CSIR-National Aerospace Laboratories Awards Challenging Electric Motor Design Contract to PMW Dynamics in partnership with ASPERA International

CSIR-National Aerospace Laboratories (CSIR-NAL), Bangalore, part of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), under the Ministry of Science and Technology, India, is the sole government aerospace R&D laboratory in the country's civilian sector. CSIR-NAL is focused on advanced disciplines in aerospace and is currently entrusted with the responsibility of design & development of a solar powered High-Altitude Platform (HAP) unmanned stratospheric aircraft.

CSIR-NAL have embarked on a challenging application to design and develop a high altitude, long endurance, autonomous ariel platform. The High Altitude Platform (HAP) Technology Demonstrator is a 150 Kgs, fixed wing platform with a wingspan of approx. 30 metres designed to operate in the stratosphere (operating altitude of 20 km) as a low altitude pseudo-satellite platform carrying a payload of up to 10 Kgs. The goal for this vehicle is to enable communication in rural areas through non-terrestrial networks and to provide remote sensing, agricultural support systems and disaster monitoring capabilities. Recently CSIR-NAL flew their sub-scale 12m wingspan aircraft to an altitude of 25,000 feet with a flight duration of 11 hours and plan to have the full-scale aircraft for a first flight by December 2025.

The propulsion system will rely on twin electric motors to be developed by PMW Dynamics in the UK to drive dual 2.0 metre diameter carbon fibre propellors. 

In keeping with the objective of the Indian Government towards enhancing the capabilities of Indian industry and in full alignment with the Government of India’s visionary “Make in India” initiative, PMW Dynamics have partnered with ASPERA International in Pune, India, to deliver specialist manufacturing capabilities in India’s advanced aerospace sector. Nikhil Deshpande, Managing Partner & CEO of ASPERA International, remarked, “India is witnessing transformative growth across all technological domains, from marine to aerospace. We are thrilled to collaborate with PMW Dynamics to provide a world-class solution to NAL, embodying a ‘designed in the UK, manufactured in India’ ethos.”

PMW Dynamics, headquartered in Alton, UK, has a long history of developing bespoke motor designs for challenging applications across a number of highly demanding market sectors including defence, aerospace, medical, robotics, AGV and AMR. PMW Dynamics’ in-house design team provide full design and build capabilities commencing with detailed electro-magnetic and thermal modelling. A modern brushless motor has literally hundreds of highly interrelated parameters all of which need to be fully harmonised and optimised to provide the solution to a specific application. Unlike others, PMW Dynamics approach is not hampered by pre-selection of “library designs”. Building upon many hundreds of successful designs, PMW Dynamics engineers start each programme with a “blank sheet” without any pre-conceived constraints to ensure each solution fully satisfies the specification presented by each application.

PMW Dynamics boast enviable in-house design verification facilities including a comprehensive suite of sophisticated dynamometers to prove every product delivered is exhaustively verified for optimal performance. “Reach out and challenge the PMW Dynamics design team with your next motor design project” says Jon Howard, Managing Director, “we have thousands of motors in daily service around the world, we have motors at the bottom of the deepest oceans, high-up in the stratosphere and pretty much everywhere else in between. We are thrilled to be working with CSIR-NAL and are fully focused on supplying a fully technical compliant solution, on-time and in-budget.”

For further information, please contact our application specialists on +44 (0) 1420 594 140