Electric nose wheel drive
Electric nose wheel drive
Together with its partners Airbus and Lufthansa Technik, DLR has developed an electrically driven nose wheel powered by a fuel cell. This enables aircraft to move to the runway – or to taxi to their stand – without using their engines. This development can help to significantly reduce pollutant and noise emission. Studies have shown that about 20 percent of the emission of pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and carbon dioxide produced during ground operations at an airport can be avoided. In an initial test conducted in 2011 using the DLR A320 ATRA research aircraft, this nose wheel proved that the electric drive is capable of moving transport aircraft of this size.
