Interest in additive techniques has grown swiftly as applications have progressed from rapid prototyping to the production of end-use products. Additive components can now use metals, polymers, composites, or other powders to print a range of functional components, including complex structures/cellular materials that cannot be manufactured by other means. The aerospace and aviation industries take full advantage of these additive techniques in the production of components. Authors are invited to present their research concerning all subjects related to 3D printed products, materials and structures. The objectives of the session are focused, but not limited on:

• design and optimization
• analyzes and simulations
• 3D printing process set-up
• lightweight materials
• fracture modes and criterion
• failure prediction and prevention
• experimental testing, validation/verification
• defects detecting
• quality of 3D printed parts
• application of AM parts in real practice
• recyclability and sustainability
• others

Advanced Manufacturing plays a key role in the Aeronautics industry. The researchers and engineers are consistently making efforts on developing and improving manufacturing technologies and techniques. The delegates are encouraged to exchange ideas and experiences and to discuss their thoughts and opinions on technological trends and challenges in the present and future years. The session addresses not only the research, development, and applications of conventional manufacturing technologies but also the latest achievements in other emerging technologies, such as automation, digitalisation and advanced high-performance materials.

Aerodynamics of aircraft and its components, unconventional configurations, load control devices, aerodynamic design; aerodynamic optimisation.

Managing the safe and efficient flow of air traffic faces is increasingly challenging. After the drops in traffic due to pandemic, the context has never been more dynamic: fast recovery, war and sanctions, cyber-attacks, military activity, on top of previous expectations of greener aviation, integration of UAV/UAS etc. Resilience in aeronautical safety and civil aviation defence against cyber-attacks are the key topics. ATM is a hotspot on the aerospace innovation chart, with new developments in global satellite navigation systems (GNSS), air traffic global surveillance system, SWIM, and datalink. ATM is increasingly dependent on its new space segment. Important topics in this section are also ADS/B, ADS/C, airspace organisation and design, AIXM, digital NOTAM, air traffic control automation including AI and ML tools, flight trajectory optimisations, FMS, environmental impact, radio interference problems (5G vs. Radar Altimeters), GNSS signal jamming and spoofing.

This session offers the opportunity to academics, researchers, and industry practitioners with activity in the broader airworthiness area, both in the civil and military aviation domain, to present their original research and review work. Particular emphasis will be given to theoretical, experimental, computational research, and applied engineering work on contemporary matters, as well reviews of the state-of-the-art in various areas. Indicatively, presentations are sought in the fields listed below:

Initial Airworthiness

• Aircraft and aeronautical components testing and certification;
• Qualification and certification of new technologies, i.e., supersonic transport aircraft, electric, and hybrid propulsion aircraft, etc.
• Certification of systems specific to military aircraft;
• Qualification and certification of additively manufactured metallic and non-metallic safe/non-safety critical aircraft parts;
• Advanced testing and computational techniques for composite aircraft testing and certification;
• Reliability engineering methodologies and practice in aircraft design and engineering changes;
• Safety and risk assessment methodologies and practice in aircraft development;
• Human factors’ considerations in aircraft design.

Continuing Airworthiness

• Safety and risk assessment in aircraft flight and technical operations;
• Reliability analysis of aircraft systems and components;
• Continuing airworthiness management practice in civil and military aviation;
• Development and optimization of aircraft maintenance programs;
• Development and optimization of military aircraft structural integrity (ASI) management programs;
• Effective and efficient inspection and sustainment techniques for composite aircraft;
• Human factors in aircraft maintenance and operations;
• Safety management effectiveness in flight and technical operations;
• Quality management and optimization in aircraft maintenance organisations;
• Aircraft technical and non-technical cost analysis and estimation techniques.

Presenters in this session may also consider submitting full papers in the Aerospace (MDPI) Special Issue "Civil and Military Airworthiness: Recent Developments and Challenges (Volume III)".

This session intends to bring together some of the top academia and industry professionals to discuss the most recent research in the development of functional and smart materials for application in aeronautics, as well as the direction and expansion of research in the forthcoming decades. The focus areas of the session will be the development of multifunctional materials and energy-saving processes for their manufacturing. Very recent developments in the field evidence that advanced research is very close to practical applications. Multifunctional materials recently developed seem to respond very well to the fascinating challenge to apply in aeronautics smart composites and devices that are lighter, self-responsive, stiffer, stronger, and more resistant to service conditions. The attainment of smart functions conjugated with good structural performance can be achieved by controlling/tailoring material properties at nano, micro, and macro-scale spatial domains. During the session, particular attention will be paid to the use of nanotechnologies on which recently developed smart composites are based.

