Open Flight Deck is a consortium-led project involving industrial and academic partners, with the aim of creating the world’s most advanced flight deck.
Aircraft are in service for decades, but there is a huge barrier to adopting new flight deck technology due to the high cost of change and certification. This project aims to future proof the flight deck by creating an open architecture platform to continuously deliver the latest advances in computing, networking, cloud-based services, AI and automation – enabling aircraft manufacturers to build and customise their own flight deck.
The Partnership
This project will capitalise on the strengths of the five partners to provide technologies that will be exploitable across all types of aircraft platforms.
The industrial partners in the team – GE Aviation, BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce – have a long history of technological innovation and the exploitation of that technology with a range of successful products. Each has significant penetration in the aerospace market with products for both civil and military customers, in the United Kingdom and for international export. The academic partners – Coventry University and the University of Southampton – bring world-leading expertise in human factors engineering.
The project is co-funded by the UK Aerospace Research and Technology Programme; a partnership between Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), UK Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI), and Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation.
Objectives
To develop an accessible platform for the flight deck.
To utilise the platform to evaluate novel flight deck solutions.
Latest News & Coverage
New Paper Published in ‘Human Factors and Ergonomics in Manufacturing & Service Industries’
The University of Southampton’s paper ‘Using the Perpetual Cycle Model and Schema World Action Research Method to generate design requirements for new avionics systems’ has been published in the academic journal ‘Human Factors and Ergonomics in Manufacturing &...
Promoting OFD research findings to a wider display audience
With the recent introduction of large area touch screens on the latest versions of the A350 and 777, concerns remain that touch screen interfaces are inferior to mechanical controls on the flight deck, especially while under the effects of turbulence. Open Flight Deck...
The journey towards autonomy in civil aerospace – Webinar August 4th, 2020
Hosted by the ATI, this webinar will examine aspects and capabilities of autonomous systems as well as the challenges in transitioning to full autonomy. With guest speakers Dr Myles Taylor of GE Aviation, Louisa Smith of NATS, Mike Gadd of Altitude Angel and Gary...