Academic and non-academic partners
A key characteristic of INDIGO is to be strongly biased towards scientific excellence and innovation and this is reflected by the composition of the consortium that is made for the 80% of academic and research-intensive partners with a strong track record in international collaborative R&I projects and for the remaining 20% is made by non-academic institutions, i.e., CRIDA and RIX, that bring to the table the fundamental connection with the airport industrial and operational aspects. The project brings together the aircraft and the airport elements into a cohesive and original approach to addressing the local air quality in terms of chemical and noise emissions and impact on airports’ environment. The INDIGO approach has a significant inclination towards the aircraft technologies with a view on how their TRL escalation could open the way to quieter and cleaner airport operations and environment. 65% of the consortium is made by partners with a specific expertise and track record in aircraft technologies such as innovative propulsive systems and aerostructures, i.e. CIRA, RUB, UC3M, RUB, TUBS, DLR and half of the UST team, the remaining 35% has instead skills and expertise that will contribute to the airport element of the project in relation to new concepts of operations, the evaluation of noise and pollution maps and the ICAO CAEP and EURO-CONTROL initiatives, i.e. CRIDA, RIX, BSC and the other half of UST.
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) is a public university founded in 1989. Its mission is to contribute to the improvement of society through teaching of high quality and cutting-edge research and knowledge transfer, in line with stringent international standards. UC3M’s position in the most outstanding rankings and accreditations at the international level, attest to its good performance. UC3M is number one in Spain for its overall performance.
The research activity carried out inside the Aeroelastic and Structural Design Lab group (ASDLab), within the Aerospace Engineering Department aims at assisting the technological transition towards a sustainable aviation. More in details, among the top priorities there is the development of physic-based aircraft design methodologies including all the concurrent development aspects (manufacturing, assembly, certification, operation, environmental footprint) from the early stage with the aim of reducing novel configurations, material and technologies time to market. Emphasis is placed on the tighter discipline coupling (aero-structural, aeroelasticity, airframe-propulsion) imposed by efficient aircraft architectures. ASDLab groups manages HPC resources (server and single powerful workstation) that support industrial-scale simulations; moreover, it leads a manufacturing lab within the university’s facilities.
Within INDIGO, UC3M will be contributing to several technical tasks and work packages. ASDLab’s expertise in aircraft design and Multidisciplinary Design and Optimization (MDO) will support both WP1, with the conceptual MDO of the aircraft, as well as WP5, the preliminary design phase MDO with uncertainties, and WP6. The expertise in structural design as well as aeroelasticity of unconventional aircraft will support WP1, to carry on the conceptual-level structural weight assessment, and WP3, to provide for reliable estimation of aeroelastic response and structural design of the large aspect-ratio wings.
As coordinator of the project, UC3M will be carrying out all administrative and management duties of WP7.
Italian Aerospace Research Centre (CIRA)
The Italian Centre for Aerospace Research has been active since its foundation in research and development issues of aerodynamic shape design, multi-disciplinary design and optimisation, uncertainty quantification, numerical models and solvers in the aerodynamic, aeroacoustic and propulsion fields and has participated in many EU or nationally-funded research projects.
In INDIGO, CIRA will exploit the experience in design and optimisation problems and applications, robust design and uncertainty quantification (aleatoric, epistemic and determined by TRL), advanced surrogate and reduced-order modelling, and optimal integration of airframe-propulsion. CIRA will also leverage within INDIGO its consolidated capability to support the aerospace industry by developing ad-hoc applications. Finally, the dissemination and sharing of information with other partners are in total agreement with CIRA’s institutional mission.
The Ruhr University Bochum is among the leading research Universities in Germany.
The research activities carried out at the Chair of Thermal Turbomachines and Aeroengines primarily focus on the development and application of advanced, multidisciplinary numerical methods based on LES/DNS (large eddy simulation/direct numerical simulation) which allow a seamless, comprehensive modelling of complex propulsion and energy transformation systems in their entirety.