Manufacturing has gone through many evolutions. The increase in global competitiveness challenges the manufacturing market to integrate design, manufacturing, and product in order to improve quality and process. In the current market landscape, companies need resiliency. Thus, in recent years, the focus on smart manufacturing systems is pushing companies toward a new variety of highly specific technical solutions. Modern Manufacturing is currently going through a transformation as well, also known as Fourth Industrial Revolution or Industry 4.0. This revolution takes advantage of recent developments in internet connectivity and the proliferation of new devices such as mobile smart devices and headsets (for Extended Reality – XR). Industry 4.0 incorporates Smart Factory practices that provide workers, managers, and executives with greater visibility and more flexibility and control over their manufacturing processes, leading toward Digital Manufacturing. The transition to Digital Manufacturing systems will incorporate optimization capabilities in an attempt to reduce time, cost, as well as to improve the efficiency of manufacturing and production processes. The digital revolution is becoming a new reality. There are several digital technologies and techniques utilized in digital manufacturing, in particular Artificial Intelligence, automation and robotics, additive technology, human-machine interaction, IoT, etc. Therefore, the above-mentioned technologies, are transforming the nature of modern manufacturing. The aim of the track session is to host a selection of papers from researchers, academics, as well as practitioners providing significant insights regarding the adoption of cloud computing technologies and their role in enabling industry 4.0 concepts.

Aviation's environmental impact is not limited to the operational aspects of transporting people and goods around the world. The footprint of air travel also extends across the entire lifecycle of manufacturing aircraft, their maintenance throughout operational service, and eventually, responsible disposal – or preferably recycling – of an airliner's components and materials at the end of its existence. Clean Sky's "ecoTECH" innovative eco-friendly airframe project, which is ongoing and runs until 2023, is developing a set of innovative technologies to mitigate the environmental footprint of aircraft production from a global lifecycle point of view.

Given the structure of the project, the following topics will be presented:

• Metallic materials: Alexandra KARANIKA (Hellenic Aerospace Industries)
• Thermoplastic materials: Jan Halm, Senne Sterk (NLR)
• Thermoset materials: Zvicka Deutsch (Israel Aerospace Industries)
• Bio material: Jan Baucke (INVENT GmbH)
• Lifecycle Assessment and End of Life Assessment: Totaram Das (Altran/Capgemini Engineering)

Air traffic is coming back to the prepandemic flight number, and air traffic management (ATM) must provide solutions to manage not only these levels but the expected numbers for the future. For that purpose, one of the cornerstones must be the increase in automatization, and the introduction of novel technologies such as automation during the decision-making process, big data, and artificial intelligence for the demand-capacity balance, airspace design, and separation provision. On the other hand, this development cannot fall on the backs of airport operational management. The introduction of automation and new technologies means a change during tactical decision-making, sequence metering, turnaround, and handling processes. Therefore, this session aims to bring to light novel research areas that will help ATM in the future.

The quest for ever-innovative engineering products has motivated the development of accurate multidisciplinary analysis tools, often prime-principle based and therefore able to span a vast variety of design solutions and operating conditions. The need for efficient out-of-the-box design decisions has stimulated the integration of these tools with global optimization approaches into simulation-driven design (SDD) and multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) architectures. The use of SDD-MDO tools is generally computationally expensive, making the design- and operational-space exploration a technological and algorithmic challenge, thus preventing their widespread use in industry. Aim of this session is to identify gaps in SDD and MDO application to relevant industrial problems, presenting and discussing promising enabling technologies to bridge those gaps. Specific topics are: metamodeling, machine learning, and artificial intelligence; active learning, multi-fidelity methods; efficient design parameterization; dimensionality reduction and model-order reduction; optimization under uncertainty; possibly enabling a cross-fertilization of methods and applications from aerospace, electrical, mechanical, and naval engineering domains.

Currently developed and modernised aircraft are equipped with new avionics, which importance is constantly increasing. Its extensive development created new opportunities for the manned and unmanned aircraft capable of performing the new missions at a high level of automatisation or even autonomation.

The crucial to modern aircraft are onboard sensors. They are dedicated to navigation, flight control, surveillance, object recognition, onboard systems measurement and control. They can be of any kind: radar, mechanical, optical, magnetic, MEMs and different electromagnetic ranges sensing.

This session is dedicated to the onboard sensors, their combinations and the systems in which they are included. The papers on the designing, optimising, researching, testing and lessons learned from the simulated and real-life tests are welcomed.

The session is the best platform to share ideas recognise new trends, and know the experts' opinions.

