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Solar Impulse

 

Altran is the engineering partner of Solar Impulse, a one of a kind airplane project piloted by Bertrand Piccard. A Franco-Swiss team of consultants from the Altran Group is playing a key role in Piccard's team in Paris, Lausanne and Zurich. 


The engineering partnership binding Altran to the Solar Impulse project covers a number of tasks: 

  • First of all, a team of consultants is assisting with the development of an aircraft flight simulator. The objectives are to study the various possible solutions for the construction of the aircraft and then to proceed with virtual flights.
    The main difficulty is the huge number of construction parameters which total about 1,500. Owing to this level of complexity, it is impossible to assess every potential solution and so special probability analysis methods are called for. Flight simulations are conducted in real weather conditions and are therefore based on data supplied by the flight routers which, in this case, means meteorologists. The virtual maiden flight - a round-the-world trip starting and finishing in Dubai - took place in May. As a result, the effects of meteorological parameters are now better understood and it has been possible to start developing flight tactics. Track the flight live from the mission control room (with webcams, flightlog, maps, data…): Solar Impulse virtual flight. 
  • Altran is also responsible for designing the project's energy section which includes solar cells, batteries, electric motors and energy management (computers, controllers, etc.).
  • In addition, Altran is working on cockpit avionics. As there are severe weight and power consumption restrictions, this entails determining what instruments are required in the cockpit (for communications, navigation and safety, etc.).
  • On top of that, the Altran team is providing assistance with project management - or how to provide the team with optimal guarantees as regards project organisation, task sharing, planning and documentation. Altran experts are also inputting their expertise in systems engineering.