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AI takes flight: Artificial Intelligence and Aviation

AI has revolutionised the aerospace industry – optimising and refining every aspect from fuel to fighter jets. This article explores some of the ways in which Artificial Intelligence is used in the aerospace industry.

  • Pilot training – AI programs gather and evaluate simulator data for each pilot to develop a personal profile that signposts a pilot’s strengths and weaknesses. This profile can then be used to create a customised training programme for each pilot to hone their unique weaknesses - making the pilot of the future more skilled than the pilot of today, leading to safer skies above us.

  • Fuel efficiency – In today’s global climate crisis, fuel efficiency is paramount to mitigating aircraft emissions. AI models are used by airports to track fuel consumption in the descent phase of a flight (from cruising altitude to landing), which can be utilised to produce an idealised descent profile that reduces fuel consumption (saving up to 500kg of fuel per flight – 39 million kg of fuel per year at a busy airport like Amsterdam Schiphol). Considering that fuel is the most expensive factor of flying– implementing an AI-optimised descent profile both helps the environment and helps reduce ticket costs (as less fuel is needed).

  • Fighter jets – Airbus’ new sixth-generation fighter (Future Combat Air System - FCAS) will implement AI-based control systems when it takes flight in 2025, allowing the FCAS to essentially be a flying hub for a swarm of UAV drones (all connected via the cloud), protecting the skies above us by eliminating aerial threats more efficiently.

  • Generative design – The aircraft designs of the future will be very different to those of today thanks to generative design. Generative design is an AI-based software that mimics nature’s evolutionary approach to design. It involves the designer inputting a ‘problem’ into design software like Autodesk Fusion (inputting limiting parameters like dimensions and weight). The program then uses AI to conjure the best solutions (designs) to the ‘problem’. Generative design produces ‘impossible concepts’ – with complex shapes and lattices that produce a structure lighter, stronger and more aerodynamic than any design produced by a human – not least very different looking. For example, in a collaborative project with Autodesk, generative design was used to redesign the partition between the passenger compartment and the galley on an Airbus A320. The new partition design (see image) took cues from mammal bones - which are dense at points of stress but lighter everywhere else, thereby saving weight but not at the cost of strength. This ‘bionic partition’ took the shape of a lattice structure that is strong, light and minimises the amount of material used. In this way, therefore, the use of generative design will no doubt become pivotal to aircraft design in the not too distant future - becoming progressively more complex with time.

The image above shows the cabin partition designed by Airbus using generative design (Autodesk)

AI is being used to optimise every aspect of the aviation industry and will reshape the future of flying as we know it – thanks to ‘impossible’ aircraft designs, better pilots and greater fuel efficiency. Who knows – maybe the biggest impact of AI on aviation is yet to come….