Digital Twin Development for the Airspace of the Future

Abstract

The UK aviation industry is committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2050 through sustainable measures and one of the key aspects of this effort is the implementation of Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) systems. These UTM systems play a crucial role in enabling the safe and efficient integration of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) into the airspace. As part of the Airspace of the Future (AoF) project, the development and implementation of UTM services have been prioritised. This paper aims to create an environment where routine drone services can operate safely and effectively. To facilitate this, a digital twin of the National Beyond Visual Line of Sight Experimentation Corridor has been created. This digital twin serves as a virtual replica of the corridor and allows for the synthetic testing of unmanned traffic management concepts. The implementation of the digital twin involves both simulated and hybrid flights with real drones. Simulated flights allow for the testing and refinement of UTM services in a controlled environment. Hybrid flights, on the other hand, involve the integration of real drones into the airspace to assess their performance and compatibility with the UTM systems. By leveraging the capabilities of UTM systems and utilising the digital twin for testing, the AoF project aims to advance the development of safer and more efficient drone operations. The Experimentation Corridor has been developed to simulate and test concepts related to managing unmanned traffic. The paper provides a detailed account of the implementation of the digital twin for the AoF project, including simulated and hybrid flights involving real drones.

YOLOTransfer-DT: An Operational Digital Twin Framework with Deep and Transfer Learning for Collision Detection and Situation Awareness in Urban Aerial Mobility

“…The novelty lies in its formal mathematical representation of digital twins as sets of coupled dynamical systems, leveraging Bayesian statistics, control theory, and dynamical systems theory to enable scalable, application-agnostic digital twin implementations across various engineering and scientific domains. The paper [22] outlines the creation of a digital twin for the National Beyond Visual Line of Sight Experimentation Corridor to enable safe and efficient drone operations through synthetic and hybrid flight testing of Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) concepts. The main novelty lies in its detailed design and implementation of a digital twin that integrates both simulated and real drones within a realistic airspace environment, offering a platform for comprehensive testing and validation of UTM services, thereby advancing the development of safer and more efficient drone operations in future airspace systems.…”

“…This study closely aligns with ours by providing an analytical framework for vehicle digital twin development, contrasting our data-driven methodology that utilizes computational fluid analysis. Souanef (2023) [22] details the creation of a digital twin for drone management, aiming to enhance the safety and efficiency of drone operations through a blend of real and simulated drones, focusing on small-scale drones or quadrotors within a realistic simulation framework. In contrast, our work targets air mobility within urban contexts, employing models of passenger transport aircraft.…”

A Hamilton–Jacobi Reachability-Based Minimum Separation Estimation of Integrated Manned and Unmanned Operation in Uncertain Environments

“…Recent progress in the development of UAM vehicles and infrastructures is expanding the use of MUM-T, with the emphasis it places on the use of autonomous systems, UASs, remotely piloted aircraft, and vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft. UTM systems are designed to integrate manned aircraft vehicle (MAV) and unmanned aircraft vehicle (UAV) operations in the same airspace [12], enhancing the safety and efficiency while ensuring minimal human intervention. However, due to the different dynamic characteristics of MAVs and UAVs, the safety guarantee of an MAV and a UAV is more complex than that between two UASs.…”