Substantial amounts of sustainable aviation fuels will be needed to achieve the climate targets of the aviation industry as a substitution of fossil jet fuel is required to achieve net-carbon neutrality. While hydrogen aviation gains relevance as a potential long-term solution, alternative kerosene-type turbine fuels are still the backbone of all decarbonization strategies of the industry.

The session Future Aviation Fuels covers several topics of high-relevance towards achieving climate targets, including e-fuel production, the use of fully synthetic jet fuel, a policy brief, and a review on fleet compatible drop-in fuel solutions and potential non-drop-in alternatives. Thereby, a comprehensive view on the current and future alternative fuel landscape is provided and potential pathways toward net-carbon neutrality are sketched.

This session will report the latest findings and results of the Horizon 2020 project ‘Greener Air Traffic Operations’ (GreAT). The work presented focuses on how air traffic management can contribute to a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions produced by air traffic, as well as its impact on climate change. Presentations will provide detailed proposals for improved ground and approach control procedures, which will demonstrate the possibilities but also the limitations of optimizing air traffic control towards minimum environmental impact. Further, this session will give insights into the environmental impact assessment based on an analysis of current and modified aircraft trajectories. It closes with a review from an airline perspective, underlining again the importance of research in this area.

Sending humans to space requires a series of technologies that are not necessarily needed for other space missions. A habitat and a Life Support System (LSS) are the first elements required for human survival in space. The design of the habitat should consider among others radiation protection, safety measures, and human factors. The LSS will require technologies able to recycle human waste to produce fresh oxygen, water, and food for the astronauts. This recycling can be complemented with In-Situ Resources Utilization (ISRU), for missions on the lunar or planetary surfaces. The materials in-situ can also serve as construction materials or to produce fuel for the return vehicle. All these technologies will be crucial for long-term human spaceflight exploration.

“Those who don’t plan, are not able to improvise.” Curbing and then annihilating aviation greenhouse emissions demands a joint effort to develop and field new, paradigm-shifting technologies like propulsion electrification at the earliest possible. On the other hand, this is a massive effort, cross-sectional in ambition. A key tool to sustain the coordination of so many stakeholders and actors, focused on their different and, sometimes, conflicting optimal points, are roadmaps where, among others, technology, regulation, operations, and technical infrastructure link together.

This session will highlight the hybrid-electric roadmaps of EASIER, FutPrint50 & IMOTHEP, and other initiatives in this field, in order to promote a discussion of opportunities and synergies regarding this common, all-hands-on-deck, effort to accelerate aviation shift to Zero Emissions flight.

The EU Horizon 2020 project ‘IMOTHEP’ is a 4-year technology programme investigating the emission reduction potentials of hybrid-electric propulsion for commercial aircraft in a holistic approach. Driven by European aviation research and industry, an integrated end-to-end investigation of hybrid-electric power trains is performed in close connection with the propulsion system and aircraft architecture for relevant regional and short-to-medium range transport tasks.

The focus of this session lies on the regional application case, presenting key intermediate results for this market segment. As such, the regional platform specification is discussed together with technology roadmap aspects and an overview of battery technological prospects. Based thereon, the latest findings on two investigated regional aircraft configurations, dubbed regional conservative (REG-CON) and regional radical (REG-RAD), are presented. Besides the overall aircraft design integration and assessment, this also includes performance studies of electrically assisted turboshaft engines as well as aerodynamic investigations of high-lift performance with distributed electric propellers.

This section aims in covering the ways aerodromes adapt to changing environments and demands. The focus is on two, rather different aspects, but not limited to them.

The first aspect is airport experience with changes they had to undergo in coping with the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on air transport, e.g. adapting the passenger processes to new (health) safety requirements, and how that affected passenger terminal throughput.

The second aspect refers to aerodromes being one of the key pillars of the Urban Air Mobility (UAM) concept. From that perspective, we encourage the papers covering the advances in-ground infrastructure planning and design (adapted heliports or new vertiports) as one of the steps toward bringing UAM concept closer to realization.

Aviation challenges such as weight reduction, effective power generation, or energy efficiency are directly affected by evolving manufacturing and materials.

The EASN recognizes metals as environmentally effective building blocks and these will be the focal point of this session. Presentations are expected to cover the wide space defined by advanced alloys and/or innovative manufacturing techniques. Presentations are expected to emphasize the link between improved design/microstructure/processing/metal properties/etc. and the applicative potential for future aviation applications such as weight reduction, economical gains, advanced design, powder generation or efficiency, etc. Further to cutting-edge research in the fields abovementioned, the chair would also like to encourage industrial participants to present upcoming challenges and current trends of developments (for example owing to expected regulations) in order to strengthen the discussion and collaboration within the EASN around these topics.

