Airbus // Universal Registration Document 2021

1. Information on the Company’s Activities / 1.3 Other Corporate Activities

Additive manufacturing of advanced materials is progressing towards multi-material printing opportunities or robust printing of embedded electronics in structures. – – Electrification technologies : During 2021, we made significant progress on several aspects of electrification and electric propulsion techno bricks. One related to electrical motor working at very high temperatures yielded improvements in material sustainability, innovative windings and heat exchanger technologies. Another significant step was the successful demonstration of power electronics components and systems working at cryogenic temperatures, with a world premiere on a functional prototype of DC-DC converter immersed in liquid nitrogen. Finally, wireless power transfer technology for aeronautic applications was demonstrated. We significantly improved the maximum power transmitted over a few tens of centimetre air gap. This technology has a clear application for UAV battery charging with contact. – – Virtual product engineering : The team has investigated advanced model based systems engineering technology bricks to support co-development of product and industrial systems, and has successfully demonstrated approaches to be handed over to the DDMS (Digital Design Manufacturing and Services) programme for industrialisation. In addition, projects are running to support modelling and simulation needs for future sustainable aircraft, including the use of hybrid AI techniques to support traditional computational approaches. – – Data science : The team has concluded two projects this year. One focused on learning local communication routing policies and improving communication protocols for heterogeneous and highly dynamic networks. Another one focused on providing proofs of neural networks’ robustness that will be needed to certify systems embedding machine learning components. Both projects were handed over to the relevant divisional customers and will trigger new research projects in the near future. Ongoing projects include virtual assistance integrating decision support for manufacturing and cockpit scenarios, usage of natural language to interact with robots and development of in-process AI to support qualified industrial processes.

In 2021, CRT had 57 projects running concurrently across its domains. Highlights from these activities include the following. – – Blue Sky : A function responsible for exploring early breakthrough technologies that might change the game for the aerospace industry. After having successfully advanced research on terminals for quantum communications, and on materials recycling using novel biotechnologies. The function has evolved to cover a wider scope of technological and societal factors, and focus on strategic value returns for Airbus. New clusters have been launched: Future Energies (new ways to generate, convey and manage energy), Future Matter (manipulating matter to generate new applications), Future Brains (new dimensions enabled by advances information capture, processing, distribution, virtualisation), and Future Links (re-thinking the transport of people, goods and information). – – Communicat ions : The team is pioneer ing nove l communication system architectures and technologies for pervasive and secure connectivity on our airborne platforms. Several projects came to their final phase this year including lab and flight demonstrations for ultra-high speed links between flying platforms, a new wireless communication / sensing system architecture for an aircraft cabin including remote powering and a first implementation of a many-core processor design for highly -critical applications. Further research is ongoing to exploit quantum communication technologies to achieve maximum security for our airborne / space-borne communication links. – – Materials : 2021 saw a further push towards new technical solutions in the areas of circular raw materials, simulation/ digitalisation in materials, advanced processing and surface technologies. These key areas will support sustainability targets, products mission performance and competitiveness. Organic and in-organic approaches are covered. An optimisation of the lab operational organisation was done to enable further focus on key strategic areas. Sustainability aspects are in the centre of the activities and further ramping up. Progress on the CO 2 negative carbon fibre gives confidence that the first physical hardware will be available in 2022. Alternative recycling routes for composites are being explored further ( e.g. enzymatic recycling). Circularity for titanium materials is showing good progress and will open new opportunities regarding eco-friendliness and optimised waste channels. A new project towards all green surface preparation and protection has been started. Advanced materials technologies for efficient and robust hydrogen storage solutions have been initiated and accelerated. In the area of digitalisation of materials (frommaterials definition, to characterisation and analytics), the first AI based solutions for image analytics have been handed over for divisional application. AI in material design is being pushed for the first time to develop smart, indicative coatings. Further projects on digital twin development are progressing.

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Airbus / Registration Document 2021