The Challenge

The aeronautical industry is facing growing pressure to increase its efficiency and reduce its overall costs. In particular, aeronautical infrastructures suffer from low efficiency in their life cycle due to missing feedback and communication between the different actors.

Communication, navigation, and surveillance infrastructure rationalization is a key enabler for a safe and cost-efficient air navigation system. However, the lack of real performance information sharing among the different technological actors of the air navigation community (manufacturers, engineering companies, integrators, air navigation service providers, airports), hinders the optimisation of the systems infrastructure sizing and life cycle management. This information fragmentation also prevents the possibility of a wider sharing and valorization of data and knowledge, for instance through other 3rd parties like a specialized consultancy.

The Solution

Aeronautical communications equipment measures their performance based on 3 major KPIs:

• Integrity
• Availability
• Continuity

Issues related to any of these indicators result in Service Interruption and equipment failure. This project and experiment aims at improving the service of communications equipment by creating a digital twin of an Aeronautical voice RADIO equipment which not only provides reliable near-real-time data about its Integrity, Availability, and Continuity but also predicts future values for the same Integrity, Availability and Continuity KPI’s, delivering an invaluable alert-tool for companies to take advance actions affecting the whole life cycle of the product and related services.

This project will set up a base to extend the real-time supervision and analysis of a whole range of air navigation equipment.

Business Projections – Scalability

DTaaS4aero expects this experiment, once finished at a TRL-8, will be implementable in the future to as many communications types of equipment as possible. We are convinced that not only suppliers, integrators, and consultants but also Air Navigation Service Providers, Equipment Manufacturers, and other industry-related parties will be interested in having access to the data space in order to optimize their own specific processes, from product design to customer relationship management.

Real performance information sharing will improve each actor’s performance and life cycle management, thus allowing the air navigation industry to improve its overall performance and maximize safety levels.