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Volume 01 |
Issue 36 |
March 1, 2021
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Virtual Co-Pilot, Digital Engineering, eVTOL Investment
Welcome back to the Future of Aerospace, where each week we dive into a few of the trends rapidly defining the next generation of aircraft and aerial markets.
Joby Aviation has entered into a definitive business combination agreement with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Reinvent Technology Partners to become publicly traded with a common stock expected to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) upon the close of the transaction. Their CEO, JoeBen Bevirt, posted this video about the deal.
Launcher Rocket Lab plans to go public through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) to finance development of reusable launch vehicle with an 8-ton payload capacity, called Neutron. More on that here.
THIS WEEK: The first virtual co-pilot powered by artificial intelligence (AI) could be ready for next-generation business jet cockpit avionics within the next few years, according to comments made by engineers working on the industrial and regulatory challenges to making AI a reality inside future safety critical aircraft systems.
(AI & Autonomy)
Industry leaders are using digital engineering to advance the development and production of avionics systems. During two panels at the Air Force Association’s Aerospace Warfare Symposium, industry leaders described why digital engineering is necessary and how it is being used at their companies. (Advanced Manufacturing)
Private and public firms, companies, and government agencies are pouring billions of dollars of investments into the emerging electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) and broader Urban Air Mobility industry. In 2020, despite the impact of COVID-19, air mobility companies raised a total of $1.3 billion in private investment, an increase of 80 percent from the pre-COVID year of 2019, according to venture capital research and data provider firm Pitchbook. (Electrification & Sustainability)
Thanks for reading.
— The Future of Aerospace Team
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| Will FlytX Become the Aviation Industry's First Virtual Co-Pilot? |
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Image: Thales
The first virtual co-pilot powered by artificial intelligence (AI) could be ready for next-generation business jet cockpit avionics within the next few years, according to comments made by engineers working on the industrial and regulatory challenges to making AI a reality inside future safety critical aircraft systems.
Eurocontrol hosted the first in a series of "Fly AI" webinars on Feb. 24 designed to foster more collaboration and address the regulatory barriers and challenges that currently exist around establishing a certification path for the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in safety-critical aircraft systems and applications. Baptiste Lefevre, advanced technologies regulation manager for Thales, said that the French avionics supplier first approached EASA about a version of its FlytX cockpit system that will feature an AI assistant back in November 2018.
Certifying Artificial Intelligence for Aircraft Systems
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- Lefevre: “We foresee the development of an augmented pilot assistant by 2025, artificial pilot, reduced operations, or single-pilot operations by 2030, and autonomous aircraft by 2035. And it’s really the basis of EASA to develop their regulatory roadmap and development guidance with first usable guidance in 2021 for human assistant to have first approval by 2025."
- FlytX is an integrated modular avionics system first developed by Thales for the French military's fleet of H160 helicopters. All of the processing power normally stored in an aircraft's electrical equipment bay are eliminated through FlytX’s use of smart displays that provide all necessary computing for all communications, navigation and surveillance applications.
- Lefevre believes a reliance upon science will be key to establishing a regulatory framework for the artificial intelligence that will be featured in FlytX, which will also feature machine learning capabilities.
- On the regulatory side, EASA took its first major step toward developing a regulatory framework where applicants can apply for and demonstrate their AI system's ability to meet safety-critical regulatory certification requirements last year with the release of its first AI roadmap.
- The next milestone in EASA's regulatory framework roadmap comes this year, with the agency expected to provide its first official guidance for the certification of AI-based systems
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Guillaume Soudain, senior software expert for EASA: "We're still on the way to publish it by end of March [or] beginning of April. We're still on time."
Read the full story here.
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| How Aerospace OEMs Are Using Digital Engineering to Advance Aircraft Systems Design |
Image: Boeing
Industry leaders are using digital engineering to advance the development and production of avionics systems. During two panels at the Air Force Association’s Aerospace Warefare Symposium, industry leaders described why digital engineering is necessary and how it is being used at their companies.
