A Digital-Twin Assisted Simulation for the Electromechanical System of Aircraft

Modern electromechanical system tends to be more integrated and complex with the urgent demand of the new generation aircraft. During the iteration of design, the traditional way of physical entity testing is not realistic with huge cost and extremely long cycles. A solution to such a challenge is proposed in this paper with the assist of the digital twin technology, which bridges the physical world and the virtual space with exchanging information. The fuel subsystems and the hydraulic subsystems are mainly studied to analyze the responses during the whole flight process. The overall framework of the digital twin for the electromechanical system simulation is proposed including the physical entity, the virtual models, the interconnection between the physical and virtual, the digital twin database and the service. A joint simulation is carried out by the linkage between the virtual AMESim models and the controller entities. A virtual flight test covering the process of taxiing, take-off, landing and cruise is conducted using a simulation system platform. Testing results show that the working state of the controlled systems all consistent with the design requirements. The joint simulation results show the flexibility of the proposed digital-twin assisted simulation.