Innovative and fast tabulation approaches for the efficient description of chemistry-turbulence interaction and for real properties of the working fluid in high-fidelity simulations, the development and usage of generative algorithms (also in close collaboration with other partner universities) and the application of Physically Informed Networks for the discovery of hidden physics in technologically relevant flows (e.g. Combustor/Turbine interaction) are among the cutting-edge topics currently investigated at the Chair. The Chair owns an HPC cluster accounting for 1104 cores and theoretical and numerical research activities are supported by experiments carried out at the own turbine testrigs.
The Technical University of Braunschweig was founded in 1745 and is the oldest technical university in Germany. With 17,000 students and 3,800 employees, it is the largest university in northern Germany and is located in the heart of Europe's most active R&D region.
The focus of Prof. Dr.-Ing. Friedrichs' Institute of Jet Propulsion and Turbomachinery at TU Braunschweig is on the study of propulsors, especially with regard to efficiency and overall system integration. The institute is also part of the SE²A cluster of excellence, which researches technologies for sustainable and environmentally friendly air transport.
The institute has a variety of test facilities, including the Propulsor Test Facility, several test stands compressors and a fully functional turbofan engine with a maximum thrust of 110 kN.
In addition, IFAS has its own performance simulation tool ASTOR (AircraftEngine for Transient Operation Research) for the design and analysis of propulsion systems, which has been validated by the turbofan engine.
The in-house performance tool ASTOR is extended and applied in cooperation with the INDIGO team for the design of hybrid electric gas turbines. The propulsion system will be designed for a mid-size aircraft flying below 900 m with ultra low emissions.
The Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) is the Spanish National supercomputing facility and a hosting member of the PRACE distributed supercomputing infrastructure.
The mission of BSC is to research, develop and manage information technologies in order to facilitate scientific progress across different application sectors. BSC houses MareNostrum 4 (MN4) one of the most powerful supercomputers in Europe with more than 13 Petaflops and also MareNostrum 5, a new supercomputer that will be a worldwide top-of-the-range, which is to be in operation by the third quarter of 2023. MN5 will have a peak performance of 314 Petaflops and more than 500 petabytes of storage.
The activities in the INDIGO project from BSC will be led by the Propulsion Technologies group, which has a strong background on the development of advanced modelling and simulation techniques using High-Performance Computing (HPC) to study and understand complex phenomena in propulsion and power generation systems. In particular, BSC will coordinate the activities related to pollutant dispersion from aircraft engines using high-fidelity (LES/DNS) and reduced-order modelling.
The Institute of Aerodynamics and Flow Technology is a leading research institute in the fields of aircraft aerodynamics, aircraft aeroacoustics and space aerothermodynamics. It is located at two sites - Braunschweig and Göttingen - and has one department in Cologne.
The institute coordinates its work with the German/European aerospace industry and several university institutes and understands its role as a link between basic research at the universities and industrial implementation. This results in a large number of joint national as well as European research tasks.
Environmental aspects play an increasingly important role in aviation. For this reason, and in line with DLR's aviation strategy, the Institute of Aerodynamics and Flow Technology researches how aircraft of the future can be designed to be more efficient, more ecological, more comfortable, more economical and safer. Another core competence is the development of software products for aerodynamic, aeroacoustic and multidisciplinary simulations for the application in the aerospace industry.
Together with all partners, the DLR Institute of Aerodynamics and Flow Technology will perform in INDIGO research on conceptual aircraft design, aerodynamic and aeroacoustic models and data applying advanced simulation methods, supporting the overall goals of INDIGO. DLR has a strong focus on aeroacoustic models and the aeroacoustic aspects within INDIGO. In addition, DLR will support the definition of promising aircraft concepts for lower air pollution and noise impact by improving the aerodynamic efficiency at take-off and landing applying large aspect ratio wing technologies and distributed hybrid electric propulsion in a multidisciplinary context.
CRIDA A.I.E (CENTRO DE REFERENCIA DE INVESTIGACIÓN, DESARROLLO E INNOVACIÓN ATM A.I.E.) is a not-for-profit Research Entity established by ENAIRE, the Polytechnic University of Madrid "Universidad Politécnica de Madrid - UPM" and INECO.
