Technical Advances in Aviation Electrification: Enhancing Strategic R&D Investment Analysis through Simulation Decomposition

Abstract

Computational decision-making in “real world” environmental and sustainability contexts frequently requires the need to contrast numerous uncertain factors and difficult-to-capture dimensions. Monte Carlo simulation modelling has frequently been employed to integrate the uncertain inputs and to construct probability distributions of the resulting outputs. Visual analytics and data visualization can be used to support the processing, analyzing, and communicating of the influence of multi-variable uncertainties on the decision-making process. In this paper, the novel Simulation Decomposition (SimDec) analytical technique is used to quantitatively examine carbon emission impacts resulting from a transformation of the aviation industry toward a state of greater airline electrification. SimDec is used to decompose a Monte Carlo model of the flying range of all-electric aircraft based upon improvements to batteries and motor efficiencies. Since SimDec can be run concurrently with any Monte Carlo model with only negligible additional overhead, it can easily be extended into the analysis of any environmental application that employs simulation. This generalizability in conjunction with its straightforward visualizations of complex stochastic uncertainties makes the practical contributions of SimDec very powerful in environmental decision-making.

The Importance of Intelligent Colouring for Simulation Decomposition in Environmental Analysis

“…SimDec reveals previously unrecognized connections between the inputs and the outputs by visually mapping the relative contributions from each scenario onto the output distribution (Kozlova and Yeomans, 2020). This visualization permits the consequences of different combinations of the states to become recognizable to decision-makers in a straightforward manner (Kozlova and Yeomans, 2021). As the states can reflect different degrees of risks, SimDec actually generates important actionable insights to support decision-making.…”

“…This paradox was actually shown to produce ill-designed environmental incentives for the companies. Electrification of regional aviation was analyzed with SimDec through the lens of increased flying range of electric aircraft as a function of improved battery capacity and motor power (Kozlova et al, 2021). As with the previous case (Deviatkin et al, 2021), a critical interaction was revealed via the SimDec analysis.…”

Sustainable Aviation Electrification: A Comprehensive Review of Electric Propulsion System Architectures, Energy Management, and Control

“…Furthermore, a life-cycle-oriented sustainability assessment of emerging aircraft technologies is investigated in [7] to identify these hotspots and problem shifts and provide further guidance for actions aimed at sustainable aviation development at an early stage. Additionally, technical advances in aviation electrification are explored to enhance strategy research and development investment analysis in [8].…”