NASA Puffin Low Noise, Electric VTOL Personal Air Vehicle

Conceptual design focusing on the ability of a redundant electric propulsion system to provide new capabilities for Vertical Takeoff and Landing aircraft. Specifically utilizing electric motor variable rpm to accomplish a low tipspeed prop-rotor (400 ft/sec tip speed at hover and 200 ft/sec at cruise) to accomplish an order of magnitude reduction in community noise for close proximity operations (30-40 db reduction). The variable rpm capability also achieves a 25% improvement in prop-rotor efficiency thr