Kitekraft - About

Leadership

Florian Bauer

Electrical and control engineer. Electrical Engineering PhD on "Multidisciplinary Optimization of Drag Power Kites" from Technical University of Munich. Published more than a dozen of research papers about flying wind turbine technology. Inventor of 4 patents pending and one granted. Passionate about renewable energies and anything that flies.

CEO

Maximilian Isensee

Renewable energy engineer. Co-founder of climate NGO "Protect Our Winters Germany" which aims to shed light on the climate impact of winter sport activities and how to minimize them. Former start-up consultant at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

head of aerodynamics

André Frirdich

Aerodynamics engineer, graduated in M.Sc. Mechanical Engineering from Technical University of Munich. Focused on aircraft, helicopter, and wind turbine technology. Responsible for aerodynamics, special interest in rotor aerodynamics. Personal motivation powered by the vision of changing the world's energy generation.

head of Business development

Christoph Drexler

Graduated in M.Sc. Mechanical Engineering at Technical University of Munich. Generalist and responsible for the mechanical aspects of Kitekraft's systems. Heavy interest in sustainability, social, and technological advances tackling climate change to which the solutions lie in the "We", not in the "I".

Our Team

Lukas Willinger

Software

Roman Bantling

Control Software

Siddharth Yadav

Manufacturing

Jorris Loepthien

High Power Electronics

Dr. Filippo Campagnolo

Aero-Structural Optimization

research associate, TU Munich

Adrien Guilloré

Life-Cycle Assessment

research associate, TU Munich

Carlo R. Sucameli

Propulsion

research associate, TU Munich

Our Team

Mete Erdem Akin

Manufacturing

Working Student

Tobias Wittmann

Power Electronics

Student

Carlo R. Sucameli

Rotor Aerodynamics

Research Associate (TU Munich)

Adrien Guilloré

Life-Cycle Assessment

Research Associate (TU Munich

Dr. Filippo Campagnolo

Aero-Structural Optimization

Research Associate (TU Munich)

Berkay Silsüpür

Computer Vision

Student

Tobias Hartmann

Power Electronics

Student

Lukas Willinger

Software

Employee

Jorge Córdova

Power Electronics

Employee

Advisors

Prof. Dr. sc. ETH Zürich Marcelo Lobo Heldwein

Professor at the Chair of High-Power Converter Systems, Technical University of Munich

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dr. h.c. Ralph Kennel

Professor (retired) at the Institute for Electrical Drive Systems and Power Electronics, Technical University of Munich

Prof. Carlo Bottasso

Professor for Wind Energy, Technical University of Munich

Bernhard Raberger

Ex-CFO Enerjisa, E.ON (prev. VERBUND)

Publications

Kitekraft's technology is based on scientific research done during Florian's time as a PhD research student at the Technical University of Munich. Here you can find a list of the publications.

Florian Bauer. “Multidisciplinary Optimization of Drag Power Kites”. Dissertation. Technical University of Munich. 2021. Download: PDF.

André Frirdich. “Rotor Design Procedure for a Drag Power Kite”. Master thesis. Technical University of Munich. 2019. Download: PDF.

Christoph Drexler. “Design by Optimization of a Multi-Element Airfoil for
Drag Power Kite”. Master thesis. Technical University of Munich. 2019. Download: PDF.

Lorenzo Fagiano, Manfred Quack, Florian Bauer, Lode Carnel, and Espen Oland. “Autonomous Airborne Wind Energy Systems: Accomplishments and Challenges”. In: Annual Review of Control, Robotics, and Autonomous Systems, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2022. DOI: 10.1146/annurev-control-042820-124658. URL.

Florian Bauer, Hannes Börngen, Ralph M. Kennel. “Power Electronic Topologies of Drag Power Kites”. In: Book of Abstracts of the Airborne Wind Energy Conference 2019. Ed. by Roland Schmehl, and Oliver Tulloch. Delft University of Technology, and University of Strathclyde Glasgow, 2019, pp. 148–151. ISBN: 978-94-6366-213-0. DOI: 10.4233/uuid:57fd203c-e069-11e9-9fcb-441ea15f7c9c. URL. Conference video available from: http://www.awec2019.com. Download: Slides-PDF.

