: an integrated GIS tailoring solar energy resource and local information.

Academic staff

Head of Group

Lecturers and Associate Professors

Affiliates

Honorary and Emeritus

  • Emeritus Professor Mike Warrington
  • Emeritus Professor Christopher L Morfey
  • Honorary Professor Antonio F. Corno
  • Honorary Fellow Dr David Adebayo
  • Honorary Fellow Dr Hakim Kadhim 

PhD applications

The group welcomes students to study for PhD degrees in any of its research areas. Informal discussion can be made with either the Head of Group or any of the Aerospace engineering group members directly. Details of potential research topics can be found in the websites of Aerospace engineering group members.

For details of the application procedure, please contact Mrs Michelle Pryce. Learn more and apply for a Research degree in Engineering.

Computational and Experimental Facilities

The Group’s aerospace research combines analytical, experimental, and computational approaches, supported by the Mechanical Workshop, the Electrical Workshop, and Technical Services staff. Research facilities include:

  • An 800 psi compressed air system, and associated 8 m3 storage system rated at 600 psi.
  • The Charles Wilson wind tunnel, a low turbulence intensity closed loop tunnel with an aerodynamic test section, and an environmental test section.
  • The integrated energy storage testing and verification laboratory, with 67kWh battery storage (30 kW rated) and 33 kWh supercapacitors (15 kW rated)
    Commercial CFD packages including ANSYS FLUENT, and Star-CCM+ are available for industrially-relevant work. Open-source packages including OpenFOAM, and bespoke academic codes are used for academic research.
    The Group uses the University of Leicester Tier 3 Research Computing cluster, the Tier 2 CPU-GPU regional cluster SULIS, funded by the UKRI World Class Laboratories Fund and the HPC Midlands Plus consortium, and the UK national supercomputing service.

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