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This paper describes the conceptual design of a variable-speed fixed-displacement electric motor pump for aircraft hydraulic systems. In contrast to today's approaches, the pump controls the constant system pressure by adapting the motor speed rather than the pump displacement or both. This concept might increase the pump's part load efficiency significantly. The paper starts with introducing and analyzing the dynamic requirements of aircraft hydraulic pumps and evaluating different pump concepts. The concept of an internal gear pump driven by a permanent magnet synchronous motor is selected. For this concept an experimental prototype is developed. The electric motor pump is modeled and a pressure controller is designed. The prototype is set up and tested on an experimental test bench regarding dynamics, efficiencies and noise emissions. The overall concept is evaluated regarding secondary power demand, system heat load, wear, reliability, noise, and mass.

The demand for higher production rates of large parts in aircraft industry requests more flexible manufacturing solutions. High-accurate mobile robots show a promising alternative in comparison with high-invest special machines. With mobile robot-based solutions processes can be executed simultaneously which increases the productivity significantly. However, the freedom of mobility results in insufficient positioning accuracy of these machines. Hence fast and accurate referencing processes are required to achieve cost-effectiveness and meet production tolerances. In this publication a Mobile Laser Tracker (MLT) system and a holistic approach for future manufacturing systems with mobile robots will be introduced and discussed.

Aircraft cabin operations shift towards data-driven processes. Cabin-wide multi-system communication networks are introduced to share required data for corresponding novel data-driven applications. Examples are data-driven predictive maintenance applications to reduce the downtime of systems and increase the period of scheduled maintenance or video analytics usage to detect a strained or unruly atmosphere amongst passengers. These applications require a network to transport the associated data and resources for actual computation. Costs and weight have always been the most important factors deciding if new services are introduced within the aircraft cabin. Thus, re-using hardware with free computation capacity that is already installed in the aircraft cabin can target both aspects, weight and costs. Examples for such hardware resources could be the In-flight Entertainment (IFE) equipment being installed in every seat.

For an “end-to-end passenger experience that is secure, seamless and efficient” the International Air Transport Association (IATA) proposes Near Field Communication (NFC) and a single token concept to be enablers for future digital travel. NFC is a wireless technology commonly utilized in Portable Electronic Devices (PEDs) and contactless smart cards. It is characterized by the following two attributes: a tangible user interface and secured short range communication. While manufacturers are currently adapting PED settings to enable NFC in the flight mode, the integration and use of this technology in aircraft cabins still remains a challenge. There are no explicit qualification guidelines for electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) testing in an aircraft environment available and there is a lack of a detailed characterization of NFC equipped PEDs.

The All-Electric-Engine with only electrical power offtake is a main goal in aircraft system development. The use of electric-motor pumps instead of engine-driven pumps for powering the central hydraulic systems could be a part of this objective. Additionally, the concept would meet the incremental development strategy performed by the aerospace industry today and saves costs by using state-of-the-art hydraulic actuation technology. This paper describes a process for optimizing such systems regarding their architecture and design parameters. For this task a methodology for the hydraulic consumer allocation called OPAL is used and extended by an automatic power system sizing. Feasible allocations, called permutations, are determined on the basis of preliminary system safety assessments regarding multiple top failure events. In the next step an automated sizing of the permutations is performed based on simplified hydraulic load analyses.

In the paper at hand a model-based development approach for a diagnostic system for a multifunctional fuel cell system architecture will be presented. The approach consists primarily of four parts. The first part is a description of general steps needed to build an accurate component-based model of the system using a state of the art model-based diagnostic reasoning tool. As a first result there will be a static simulation model for nominal system behavior. The second part of the approach deals with the identification of safety critical failure conditions (SCFC) at a system level, e.g. low Power. The SCFCs are then mapped into the model. This means that categorized physical quantities and monitoring executives are chosen, that are appropriate for representing the specific SCFCs, e.g. low voltage at outlet of DC-DC converter module. According to step two there will be conflicts, meaning discrepancies between the simulated nominal and the mapped behavior.