Digital Twins: Transforming the Aviation Industry

About the Interviewee: George Karam

Executive Vice President, Imagine 4D Inc.

Mr. Karam is the EVP of Imagine 4D Inc., which includes its subsidiary Simthetiq Inc., where he is responsible for operations and commercializing the business's innovative product offering. Mr. Karam has over 25 years of experience in both small- and medium-sized privately held companies, as well as large, publicly traded organizations, helping them operationalize and commercialize disruptive technologies on a global scale. Prior to joining Imagine 4D Inc. Mr. Karam was the Vice President and General Manager at TRU Simulation & Training (TRU), a Textron Inc. Company, responsible for the company's Air Transport Simulation business unit. Mr. Karam holds a BCom from McGill University and Management certificates from the business schools of Duke University and University of South Carolina.

About Imagine 4D Inc.

Imagine 4D Inc. is a leading company in the development of digital twin technologies for the aviation industry. Through its subsidiary Simthetiq Inc., the company is revolutionizing traditional training and maintenance methods in the aerospace sector through immersive and advanced solutions that precisely replicate real-world assets.

Digital twins represent one of the most significant technological advancements in recent years, fundamentally transforming how industries interact with physical assets and systems. At its core, a digital twin is a virtual representation of a physical object, process, or system that spans its lifecycle and is updated from real-time data for simulation, reasoning, and decision making (Grieves & Vickers, 2017).

These sophisticated virtual models use real-time data, simulation, machine learning, and reasoning to help decision-making. Digital twins continuously learn and update themselves using multiple sources of information to represent their near real-time status, working condition, or position (Tao et al., 2018). The relationship between the physical entity and its digital counterpart is symbiotic - as the physical asset produces data, this information updates the digital twin, providing insights that optimize the physical asset's performance and maintenance.

The applications of digital twins span numerous industries:

• Aerospace: aircraft design, maintenance prediction, and pilot training simulation (Tuegel et al., 2011)

• Manufacturing: optimizing production processes, predictive maintenance, and quality control (Kritzinger et al., 2018)

• Healthcare: creating personalized patient models for treatment planning and medical device testing (Liu et al., 2019)

• Smart Cities: managing infrastructure, traffic flow, and energy consumption (Dembski et al., 2020)

• Energy: optimizing power generation, distribution, and consumption (Jiang et al., 2021)

• Manufacturing: optimizing production processes, predictive maintenance, and quality control (Kritzinger et al., 2018)

  
  

The true power of digital twins lies in their ability to bridge the physical and digital worlds. They enable organizations to monitor, understand, and optimize the performance of assets, processes, and systems without physically interacting with them, reducing costs, improving efficiency, and accelerating innovation.

Interview: Digital Twins in Aviation

1. How are digital twins revolutionizing pilot training beyond traditional simulation methods?

Traditional pilot training methods are focused on flight training using motion enabled flight simulators. The conventional simulators are, of course, essential for pilot training but serve no value to airline operators and aerospace engineering companies in training airplane mechanics, assemblers, airplane maintenance workers, painters, etc. A Digital Twin based airplane model is meant to provide access to an immersive virtual model of the real-world asset and offer training scenarios focusing on airplane assembly and maintenance scenarios as well as access to logistics information, documentation, and work scheduling all from a one-stop-shop environment. The Digital Twin is meant to evolve with the lifecycle of the aircraft and serve as its digital information hub and the training environment.

2. What is the biggest technical challenge in implementing effective digital twins for aviation training?

We believe that the biggest challenge to building an effective digital twin is data... the more data the digital twin can access, the richer the digital twin environment will become in capabilities supporting the airline industry. In other words, while building a digital twin environment and integrating the application features required to service the use cases, attention must be given to getting the necessary permissions to connecting with available enterprise applications and documentation databases. For this purpose, the Imagine 4D Digital Twin Framework, our core technology, serves as the foundational software platform containing the necessary utilities for model updates, enterprise application connectivity, and custom application user interface creation.

Courtesy of: Imace 4D Inc.

3. How can digital twins help reduce costs and improve efficiency in aviation training?

We believe that providing virtual training and maintenance capabilities and the ability to create new scenarios as a real-world asset evolves over its lifecycle will effectively help organizations with major cost reductions in airline operations and maintenance.

4. What role will AI play in the future development of digital twin technology for flight simulation?

Integrating a digital twin with modern AI modules such as Equipment Health Monitoring AI modules would enable the AI model to access a wide variety of design, engineering, and maintenance documentation as well as the operational data of the virtualized aircraft. This ability to connect and compare flight operational data with design specifications would allow the AI model to provide:

• Enhanced predictive maintenance: forecasting equipment failures and reducing unplanned downtime.

• Optimized maintenance costs: Prioritize condition-based maintenance to minimize unnecessary interventions.

• Improve safety and compliance: Maintain peak performance of critical systems through optimal maintenance.

• Streamline operations: Connect and centralize aircraft sensor data for real-time monitoring and analytics to support decision-making.

• Fleet-Wide analytics: Insights across multiple assets for trend analysis and operational planning.

• Dynamic prioritization: Intelligent resource management based on severity and criticality of issues.

  
  

5. How are digital twins helping the aviation industry meet its sustainability goals?

The focus of a digital twin is to optimize workflows and enhance asset operational readiness. Therefore, by definition, the gains in time taken to effectively complete an engineering or maintenance task as well as predictive prevention of equipment failures, for instance, would result in less wastage and energy consumption - helping industry achieve their sustainability goals. 

Courtesy of: Imace 4D Inc.

The Future of Collaboration in Aviation Technology

In the constantly evolving aerospace technology landscape, strategic partnerships are essential for innovation and growth. AviatDo stands out as a crucial consultant in this ecosystem, connecting industry leaders like Imagine 4D with potential partners across the aviation sector. Their expert guidance in developing strategic business relationships has been instrumental in accelerating the adoption of digital twin technologies and expanding market reach. By leveraging AviatDo's extensive network and industry insights, companies can navigate complex business landscapes more effectively and implement transformative strategies that drive substantial technological advancement in the aviation industry.