FEASIBILITY ANALYSIS OF INNOVATIVE PRACTICES IN VIRTUAL TESTING METHODS FOR AIRCRAFT CERTIFICATION

Project Information

FAVIT

Grant agreement ID: 864475

DOI

10.3030/864475

Project closed

EC signature date 25 September 2019

Start date 1 October 2019

End date 31 March 2022

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Smart, Green And Integrated Transport

Total cost

€ 714 250,00

EU contribution

€ 499 975,00

Coordinated by

ORBITAL SISTEMAS AEROESPACIALES SL
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - FAVIT (FEASIBILITY ANALYSIS OF INNOVATIVE PRACTICES IN VIRTUAL TESTING METHODS FOR AIRCRAFT CERTIFICATION)

Reporting period: 2021-01-01 to 2022-03-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

FAVIT main objective has been to deliver a set of knowledge-based proposals for the improvement of aerospace standards and guidelines for the system suppliers and aircraft manufacturers.

FAVIT has tackled the following operative objectives:
O1. To analyse the existing European certification and standards used at aircraft certification: study of the guidelines provided by the standardization groups and certification authorities for certification of new generation aircrafts has been done.
O2. To analyse the current state-of-the-art of virtual testing methods and the challenges related to verification process.
O3. To contact with the main actors in the aeronautical sector to analyse the methods used currently and how the new technologies can improve the certification process.
O4. To develop a methodology and a guide for best practices for virtual testing oriented to enhance certification process for system suppliers and aircraft manufacturers.
O5. To inform certification authorities, research centres and air transport stakeholders about the proposed enhancements for aerospace standards regarding virtual testing and generate a proposal for enhancement of aerospace standards.

Besides, FAVIT project has set the following transversal objectives:
O6. To contribute for a democratization of the aerospace industry, generating new more safety processes but more accessible to SMEs, using MBSE and virtual testing.
O7. To revise the state-of-the-art processes and technologies from other transport sectors (Railway, automotive) to check the potential transferability to the aerospace field.
O8. To promote new standards for the future of the modern aircrafts.

The following conclusions and results have been obtained:
ARP-4754, DO-297, DO-254, DO-178B/C, DO-278 (DO-330 to DO332) standards review has identified various challenges to consider the use of VTTs in certification process of airborne systems:
- Industry standards do not provide guidance for the use of VTEs in certification focusing on real target environments.
- Problem with VTEs is to assure that the real target environment is well reproduced.
- Standards do not offer guidance in how to achieve this equivalence between the two environments
- The fidelity of a VTE to the real environment is dependent on the technology available and the inherent cost of creating the environment.

Recommendations on how to overcome these challenges has been proposed to determine what needs to be done differently to allow the use of VTTs to be more acceptable in the gathering of certification evidence for an aircraft subsystem.

Thanks to what performed by FAVIT the following conclusions has been obtained:
- The best practice to allow better use of VTTs in the certification process is to consider the use of VTTs at each relevant stage of project development. The use of VTTs should be considered when specifying requirements, making design decisions, and formulating test plans.
- Considering that the V-Model is the standard development process used for both HW and SW development, new parallel process and activities are needed to specify how to use the available VTTs. FAVIT has prepared a new document which provides recommendations and guidelines for the use of Virtual Testing Technologies (VTTs) in the development of an airborne system

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The activities can be summarised as follows:

Analysis of aerospace standards and guidelines regarding state-of the-art virtual testing. The work included an analysis of the knowledge of the aerospace agents of Virtual Testing and its applicability in aeronautical safety critical systems, SW and HW certification according to correspondent certification standards.

Open consultation process to identify the current knowledge of the main actors regarding Virtual Testing technologies (VTTs).

The main relevant aerospace standards were analysis with the aim of identifying those gaps that would otherwise allow the use of VTTs to better contribute towards the certification of airborne software systems.

Virtual Testing methods and its applicability to SW, HW and Systems, and its respective impact in certification standards has been evaluated with the aim of identifying problems for practical use of Virtual Testing in Aeronautics certification and providing with recommendations.

New practices, methods, and processes to allow the incorporation of VTTs into the development process for an aircraft system has been defined, providing enhancements to existing documents. This work has led to:
(i) definition of a blueprint concept of a platform. The purpose of the platform definition has been to provide a single, common source for an “aircraft blueprint” as input to both the real system development process and the development of a virtual testing environment, so that each project can adapt it to suit their needs.
(ii) definition of guidelines for the use of virtual testing.

Interactions with INTA on an iterative mode has taken place, to collect feedback regarding gap analysis and certification challenges as well as for the definition of the best practices, methods and processes for the use of Virtual Testing in the certification of aircraft systems.

Next step that has been identified after definition of guidelines for Virtual Testing processes and for its future exploitation is focused on testing and applying to a real project.
In terms of dissemination activities, workshops have been carried out and will be carried out including a presentation of the FAVIT project, the work performed, and the conclusions achieved.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

FAVIT has led to the following innovations:

VIRTUAL TESTING:
Current developments of aerospace projects and other critical industries are facing more complex systems. Verification requires more time than the development of the system. Real simulations are very limited and with increasingly higher costs of the methods of V&V and certification. Outcomes of FAVIT allow a new approach of the main certifications of the sector thanks to:
- Identification of the main gaps of current aerospace standards with regard to use virtual testing methods.
- Definition of best-practices to apply HIL and SIL in aerospace standards.
- Proposal of technically relevant solutions to make more reliable and cheaper certification methods.
- Benchmarking of the aerospace requirements for accelerating the certifiability process.

ENHANCEMENT OF AEROSPACE STANDARDS:
Validation methods following current standards are only available for big companies due to the difficulties to make the verifications and validations affordable for SMEs. The creation of VTT guidelines will provide relevant information for European aerospace sector. It'll ease the inclusion of virtual testing methods in the V&V and certification processes. This enhancement will align all actors of the EU aerospace sector.

REDUCTION OF COSTS AND TIMINGS IN CERTIFICATION MAJOR INNOVATIONS:
FAVIT project will contribute to create a more efficient and effective certification processes. FAVIT has analyzed modelling tools and heterogeneous environments to reduce costs and timing in all processes.
It can be estimated that around 25-30% of IV&V cost might be reduced against “classical” developments when IV&V with FAVIT results can be applied on the whole lifecycle.

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