InDiCaT - Intelligent Digital Cabin Twin

Hollistic virtualisation of the product livecycle in aviation with the focus on component manufacturing and cabin modification.

Motivation

Planning of Cabin- and Component-Modifications and retro-fit operations in aviation are currently mostly based on a multitude of documents. These documents are created and constantly adapted during the aircrafts livephases including maintenance, repair and retro-fit operations. Because of uncertainties regarding the completeness, currentness and availability the actual state of the aircraft is often unknown during the planning of these operations. As the documents are mostly unlinked and interconnections not documents the sourcing of the required information is a time-consuming task. Flawed planning and assumptions lead to extensive laytime of the aircraft resulting in higher overall costs.

Objective

The main objective of the project is, to enable a way to gather all required information about the current state of an aircraft-cabin and its components throughout its product life and provide these information to engineering processes in form of a Digital Twin. Additionally, services that are based on these information and enhance or improve engineering processes are explored. In this regards, InDiCaT builds upon the results and experiences of the LuFo V-2 Project Kabine 4.0.

Research Procedure

Based on Data- and Sytemmodels a platform will be developed, that enables the handling of these information. Subsequently services that use, enhance or generate new information and benefit maintenance or engineering processes are explored.

Project Organisation

Principal Investigator (PKT): Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dieter Krause

Co-Investigator: Fabian Laukotka, M.Sc.

The project is part of the Field of Application Aviation.

Funding and Partners

The project is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) as part of the sixth Federal Aeronautical Research Program (LUFO VI-1). The project started in 2020 and will continue until December of 2023.

In cooperation with i.a. Lufthansa Technik and 3D.aero as well as the TUHH Institut für Flugzeug-Produktionstechnik (IFPT).

                

Project Poster