The German Aerospace Center (DLR) has agreed on closer collaboration with Japanese partners in electric aircraft and air traffic management. Two agreements will strengthen the cooperation between DLR and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

An additional cooperation agreement has been signed with the Electronic Navigation Research Institute (ENRI) in Japan.

Rolf Henke, DLR Executive Board Member responsible for Aeronautics Research, signed the agreements during a trip to Japan at the end of March. DLR and JAXA signed a strategic partnership in 2016, and the German centre says it is currently conducting joint research with Japanese partners on more than 50 projects.

The newly signed agreements involve:

• Electric aircraft

DLR and JAXA have agreed to cooperate closely on small, electrically powered aircraft, particularly in terms of safety and certification for hydrogen-based fuel cell systems. They also intend to investigate hybrid concepts using several propulsion technologies.

• Air traffic management

DLR has signed a cooperation agreement defining future collaboration in air traffic management research with the Japanese research institute ENRI. Joint activities in air traffic management on the ground and in the air, communication and navigation, as well as the influence of weather on air traffic, will be defined more closely in individual, project-based cooperation agreements.

• Reducing the sonic boom

DLR, JAXA and ONERA, the French aerospace research agency, have entered into a trilateral agreement to research the sonic boom. The cooperation will investigate how a sophisticated shaping of the aircraft could produce maximum reduction in sonic boom, and which applications would therefore be conceivable for civilian ultrasonic aircraft.