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Applying digital twins for the management of information in turnaround event operations in commercial airports

Javier Conde, Andres Munoz-Arcentales, Mario Romero, Javier Rojo, Joaquín Salvachúa, Gabriel Huecas, Álvaro Alonso

TL;DR

The paper presents an Airport Digital Twin framework built on FIWARE NGSI-LD and Draco to unify heterogeneous data sources for airport turnaround management. It details an architecture that ingests streaming and static data, standardises them via Smart Data Models, and serves real-time and historical context to visualization and dispatcher applications. The Aberdeen International Airport deployment demonstrates 2D/3D visualization and a mobile dispatcher to reduce delays, and the work discusses extension to other airports, data quality challenges, and future enhancements such as baggage tracking and scalability. Overall, the study provides a reusable, standards-based blueprint for DT-enabled airport information management with practical tools for operators and decision-makers.

Abstract

The aerospace sector is one of the many sectors in which large amounts of data are generated. Thanks to the evolution of technology, these data can be exploited in several ways to improve the operation and management of industrial processes. However, to achieve this goal, it is necessary to define architectures and data models that allow to manage and homogenise the heterogeneous data collected. In this paper, we present an Airport Digital Twin Reference Conceptualisation's and data model based on FIWARE Generic Enablers and the Next Generation Service Interfaces-Linked Data standard. Concretely, we particularise the Airport Digital Twin to improve the efficiency of flight turnaround events. The architecture proposed is validated in the Aberdeen International Airport with the aim of reducing delays in commercial flights. The implementation includes an application that shows the real state of the airport, combining two-dimensional and three-dimensional virtual reality representations of the stands, and a mobile application that helps ground operators to schedule departure and arrival flights.

Applying digital twins for the management of information in turnaround event operations in commercial airports

TL;DR

The paper presents an Airport Digital Twin framework built on FIWARE NGSI-LD and Draco to unify heterogeneous data sources for airport turnaround management. It details an architecture that ingests streaming and static data, standardises them via Smart Data Models, and serves real-time and historical context to visualization and dispatcher applications. The Aberdeen International Airport deployment demonstrates 2D/3D visualization and a mobile dispatcher to reduce delays, and the work discusses extension to other airports, data quality challenges, and future enhancements such as baggage tracking and scalability. Overall, the study provides a reusable, standards-based blueprint for DT-enabled airport information management with practical tools for operators and decision-makers.

Abstract

The aerospace sector is one of the many sectors in which large amounts of data are generated. Thanks to the evolution of technology, these data can be exploited in several ways to improve the operation and management of industrial processes. However, to achieve this goal, it is necessary to define architectures and data models that allow to manage and homogenise the heterogeneous data collected. In this paper, we present an Airport Digital Twin Reference Conceptualisation's and data model based on FIWARE Generic Enablers and the Next Generation Service Interfaces-Linked Data standard. Concretely, we particularise the Airport Digital Twin to improve the efficiency of flight turnaround events. The architecture proposed is validated in the Aberdeen International Airport with the aim of reducing delays in commercial flights. The implementation includes an application that shows the real state of the airport, combining two-dimensional and three-dimensional virtual reality representations of the stands, and a mobile application that helps ground operators to schedule departure and arrival flights.
Paper Structure (20 sections, 8 figures, 2 tables)

This paper contains 20 sections, 8 figures, 2 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Related work
  3. Architectures for developing DTs
  4. Platforms for developing DTs
  5. Data modelling in DTs
  6. FIWARE for developing DTs
  7. DTs in the aerospace sector
  8. Airport Architecture and Data Management
  9. Airport DT Architecture
  10. Airport DT Data Model
  11. Airport DT Data Management
  12. Obtaining data from external sources
  13. Providing data to consumers
  14. Data visualisation
  15. Airport 2D/3D digital representation
  16. ...and 5 more sections

Figures (8)

  • Figure 1: Airport DT architecture
  • Figure 2: Flight and turnaround flight time information
  • Figure 3: Smart Aeronautics Models
  • Figure 4: Draco processors connection for capturing data from Chroma API
  • Figure 5: Example of asynchronous communication
  • ...and 3 more figures