CRIDA has for mission the Spanish ATM efficiency and performance improvement by means of I+D+i projects development that contribute to quantifiable solutions through system performance indicators. CRIDA has been involved in several research projects within Horizon Europe and SESAR program framework, delivering operational ATM/ATC expertise, contributing to methodology and algorithms development, defining prototyping requirements and eventually leading or supporting the validation of the innovative operational/technological concepts within the projects through Fast and Real Time Simulations platforms.
In INDIGO, CRIDA is mainly offering ATM and airport operations expertise for the operational concept definition in which the new hybrid aircraft model will be designed, selecting the different operational environments for the use cases creation and eventually validating/evaluating environmental performance and improvements the new aircraft will bring within the different use cases.
Riga Airport is a fast-growing Northern European air traffic hub, connecting the Baltic countries with European business centres and popular holiday destinations.
Being aware of its role and responsibility in the national economy of Latvia, Riga Airport develops sustainable services and infrastructure, taking care of its employees and the environment, and keeping pace with society and the local community. By joining the Net Zero 2050 initiative, Riga Airport has committed to achieving climate neutrality by 2050.
In order to achieve this, the "Riga" airport is actively involved in various innovation and science projects.
On 30.12.2022, Riga Airport signed the grant contract and on 26.01.2023 signed the consortium contract for the project "Integration and Digital Demonstration of Low-emission Aircraft Technologies and Airport Operations" (INDIGO).
The project anticipate seven work packages and Riga Airport is involved in three research and one administrative work package.
Riga Airport participates in the following research work packages:
- environmental impact model of the Airport;
- choice of airports and operational scenarios;
- preparation of high-fidelity simulations at the Airport.
So far the Airport has prepared data about Riga Airport and aircraft flights that are necessary for the research.
University of Bristol (UBR) is a Russell Group University, and one of the most research-intensive universities in the UK. The 2022 UK Research Excellence Framework (REF2022) confirmed its position as the top 10 UK research universities, measured by both research output and research impact.
Measured by the share of funding to date, it is ranked in the top 20 participating institutions within the EU under Horizon 2020.
The aeroacoustics research team consists of over 30 active research and technical staff and covers a wide range of topics in theoretical, experimental, and computational aeroacoustics. The team also greatly benefits from close collaboration with major research institutions (DLR, ONERA, NASA, etc.) and various industrial partners (Embraer, GE-Dowty, Siemens, etc.), as well as links with major national and international academic partners.
Prior to INDIGO, the aeroacoustics team has been actively involved in various EU projects, including AERIALIST, ARTEM, U-HARWARD, SilentProp, ENODISE, INVENTOR and have invested heavily in our experimental and computational facilities dedicated to next-generation aircraft concepts in distributed propulsion, boundary layer ingestion and multi-rotors.
The UBR aeroacoustics team will support the INDIGO project by performing a survey of the noise characteristics as well as detailed near-field hydrodynamics of the distributed propulsion configurations proposed in INDIGO via closely coupled experimental and numerical studies. As such, an improved understanding of the noise signature and the corresponding noise generation mechanisms will be achieved. As an important outcome of the project, these results will then be assimilated into the multidisciplinary model, allowing for a more accurate evaluation of the noise emission of the new aircraft concept. In addition, novel techniques to attenuate the noise of the distributed propulsion at source will also be explored together with the consortium.
The University of Strathclyde is a technically focused university located in Glasgow, Scotland.
Strathclyde relies on a multi-million research income from UK Research Councils, UK charities, European Commission and industry and has a large portfolio of EU projects with more than 70 still running. Strathclyde has the necessary policies and mechanisms in place in order to promote the maximization of the impact of its research on the academic and industrial worlds, the society and the policy makers. The knowledge exchange professionals in the University's office are constantly working with funding bodies, companies and university inventors in order to identify the best route forward for a specific technology.
Strathclyde identifies aerospace research as one of its core themes as supported by the two/thirds of the University-wide Ocean, Air and Space strategic theme, and it positions itself as a thriving academic environment under which the tasks of INDIGO will be supported at all levels (i.e. Department, Faculty and University). INDIGO’s research activities allocated to Strathclyde will be coordinated by the Aerospace Centre of Excellence (ACE) that is a multi-disciplinary research centre within the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering addressing key challenges in aerospace science and engineering and in computational and artificial intelligence.