ISAAR DAHER/ ISAE-SUPAERO Chair: presentation of the Chair research activities

The AeroMAPS tool, developed by two ISAE-SUPAERO researchers, Scott Delbecq and Thomas Planès, can be used to assess the environmental impact of air transport and the effectiveness or limitations of levers for decarbonizing the sector.
Initially designed for research and training purposes, it now serves as a multidisciplinary platform for experts and decision-makers from institutions, industry, and associations. Its development has been integrated into the work of the Institute for Sustainable Aviation (ISA), a collaborative research institute initiated by Laurent joly, head of research for sustainable aviation, which aims to address the transition to #lowcarbon #aviation in all its complexity.
By playing on the sector’s transition levers, AeroMAPS users can define the scenarios whose impacts they wish to analyze. For example, the introduction of new aircraft types, the use of new fuels or the rate of growth in air traffic.
AeroMAPS is the first air transport scenario simulation platform built on an open-source scientific methodology. It was initially designed and developed to enable researchers to explore air transport transition scenarios in detail. It was soon integrated into training programs: first as part of the ISAE-SUPAERO engineering curriculum, then as part of continuing education programs.
To see the bigger picture, the two researchers added a socio-economic dimension to their tool (via a thesis conducted by Antoine Salgas, a doctoral student on the project, in partnership with Toulouse Business School), and subsequently, a traffic and emissions inventory, enabling the analyses made with AeroMAPS to be partitioned and regionalized: the AeroSCOPE tool, created as part of a collaboration with the Dutch university TU Delft.
Today, AeroMAPS’ comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach is a decision-making aid for the entire aeronautics ecosystem, as well as for institutional, industrial and association decision-makers. Through its scientific expertise, ISAE-SUPAERO contributes to the public debate on the place of aviation in our society!

The Laser Metal Deposition (LMD) machine allows the Department of Mechanics of Structures and Materials (DMSM) to design and qualify parts obtained by additive manufacturing processes. The department sets up instrumentation to improve part quality and process reliability. This year has seen the start of research work, supported by the Occitanie region, on the instrumentation and monitoring of the LMD process. The activity step up in 2023 with the start of projects on the repair of high added value aeronautical parts and the development of multi-materials.

The EMpEROR platform was born on the one hand, from the increasing consideration of aeroelastic phenomena in modern aeronautics, and on the other hand, from the synergy between the Aerodynamics, Energetics, and Propulsion (DAEP) and Structural Mechanics and Materials (DMSM) departments.
This platform has been designed and thought out to allow great modularity of metrology, around a rotor bench allowing to rotate from 1 to 6 blades, up to 1 meter in diameter, from 0 to 3000 rpm, and this in complete safety thanks to a 6-meter-long protective cage. It is equipped with several sensors for performance measurements, but also with a rotating vibrometry system for measuring the dynamics of the blades (this system is only used by two laboratories in Europe). The bench also makes it possible to embed measurement systems in the blades, but also in the coming months, systems to control these unstable phenomena.
Since 2020, this platform has also enabled two thesis students to work on aeroelastic phenomena, as well as 6 Master’s students. This platform also makes it possible to generate experimental databases used by ISAE-SUPAERO researchers to compare and validate their computer codes.
The equipment will increase in power in 2024 with the addition of the possibility of making Laser measurements, of the PIV or/and LDV type, as well as the possibility of manufacturing more complex blades with the hand on the flexibility of these.

The “Autonomous Systems” Platform gathers the various tools and means, both software and robotics, provided by the DISC technical team to the researchers of ISAE-SUPAERO. This platform is composed of an evolution area of 10 × 10 × 4 m equipped with a motion capture system, where various mobile ground or air robots can move, as well as a dozen of development and control stations.
This evolution area has a modular semi-urban environment that can be modified according to the different projects or tests to be carried out. The platform is used for the development of demonstrators allowing to highlight the various research projects of the ISAE-SUPAERO researchers, as well as for teaching through practical works which are carried out initially in simulation, then on the real robots.