How Rolls Royce is pioneering power for the future

Technology

Dave Gordon, Senior Vice President UK Business, Rolls-Royce Defence

Amber Waters, Future Programmes Engineer, Rolls-Royce Defence

Niall Barker, Digital Engineer, Rolls-Royce Defence

Jake Thompson, Head of Innovation Products and Service

Rolls-Royce has a mission to innovate efficient and sustainable power solutions to meet customer operational requirements and to protect our planet, secure our world and explore our universe.

The defence business has recently launched its Pioneers of Power campaign, which explores defence growth opportunities outside of the traditional gas turbine and services market. The Pioneers of Power project also explores how Rolls-Royce can contribute to wider objectives such as sustainability, space electrification, and the development of digital technologies.

Sustainability is one of the main pillars of the Pioneers of Power campaign. Across Rolls-Royce there is a drive to accelerate efforts to be net-zero across all operations – and it is on track to reach that goal. One of the company’s primary defence sites in Bristol in the UK is set to achieve net-zero status in 2022. Additionally, the company has committed to reaching net-zero across our whole value chain by 2050.

Rolls-Royce also has a leading role to play in the investment in, and development of, critical technologies that accelerate progress towards a net-zero future for customers. For a power and propulsion company, that means focusing research on electrification, on synthetic aviation fuels (SAF), on microgrid technology, on novel power sources, and the ongoing improvement in reducing fuel consumption in our current products.

Another important pillar of the Pioneers of Power campaign is space exploration. Rolls-Royce is looking at the development of safe and reliable power to enable this: it is the only company in the world with a singular focus on creating mechanical, electrical and nuclear power solutions that will be essential in tackling the challenges of the future. Space is one such challenging and growing sector in which Rolls-Royce believes power, propulsion and thermal management will play a significant role, and as such it is drawing on its existing world-leading engineering pedigree, developed over the past 60 years through the design and manufacture of power for both the Royal Navy’s submarine fleet and civilian power applications.

Underpinning much of what Rolls-Royce aims to achieve through the Pioneers of Power campaign is the development of digital technologies, and we are innovating at every stage of the lifecycle by equipping our world-class engineers with industry-leading digital tools.

This is being done through designing and training in the VR environment, developing AI Computer Vision to aid inspection and introducing asset tracking. Rolls-Royce is also developing cutting-edge design tools and inspection capability, and introducing 3D-printed components into future power systems that improve performance and development time.

Find out how Rolls-Royce is pioneering the power to protect at www.rolls-royce.com