“The need to adopt digital engineering in all its forms is not only nice to have, but by any stretch, it's an imperative,” Paul Ferraro, vice president of airpower at Raytheon Missiles & Defense, said. “It's imperative to us as industry partners to remain competitive, but more importantly, it's imperative to design and deliver the weapon systems that we do and make this available to the warfighter in a much more rapid pace.”
Here are some of the ways aerospace OEMs are using digital engineering:
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- Lockheed is using it to shorten development timelines.
“All the engineering in the world and all the airplanes in the world, don't make it to the field if we can't collapse some of those timelines more quickly and I think digital engineering or digital thread and digital twins are key for that and really working in partnership with between the industry and the government on how to make significant progress there,” Renee Pasman, director of integrated systems at Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, said.
- Boeing is using it for maintenance data. “We're all familiar with the idea of a digital thread, but we will have a digital twin for every tail number,” Gayle J. Miller, T-7A chief engineer at Boeing, said. “We'll be able to understand the condition of every aircraft in the fleet, and oh, by the way, every ground-based training system, and every simulator also will have that information. That is going to just break the norm on how we operate and learn from that data.”
- GA-ASI is using it for hybrid-electric propulsion drives.
“Some of the key challenges with that are power, thermal management, electrical design, harmonized with aerothermal design,” Michael S. Atwood, senior director for advanced programs at GA-ASI, said. “Those are incredibly hard disciplines...not only do you have to do those things, but you have to co optimize those things in real-time. And so we've been looking at doing design-driven model-based systems engineering on additive manufacturing for fan blades for hybrid-electric propulsion drives. And so that's been very exciting.”
- L3 Harris is using it for virtual training. “They literally build complete high fidelity digital 3D CAD models of the entire system, using either existing CAD drawings that the program provides, or if pieces of the system aren't modeled, they'll use coordinate measurement machines to scan them in to build those CAD models so they can build this complete virtual system,” David Duggan, president of precision engagement systems at L3Harris Technologies, said. “And then the operators use virtual reality headgear to train their maintenance in this virtual world and it's truly incredible how realistic it is and how realistic those parts are.”
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| eVTOL Investments Will Continue Billion Dollar Trend in 2021 |
Image: Markus Winkler
Private and public firms, companies, and government agencies are pouring billions of dollars of investments into the emerging electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) and broader Urban Air Mobility industry. In 2020, despite the impact of COVID-19, air mobility companies raised a total of $1.3 billion in private investment, an increase of 80 percent from the pre-COVID year of 2019, according to venture capital research and data provider firm Pitchbook.
What're some of the investment trends to watch in 2021?
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- Most experts we talked to agreed that the biggest trend they're watching on the investment side to support assembling and flight testing of eVTOL aircraft, developing electric power, and deploying UAM infrastructure among other things is the entrance of Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) into the space.
- Robin Lineberger, global aerospace and defense leader, Deloitte Consulting LLP: "Over the past several years, we have seen the investment coming from several sources: (1) The traditional aircraft design and manufacturers, particularly those with experience in rotor-wing aircraft, (2) Large technology company funded initiatives, and (3) Venture capital-backed startups. Recently we have seen more involvement from automotive companies and very recently Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) have entered this space. In fact, Archer Aviation Inc. recently announced it was going public with a SPAC called Atlas Crest investment Corp.."
- The capital-intensive, risk-averse nature of startups that need millions of dollars to develop an all-new type of electric-powered air taxi has sparked interest in UAM companies, starting with those making the actual aircraft.
- Asad Hussain, a senior analyst at Pitchbook: "I think 2021 is already being marked by the rise in the SPAC vehicle, as an investment vehicle to take mobility companies public. A lot of the SPAC activity seems to be driven by the potential in these companies that are pre-profit or pre-revenue, highly capital intensive, and probably won't generate returns for some time."
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Pitchbook's latest research notes that the eVTOL companies that have received the largest amounts of investment so far have been those making the actual aircraft. But that could change as more private capital becomes available and investors start to realize the potential value of those other elements such as batteries, infrastructure, and digital services necessary to make passenger-carrying eVTOL operations a reality.
Read the full story here.
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