Abstract
The project “Digital Twin for Human Centered Design of Future Aircraft” aims to develop Human Centered Design (HCD) procedures based on the use of high-fidelity virtual replicas of real aircraft, often referred to as digital twins. The development of the new design procedures will focus on two main targets based on the integration of liveware as the most important part of the digital twins: • the improvement of the cabin comfort for passengers and crew; • the improvement of safety in aircraft operations. With regards to the first goal, it is well established that airliners are paying great attention to the influence of noise and vibrations on the comfort of passengers, viewing comfort as one of the main aircraft quality indicators. On the other hand, noise and vibrations can deeply affect pilots at their workplace inside the cockpit by increasing their psychophysical fatigue, particularly in the case of long-haul flights. Pilot fatigue is one of the most critical issues in aviation human factors, since it can lead to a degradation of the pilot performance thus increasing the likelihood of human error. For this reason, pilot fatigue is considered to be one of the leading causes of aircraft accidents and incidents, and the monitoring of pilot condition and performance is one of the main goals to improve aviation safety. Thus, in the framework of a human-centered design philosophy, flight simulator, extended reality, and refined numerical tools for multiscale structural analyses are integrated to obtain digital twins of the real aircraft, allowing the improvement of the cabin/cockpit comfort as well as aviation safety. To achieve this goal, the project will be articulated into 3 main phases: • implementation of a virtual cabin/cockpit environment by means of extended reality, enabling to evaluate the objective and subjective comfort perception of the different implemented layouts by both passengers and crew; • multi-scale analysis of innovative materials to be used in aircraft structures and vibroacoustic simulation at aircraft level to evaluate the noise reduction with respect to standard materials. By doing so, it will be possible to develop innovative passive treatments for lining panels of cockpit and cabin. • use of a full flight simulator for: o a deep understanding of the influence of noise and vibration on the pilot performance and passengers’ comfort; o the evaluation of the different virtual cabin/cockpit layouts during simulated flight and the associated impact on comfort; o the evaluation of the pilot workload and performance under enhanced comfort conditions in terms of noise reduction coming from the possible use of passive treatments for lining panels.
Project details
Unibo Team Leader: Sara Bagassi
Unibo involved Department/s:
Dipartimento di Ingegneria Industriale
Coordinator:
Politecnico di TORINO(Italy)
Total Unibo Contribution: Euro (EUR) 63.000,00
Project Duration in months: 24
Start Date:
28/09/2023
End Date:
28/02/2026