The session aims to bring to the fore those that are exploring the development and application of non-aviation industry sectors' technologies and solutions for drone applications.

Submissions are welcomed that explore the transfer of knowledge, technologies, certification, and regulatory frameworks, bridging the gap from non-aviation to aviation applications, namely in the emerging world of drones, USPACE services, and UAM.

The Air Traffic Managing (ATM) System is undergoing a worldwide modernization through different programmes such as the Single Sky ATM Research (SESAR) in Europe. Its vision of a Digital European Sky is being leveraged to transform Europe’s ATM system, enabling it to handle the future demand and diversity of air traffic safely and efficiently, while minimising its environmental impact (fostering a climate-neutral aviation).

In the field of commercial aviation, the predictions on the behavior of the atmosphere and the climatic impact of aircraft-derived exhausts are of great relevance in predicting optimal aircraft routes, restricting certain airspaces, or regulating specific traffic flows. Each of these cases presents different requirements as to what magnitudes or phenomena are relevant, what type of prediction is required, be it in the long term (forecasting), medium, or short term (nowcasting), or what margin of uncertainty is considered admissible.

- On the one hand, convective weather is a well-known aviation hazard: turbulence, wind shear, lightning, and hail are elements arising in thunderstorms that can be catastrophic for aircraft. In Europe, convective weather (i.e., thunderstorms) typically occurs in the summer and coincides with a period of high air-traffic demand on the airspace system. This combination of bad weather and high demand causes significant disruption to air-traffic-management operations, resulting in delays throughout the network.

- On the other hand, actions aimed at reducing aviation’s environmental impact constitute a priority, since aviation is responsible for approximately 2% of CO2 emissions. This percentage raises to almost 5% when effects like contrails and NOx emissions are taken into account. Moreover, by 2050, the aviation sector is expected to quadruple its emissions.

Thus, we propose a session covering a wide spectrum of topics, ranging from advanced meteorological services for aviation, climatic studies related to aviation, and/or any type of ATM application in which meteorology and climate change are key factors.

With the widespread usage of composites, the materials used in aircraft have seen a significant improvement during the last two decades. This innovative material has been shown to have a number of advantages over traditional metallic counterparts, including design flexibility and integrity, weight savings, reduced maintenance, corrosion resistance, and improved fatigue life. The recently retired airplanes, with an average lifespan of roughly 28 years, are largely from the 1980s and 1990s, and have a high amount of metallic components. These materials have been recycled effectively at a rate of more than 80% by weight. However, modern aircraft with a larger composite content provides new hurdles for the recycling sector, as new technology is required to recover these new materials economically. This session is dedicated to MRO and recycling activities of composite parts.

New materials and processes expand the design capabilities of multi-material structures, especially composite structures. Research in the area of multi-material design and function-integration is becoming of great interest with new functions, from traditional sensing and actuating functions up to new challenges, e.g. integrating recyclability as a function in mechanical systems.

The aim of the session is to discuss new challenges for multi-material design and function-integration in aerospace on the example of selected contributions. In particular, the subjects include but are not limited to:

• Progress on multi-material design approaches
• Simulation tools for detailed function-integration design
• Manufacturing of composites with multiple functions

Bi-dimensional (2D) materials are considered key enablers for the next generation of electric and electronic devices, that promise to deliver great performances while improving mass reduction, power saving, temperature tolerance, and radiation tolerance, which are crucial objectives for green and efficient aeronautics and aerospace applications. On the other hand, metamaterials, composites, and devices based on nanomaterials require fabrication technologies and characterization techniques often expensive and affected by non-negligible uncertainty, and it is, therefore, desirable to develop new development techniques supported by models and simulation frameworks that allow performing an effective and robust design while saving time and costs.

This session welcomes contributions concerning the theoretical and experimental approaches to the design and investigation of innovative materials and devices based on nanomaterials, among which 2D materials, such as graphene, MoS2, and other transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) and Dirac semimetals, for applications of interest for the aviation and space fields (e.g. detection, absorption, shielding, sensing). Works stimulating discussion about the improvement of the efficiency, reliability, and robustness of the materials and devices are especially welcomed.

The theme of acoustics is becoming increasingly important in the industrial fields. Many often, in the past, vibroacoustic concerns have been solved through corrective actions in phases of the product life or product already in the advanced design stage. Following more and more stringent requirements in terms of low-emissivity or weight saving, the transport industry has to deal with noise and vibration problems from the preliminary design stage. From such a perspective, the assessment of efficient predictive tools as well as the development of effective control strategies became crucial.