Simon Watson, Alberto Moro, Vera Reis, Charalampos Baniotopoulos, Stephan Barth, Gianni Bartoli, Florian Bauer, Elisa Boelman, Dennis Bosse, Antonello Cherubini, Alessandro Croce, Lorenzo Fagiano, Marco Fontana, Adrian Gambier, Konstantinos Gkoumas, Christopher Golightly, Mikel Iribas Latour, Peter Jamieson, John Kaldellis, Andrew Macdonald, Jimmy Murphy, Michael Muskulus, Francesco Petrini, Luca Pigolotti, Flemming Rasmussen, Philippe Schild, Roland Schmehl, Nafsika Stavridou, John Tande, Nigel Taylor, Thomas Telsnig, Ryan Wiser. “Future emerging technologies in the wind power sector: A European perspective”. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Volume 113. 2019. DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2019.109270. URL. Download: Full Paper-PDF.

Florian Bauer, Daniel Petzold, Ralph M. Kennel, Filippo Campagnolo, and Roland Schmehl. “Control of a Drag Power Kite over the Entire Wind Speed Range”. AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics. July 3, 2019. DOI: 10.2514/1.G004207. URL. Download: Preprint-PDF.

Korbinian Schechner, Florian Bauer, and Christoph M. Hackl. “Nonlinear DC-link PI Control for Airborne Wind Energy Systems During Pumping Mode”. In: Airborne Wind Energy. Advances in Technology Development and Research. Ed. by Roland Schmehl. Green Energy and Technology. Springer, Singapore, 2018, pp. 241–276. ISBN: 978-981-10-1946-3. DOI: 10.1007/978-981-10-1947-0_11. URL.

Florian Bauer, Christoph M. Hackl, Keyue Smedley, and Ralph M. Kennel. “Multicopter-Based Launching and Landing of Lift Power Kites”. In: Airborne Wind Energy. Advances in Technology Development and Research. Ed. by Roland Schmehl. Green Energy and Technology. Springer, Singapore, 2018, pp. 463–489. ISBN: 978-981-10-1946-3. DOI: 10.1007/978-981-10-1947-0_19. URL. Download: Preprint-PDF.

Florian Bauer and Ralph M. Kennel. “Design Sensitivities of Drag Power Kites”. In: 8th Energy Colloquium of the Munich School of Engineering “Advances in Energy Transition”. Ed. by Thomas Hamacher. Garching-Hochbrück, Germany: Technical University of Munich, Munich School of Engineering, July 19, 2018, p. 108. DOI: 10.14459/2018md1449240. URL. Download: Abstract-PDF, Poster-PDF.

Florian Bauer and Ralph M. Kennel. “Fault Tolerant Power Electronic System for Drag Power Kites”. In: Journal of Renewable Energy (Hindawi) 2018 (Apr. 16, 2018). DOI: 10.1155/2018/1306750. URL. Download: Preprint Paper-PDF, Full Paper-PDF.

Florian Bauer, Ralph M. Kennel, Christoph M. Hackl, Filippo Campagnolo, Michael Patt, and Roland Schmehl. “Power Curve and Design Optimization of Drag Power Kites”. In: Book of Abstracts of the Airborne Wind Energy Conference 2017. Ed. by Moriz Diehl, Rachel Leuthold, and Roland Schmehl. Freiburg, Germany: Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg and Delft University of Technology, 2017, pp. 72–73. ISBN: 978-94-6186-846-6. DOI: 10.4233/uuid:4c361ef1-d2d2-4d14-9868-16541f60edc7. URL. Conference video available from: http://www.awec2017.com. Download: Slides-PDF.

Florian Bauer, Ralph M. Kennel, Christoph M. Hackl, Filippo Campagnolo, Michael Patt, and Roland Schmehl. “Drag power kite with very high lift coefficient”. In: Renewable Energy (Elsevier) 118.Supplement C (2018), pp. 290–305. ISSN: 0960-1481. DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2017.10.073. URL. Download: Preprint-PDF.

Florian Bauer, Christoph M. Hackl, Keyue Smedley, and Ralph M. Kennel. “Multicopter With Series Connected Propeller Drives”. In: IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology 26.2 (March 2018), pp. 563–574. ISSN: 1063-6536. DOI: 10.1109/TCST.2017.2679071. URL. Download: Preprint-PDF.

