68 Dossier | Suter Industries of the UAV industry has motivated the Swiss company to invest heavily in production and testing systems principally for its aviation engines. Now an established engine manufacturer with multiple, long-term UAV OEM customers, Suter invited us to visit its facilities in Turbenthal to see firsthand how it has organised its production processes and machinery to meet the growing needs of the uncrewed aviation industry, and the ways in which its engine portfolio has evolved to power UAVs to new heights. Manufacturing and QC A careful selection of components has enabled Suter to commit to stock from long-term suppliers. For instance, across all four engines (and others in development), the company uses the same number and selection of high-end titanium bolts, which it lauds for being machined into pieces with consistent tolerances and light weight. Additionally, since our previous feature, the Swiss company has moved away from safety wire and towards aviation-certified safety cable, the latter being far easier to handle in terms of user-friendliness, intuitiveness and time-savings. On the subject of supply, Dietrich Kehe, CEO of Suter Aviation, adds: “One key feature now of our ECU system is that no electronic components out of China or Taiwan are used. Not to be pessimistic, but if you saw what happened to global supply lines during COVID, you should know it’s only a matter of time before supply chains stretching halfway around the world get ruined again. It makes it harder to source electronics, for sure, but there are ways to make it work if you look hard enough.” As of writing, Suter has two production facilities at its Turbenthal HQ, the second having been opened very recently to expand manufacturing and testing throughputs beyond those of the former (which has largely reached capacity), with some limited and proprietary elements of production already taking place at the new facility. Entering the main facility, one finds two rooms populated by computers: a design room for simulations, including high-density CFD and FEM analysis, followed by a CNC machine programming room. Engineers in the former principally feed parts for new projects and new iterations of existing components into the latter, from which the CNC engineers write instructions for the metal-cutting machines to execute. As the company produces engines intended for high-end, certifiable uncrewed aircraft, made by February/March 2025 | Uncrewed Systems Technology Suter Industries was originally founded in 1996, as Suter Racing Products, by former Grand Prix motorcycle roadracer Eskil Suter and his brother, Simon. It went on to rebrand as Suter Industries in 2017, to better reflect its mix of activities across motorsport, aviation, and electric and hybrid powertrain technologies. In the decade following its foundation, Suter cut its teeth on several high-profile projects across motorcycle racing, including the design and build of the engine for the Petronas FP1 in the Superbike world championship in 2002, the Kawasaki MotoGP motorcycle in 2004 and the Ilmor X3 MotoGP motorcycle in 2006. The company has also partnered the motorsport teams of BMW and Mahindra, and it most notably won the Moto2 World Constructors’ Championship in 2010, 2011 and 2012 with the Suter MMX-2 motorcycle. In 2010, the company commenced design and development of a new engine for aviation, optimising its power-to-weight and power-to-volume ratios, gradually also tackling its TBO and fuel efficiency, among other key parameters. It went on to officially launch and productionise its first aviation engine product, the TOA 288, in 2019. As indicated, Suter also contributes significant r&d into advanced clean powertrain technologies, productionising an aircraft APU in 2017. The company quotes having achieved 16% reductions in fuel consumption across projects centred around hybridising ICEs, and it continues to be involved in cutting-edge research of such powertrains today, including one focused on hydrogen-powered aircraft development with ETH Zurich. Suter: company history and activities Suter has had numerous successes in motorcycle racing which have informed its engineering of high-performance aviation engines
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