Trend: Advanced Manufacturing

OPINION: Innovating Aerospace Manufacturing, Maintenance, and Mobility with Cloud Edge Solutions

Editorial Note: This is a guest opinion article submitted by Deloitte, compiled by the following authors:  Myke Miller, Managing Director and Dean of the Deloitte Cloud Institute, Deloitte Consulting LLP Mahadev Satyanarayanan (Satya), the Carnegie Group University Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University and Deloitte Cloud Institute Fellow Diana Kearns-Manolatos, senior manager, Deloitte […]

Digitization Dominates OEM Executive Strategies for the Future of Helicopters

The next generation of helicopters will include technology like autonomy and sophisticated fly-by-wire systems. To get there, helicopter original equipment manufacturer (OEM) executives are focused on digitization for the advancement of future helicopter design, manufacturing, and sustainment, panelists said during the Vertical Flight Society’s Forum 77 on May 10. Digitization within the helicopter industry is […]

Digital Twins To Be New Hallmark for US Air Force Weapons Systems

Digital twins look to be a new hallmark of U.S. Air Force weapons systems to improve their design, performance, and sustainment. NASA pioneered the use of twins in the 1960s during the Apollo moon missions by building a full-size replica of the Apollo capsule. That effort continues today, as NASA uses twins of the Perseverance […]

Gripen Flies with 3D-Printed Hatch as Test for Additive Manufacturing in Battlefield Repairs

A 3D-printed exterior hatch flew on the Gripen for the first time on March 19 in Sweden during a test flight, Saab announced on March 30. The flight is the Swedish aerospace manufacturer’s next step in testing additive manufacturing in battlefield damage repairs. The Gripen was designed to have a low logistic footprint, Niclas Kolmodin, […]

Digital Engineering Efforts for Munitions Yield Lessons Learned for Possible Fielding

Last fall, former U.S. Air Force acquisitions chief Will Roper held out the possibility that the service would soon announce an e-series, digitally engineered weapon to follow the Air Force designation of the eT-7A training aircraft as the service’s first e-series platform and aircraft. While the Air Force has yet to disclose what its first […]

How Aerospace OEMs Are Using Digital Engineering to Advance Aircraft Systems Design

Several major aerospace and defense manufacturing leaders are using digital engineering to advance the development and production of avionics systems. During two panels at the Air Force Association’s Aerospace Warfare Symposium, industry leaders described why digital engineering is necessary and how it is being used at their companies.  While companies differ in how they are […]

Rolls-Royce Germany is Undergoing Digital Transformation with Artificial Intelligence

Rolls-Royce Germany will be leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) in a new partnership with Altair for its engineering, testing, and design of aerospace engines to reduce and accelerate certification and design iterations, reduce extensive physical testing, and improve product quality, Sam Mahalingam, Chief Technical Officer at Altair, told Aviation Today. The memo of understanding between Altair […]

How the Aerospace Industry is Finding New 3D-Printing Use Cases for Old Aircraft Parts

3-D printing is no longer a new or innovative technology for the largest manufacturers in aerospace who have been creating solid objects from digital files for more than a decade, but what’s happening across the industry now is a massive expansion in the number of use cases where additive can replace conventional methods of manufacturing […]

3 Aerospace Research and Development Projects Happening at Universities in the US

Some of the aerospace industry’s most advanced groundbreaking future technologies and concepts are being researched and developed within academic labs and campuses at hundreds of universities in the U.S. right now. A significant number of programs are performing never-seen-before operations using drones for everything from California Polytechnic State University’s initiative for identifying sharks that present […]