Florian Bauer, Christoph M. Hackl, Keyue Smedley, and Ralph M. Kennel. “‘Virtual’-power-hardware-in-the-loop simulations for crosswind kite power with ground generation”. In: 2016 American Control Conference (ACC). Boston, USA, 2016, pp. 4071–4076. DOI: 10.1109/ACC.2016.7525561. URL. Download: Preprint-PDF.

Florian Bauer. “Airborne Wind Energy – The Future of Wind Energy?” In: IDTechEx Show! Energy Harvesting & Storage. Santa Clara, USA, November 18–19, 2015. URL. Download: Slides-PDF.

Florian Bauer, Christoph M. Hackl, Keyue Smedley, and Ralph M. Kennel. “Crosswind Kite Power with Tower”. In: Airborne Wind Energy. Advances in Technology Development and Research. Ed. by Roland Schmehl. Green Energy and Technology. Springer, Singapore, 2018, pp. 441–462. ISBN: 978-981-10-1946-3. DOI: 10.1007/978-981-10-1947-0_18. URL. Download: Preprint-PDF.

Florian Bauer, Christoph M. Hackl, Keyue Smedley, and Ralph M. Kennel. “On Multicopter-Based Launch and Retrieval Concepts for Lift Mode Operated Power Generating Kites”. In: Book of Abstracts of the International Airborne Wind Energy Conference 2015. Ed. by Roland Schmehl. Delft, The Netherlands: Delft University of Technology, 2015, p. 92–93. ISBN: 978-94-6186-486-4. DOI: 10.4233/uuid:7df59b79-2c6b-4e30-bd58-8454f493bb09. URL. Conference video available from: http://www.awec2015.com/.

Korbinian Schechner, Florian Bauer, and Christoph M. Hackl. “DC-link Control for Airborne Wind Energy Systems During Pumping Mode”. In: Book of Abstracts of the International Airborne Wind Energy Conference 2015. Ed. by Roland Schmehl. Delft, The Netherlands: Delft University of Technology, 2015, p. 39. ISBN: 978-94-6186-486-4. DOI: 10.4233/uuid:7df59b79-2c6b-4e30-bd58-8454f493bb09. URL. Conference video available from: http://www.awec2015.com/.

Florian Bauer. “QtPLC: A C++11 Qt PLC library for a Preempt-RT real time Linux based distributed control system for airborne wind energy”. Master thesis. Technical University of Munich. 2013. Download: Thesis-PDF.

Partners & Awards

During summer 2019 we were accepted into Silicon Valley's Y Combinator.

Since then we've received multiple awards, public, and private funding for our work on a technology relevant to climate change and other topics, such as digitization.

Most recently we got accepted into the RESPOND accelerator.

Other Collaborations

To make the future of wind energy not only more efficient, but also safer and more accepted, we are cooperating with or are members of the following institutions and associations.

Contact Us

About Us

Leadership

Florian Bauer

Florian Bauer

Maximilian Isensee

Maximilian Isensee

André Frirdich

André Frirdich

Christoph Drexler

Christoph Drexler

Our Team

Lukas Willinger

Roman Bantling

Siddharth Yadav

Jorris Loepthien

Dr. Filippo Campagnolo

research associate, TU Munich

Adrien Guilloré

research associate, TU Munich

Carlo R. Sucameli

research associate, TU Munich

Our Team

Mete Erdem Akin

Manufacturing

Working Student

Tobias Wittmann

Power Electronics

Student

Carlo R. Sucameli

Rotor Aerodynamics

Research Associate (TU Munich)

Adrien Guilloré

Life-Cycle Assessment

Research Associate (TU Munich

Dr. Filippo Campagnolo

Aero-Structural Optimization

Research Associate (TU Munich)

Berkay Silsüpür

Computer Vision

Student

Tobias Hartmann

Power Electronics

Student

Lukas Willinger

Software

Employee

Jorge Córdova

Power Electronics

Employee

Advisors

Prof. Dr. sc. ETH Zürich Marcelo Lobo Heldwein

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dr. h.c. Ralph Kennel

Prof. Carlo Bottasso

Bernhard Raberger

Publications

show all publications

Partners & Awards

Other Collaborations

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe program under Grant Agreement No. 101084216

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