The purpose of this special session is to collect innovative contributions from the whole technical-scientific community involved in the development and industrial application of predictive methods, advanced measurement and assessment methods as well as optimization technique and solution to effectively face these vibroacoustic challenges (innovative materials, passive and active control, etc.).

Ultrasound-based NDE techniques, energy harvesting, and wireless sensor networks are increasingly being demonstrated to be effective in monitoring damage in aerospace components in a laboratory. These components include critical elements such as the airframe, engines, landing gears, and control surfaces. However, there is an urgent need to integrate these approaches and techniques at the inception of an aircraft.

This session is open to all applications of optimization (sensor/structure), computational modeling, advanced signal processing, and advanced design approaches to be integrated to produce a novel framework, design tools, and guidelines for the delivery of the first generation of self-sensing aircraft capable of providing an accurate structural prognosis. Improved maintenance strategies, increased asset availability, bridging the gap between research and industry, that enable increased use of advanced materials, reduce operating costs, and ultimately deliver safer and greener air transport solutions, are of interest.

Small Air Transport (SAT) is emerging as the most suitable transportation means in order to allow efficient travel over a regional range, in particular for commuters, based on the use of small airports. The vehicles that are comprised under the SAT domain are usually fixed-wing aircraft with 5 to 19 seats or similar cargo vehicles, belonging to the EASA CS-23 category. In order to ease the growth of the SAT business domain, the availability of new technological solutions allowing reducing the related operative costs represents a challenge of capital importance. Relevant research activities in this domain are developed in the framework of international programmes, such as, for instance, the European research programme Clean Sky, where SAT specific projects are ongoing. The workshop, therefore, aims to provide a description of the most recent innovations developed in the framework of international research activities addressing the Small Air Transport (SAT) domain.

The aeronautical and space sector has always been a source of innovation and technological progress, and today it is of fundamental importance for the development and industrial competitiveness of countries.

The systems approach to the design and management of aircraft, now widely recognized in the aerospace technical-scientific community, is arousing interest and technological impacts in other fields and disciplines.

These developments foster strategic issues such as safety, diagnostics, prognostics, and, more generally, a holistic view of the aerospace system.

These issues are now in the spotlight of the scientific community and are attracting growing interest in various industrial sectors (e.g. aerospace, automotive, automation, and more).

We, therefore, believe that a dedicated session in which to collect the most innovative and promising studies and encourage comparison can be received with interest by the technical-scientific community.

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is emerging as a promising solution to alleviate traffic congestion in cities. The vision is that thousands of eVTOLs and drones will provide rapid, economic, and eco-friendly transport services for both cargo and passengers. To ensure the high safety standards found in current aviation, the U-space airspace is essential. U-space, as defined by European regulation, encompasses the set of digital services that will be offered to drone operators for the management of urban air mobility in airspace. These services will be delivered by multiple U-Space Service Providers in an open market environment. This session welcomes contributions related to the automation of Urban Air Mobility and the U-space framework, focusing on the safe scaling of drone services for citizens. We encourage submissions that showcase innovative approaches to the deployment and operation of U-space systems.

The UHURA project focuses on unsteady flow behavior around high-lift systems, aiming to deliver a deeper understanding of critical flow features in new high-lift devices of transport aircraft during deployment and retraction. This project will also offer a validated numerical procedure for simulating these flow behaviors. UHURA conducts detailed experimental measurements in multiple wind tunnels to create a unique data set, which will serve as a validation resource for Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software. The project utilizes technologies such as Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) and other optical measurement tools. Advanced CFD methods, promising significant reductions in design lead times, are being validated against this data to develop efficient and reliable prediction methods for design. Following the completion of the project, this session will provide an overview of the results, including a description of the generated database on the unsteady high-lift flow of a deflecting Krueger flap. Additionally, the session will present findings on various approaches for the dynamic CFD simulation of this type of flow.

Use of robotic systems for future planetary exploration involving robotic mobility, manipulation, sampling, and astronaut assistance. This includes all aspects of these robotic systems, including design, development, implementation, and operation. Also, research prototypes as well as fielded or flown systems are of interest.

On-going and future missions involving in-space robotic systems and operations, to include On-Orbit Servicing, Active Debris Removal, Assembly, and Astronaut Assistance. This includes designs and methods to accomplish robotic tasks in orbit, such as mobility, manipulation, assembly, or maintenance. Specific aspects can be addressed, such as hardware design, open-loop or closed-loop control, rendezvous trajectory generation, autonomy, teleoperation, experimental facilities on the ground, or others of relevance.