After being placed in the list of top 3 teams for their proposal for engine design competition with the purpose of designing engines for a hybrid electric medium altitude long endurance search and rescue UAV, the Faras team now has won the first place of this competition upon the presentation of their design at the 2019 AIAA forum. Faras team is the first Iranian team to win a top place in the AIAA competition.
The main objectives of the competition were to design an engine for a future version of the hybrid electric search and rescue UAV, with an entry-into-service date of 2025. The future flight envelope should have rangeed from take-off at static sea-level conditions to cruise at 12,500 feet/220 KTAS. The endurance was expected to be extended by reducing the fuel consumption and minimizing engine mass. And the engine was expected to provide a 25% fuel savings to reach a 20+ hour loiter at 7,000ft / 190 KTAS for a long endurance search.
It took the Faras team 10 months to complete and submit their proposal in which the power-to-weight is increased by 67%, 31% fuel saving is provided, and engine mass is reduced by 35% compared with the existing models.