Page 39 - Australian Defence Mag Jul-Aug 2020

JULY/AUGUST 2020 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
SIMULATION TRAINING 39
BOEING SIM LAB FOR DEFENCE AND CIVIL USES
Australia is fast gaining recognition as the autonomous test bed for the globe, which according to Emily Hughes, director of Boeing Phantom Works International is thanks to its wide open spaces for flight testing, a progressive regulator and supportive Government.
While physical autonomous flight testing continues to advance, Boeing Australia has spent the last 15 years honing its modelling and simulation capabilities through its world-class Systems Analysis Laboratory (SAL). From that core modelling and simulation platform has sprung advances in autonomous flight systems modelling and simulation environments, including urban air mobility and a multi-domain military system of systems framework with global applicability.
“We commenced development back in 2005 with the goal of creating an exportable modelling and simulation environment built in Australia,” Hughes said to ADM. “Since then, we’ve rolled out similar core environments across our Phantom Works International labs in the UK, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and India.
“The Australian-developed and maintained common core framework has enabled us to test and evaluate our innovations in the commercial and defence space long before we fly.”
This has included the development of requirements and concepts of operations for new defence capabilities within present and future military scenarios. Examples have included the modelling of current in-service RAAF systems such as P-8A, E-7A Wedgetail, Super Hornet and Growlers in the 5th generation fleet.
“This allows us to work with the customer and examine new possible upgrades or system requirements for the future force,” Hughes said. “Additionally, SAL has led to the development of a plug-in for mission systems and artificial intelligence technologies built within the core framework to enhance the independence and capability of Boeing’s autonomous systems, and to create a synthetic environment to test those behaviours before they are deployed in the real world.”
Boeing NeXt, responsible for exploring urban air mobility for the company, has been working with Boeing Phantom Works International in Brisbane, Australia using the core framework to build a 3D virtual city where various design and operational aspects of flying taxis can be explored.
The team created a plug-in to the core modelling and simulation environment to model autonomous air vehicles for transporting passengers,
RIGHT: Lauren Skelly and Dushy Tissa from Phantom Works International in Brisbane, Australia, partnered with Boeing NeXt to develop the simulated environment to study urban air mobility.
ground infrastructure for supporting take-off and landing, air traffic management systems for managing the safe and efficient movement of manned and unmanned aircraft, along with communication networks and sensors for sharing situational awareness in the air.
“The ecosystem that needs to come together to make urban air mobility possible is what the Boeing teams in the US and Australia have been building in the virtual environment,” Egan Greenstein, senior director of Analysis and Experimentation at Boeing NeXt explained to ADM. “Australia’s modelling and simulation capability has been crucial for that.
“The teams have developed a simulation for mobility in the virtual environment which allows analysts both in Australia and the US to study important facets of urban air mobility.
“They can scale the size of the aircraft fleet, alter flight routes, modify the travel parameters and change weather patterns. They can introduce contingencies and observe how the system recovers. By running through different what-if scenarios across different cities, analysts are identifying key insights into what can make a transport service using autonomous vehicles a commercially viable prospect,” he said.
While the Boeing studies started with cities and suburbia as their initial focus, the teams are expanding their simulation and analysis tools to investigate additional aspects of urban, regional and global mobility from passenger transportation to logistics to cargo delivery.
As Boeing continues to build on its virtual city, it is anticipated that 3D modelling environment can be used to work with regulators to develop physical flying plans for future flight tests.
“Thanks to our modelling and simulation environment, we’ll have had the opportunity to fly our autonomous concepts thousands of times in order to analyse and plan what’s required of the system and to test how the human in the loop integrates and interacts, often even ahead of commencing the traditional design process,” Hughes concluded.
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