Biografie

Roland Schmehl graduated in Mechanical Engineering in 1994 and received a PhD degree in 2003 from Karlsruhe University. He continued his research on computational modeling of multi-phase flows as post-doctoral research fellow and then as propulsion engineer at the European Space Agency, investigating, among others, a start-up anomaly of Ariane 5’s hypergolic upper stage engine. In 2005, he started as software architect with TNO Automotive Safety Solutions in Delft, developing a simulation tool for airbag deployment, and in 2009, joined the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering of Delft University of Technology as associate professor. Leading the pioneering Kite Power research group, he focusses on the multi-disciplinary challenges of airborne wind energy. In 2016, he co-founded with Johannes Peschel the university spin-off company Kitepower BV that develops a 100 kW kite power system.

Expertise

Dr. Schmehl’s areas of expertise are

• airborne wind energy systems,

• airborne wind energy resource and performance modeling,

• flight dynamics of airborne wind energy systems,

• aeroelasticity of flexible membrane wings,

• multi-phase flows.

Starting with his work at TU Delft, Dr. Schmehl has contributed in many ways to the development of the emerging airborne wind energy technology sector. He organized the 6th International Airborne Wind Energy Conference (AWEC 2015) in Delft, and co-organized follow-up conferences in Freiburg (AWEC 2017) and Glasgow (AWEC 2019). He has co-edited and edited two Springer books about the airborne wind energy, published in 2013 and 2018, and is author of more than 80 peer-reviewed scientific publications. He chairs the technical committee “airborne wind energy” of the European Academy of Wind Energy (EAWE) and is a founding director of Airborne Wind Europe, the association of European airborne wind energy industry. He is member of the core team that launched the International Energy Agency’s Wind Task 48 on airborne wind energy in October 2021.

Projecten

Dr. Schmehl has been involved in many national and international research projects, including

• NUMIWING (FP7-CIG-618159): Numerical modelling of inflatable airborne wind energy systems,

• AWESCO (H2020-ITN-642682): Airborne Wind Energy System Modelling, Control and Optimisation,

• REACH (H2020-FTIPilot-691173): Resource Efficient Automatic Conversion of High-Altitude Wind

• VTOL (NWO-Takeoff-17015): Rigid Wing for Airborne Wing Energy

• NEON (NWO-Crossover-17628): New Energy and mobility Outlook for the Netherlands

Prijzen

• Book “Airborne Wind Energy” on place 10 of “100 Best Renewable Energy Books of All Time”, BookAuthority (2021)

• Kitepower featured as one of the ten PostNL & TU Delft Innovation Stamps (2021)

Public Professional Profiles

• LinkedIn

• Twitter

• Orcid

• Publons

• Scopus

• Researchgate

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