Model-Based Technology Roadmapping of Sustainable Aviation Technologies

Abstract

The development of sustainable aviation products, and any products with long-term development cycles, requires the projection of future performance of nascent technologies. Technology roadmapping is a maturing field used by many firms to develop strategy and projects aimed at meeting certain market needs. However, tying together technology improvement rates of key figures of merit with performance of a system including said technology is challenging. Data on technology improvement rates are time-consuming to collect and difficult to decompose into improvement of specific aspects of a technology. Here, using low-temperature polymer electrolyte membrane hydrogen fuel cells as a pilot technology, we demonstrate a method for evaluating technology improvement which utilizes improvement rates mined from patent data in a first principles-based model. We demonstrate the ability to predict a similar technology improvement rate from this bottoms-up approach as is yielded through other methods in the literature and the ability to pinpoint the system parameters that will drive improvement. We discuss the drawbacks of using fuel cells in an aircraft and the organizational considerations required to adopt a broad shift in technology roadmapping approaches in a large firm. This approach reduces the time needed to gather technology improvement rate data from weeks to minutes and links the sensitivity of system performance to improvement rate. In combination with existing approaches to evaluating technology improvement from a top-down perspective, this method can provide insights into what parameters of system have the most potential to improve and meaningfully impact performance. For sustainable aviation technologies, a top-down approach has yielded insight and narrowing of potential pathways toward achieving net zero by 2050. Adding this type of approach to analyses can provide insight for predicting whether technologies may actually achieve performance goals set by the industry and what investments may make the most impact in improving performance. As sustainable aviation gains momentum, quantitative tools such as this one will be needed to make strategic technology investment decisions that will change the next generation of aircraft.