opportunities

Glasgow Airport Living Lab
Digital Twin Competition

Applications closed

Glasgow Airport’s Living Lab Digital Twin Competition is a strategic initiative funded to facilitate the development of digital twin technology solutions specifically tailored for the aviation sector.

This programme is intended to catalyse innovation and foster the integration of digital twins into the aviation industry, with an emphasis on enhancing operations at Glasgow Airport.

Connected Places Catapult is spearheading this programme with the goal of overcoming the challenges that businesses face in creating and integrating digital twin technologies in aviation. This effort is aligned with promoting innovative solutions and providing support to help these businesses bring their digital twin solutions to market.

The opportunity

The aim of this programme is to showcase how existing digital twin solutions can address specific aviation-related challenges.

In Phase One, up to five successful organisations will have the chance to present their digital twin concepts at Glasgow Airport where they can showcase how their technology can be applied to the challenges above, accessing up to £3,000 in funding.

Following an assessment of the showcase, one organisation will be chosen to advance to Phase Two to further develop and implement their digital twin technologies in a live aviation environment at Glasgow Airport, accessing up to £70,000 in funding.

Application Support Webinar

We held an Application Support Webinar which provided all the necessary information to successfully apply for this innovative programme and gave attendees the opportunity to ask any questions. You can watch the webinar below.

Key dates

Timeline for Glasgow Airport’s Living Lab Digital Twin Competition with five milestones: 1. Competition Open (8 Feb 2024), 2. Applications Support Webinar (20 Feb 2024), 3. Competition Close (7 Mar 2024), 4. Shortlist for Interview (Mar 2024), and 5. Showcase (6 June 2024).

Programme Challenges

1: Asset Replacement

Close-up of a car tire with deep treads on a gravel surface, showing part of the vehicle's wheel and undercarriage, emphasizing the necessity for efficient designs in climate change mitigation.

To enhance decision making for Airports, we need a deeper understanding of the asset lifecycle.

Airports have complex and dynamic surface usage patterns that involve multiple types of aircraft, varying traffic volumes and different operational activities.

Sophisticated data analytics techniques are needed to analyse and interpret patterns to set priorities for replacing pavement assets. The main goal of this challenge is to develop a methodology for identifying optimal pavement replacement priorities at airports, ensuring a balance of safety, operational efficiency, and cost-effectiveness.

This challenge also aims to uncover how we can support Glasgow airport to monitor other assets such as vehicles and lighting, understanding how your proposed solution can increase asset resilience, climate resilience and improved HSE, within the envelope of a sustainable business model.

2: Passenger Movement

Looking up at a modern glass building surrounded by green leafy trees with the sun shining through the foliage, it's clear that climate change mitigation efforts are at play in this serene urban oasis.

Passenger capacity is set to increase at Glasgow Airport, bringing with it the same pressures many airports face, such as limited terminal and gate infrastructure space.

Expanding infrastructure to accommodate increasing passenger numbers may be costly and subject to space limitations, especially in urban areas.

This challenge focuses on how we can maximise the capacity of the existing terminal at Glasgow, improving their journey experience, and how the digital solution would integrate with the current infrastructure and systems at the airport, achieving dynamic planning.

The aim of this challenge is to better observe, forecast and influence passenger footfall to inform better decision making of end-to-end journeys in airports

The proposed solution must also factor in the potential for future airport expansions.

Passenger capacity is set to increase at Glasgow Airport, bringing with it the same pressures many airports face, such as limited terminal and gate infrastructure space.

3: Energy Management

A well-lit, cylindrical tunnel with pipes and conduit cables installed along both sides extending into the distance, designed to support climate change mitigation infrastructure.

Energy management in airports presents several challenges due to the complex and multifaceted nature of airport operations, and with the addition of new forms of transport such as eVTOL aircraft, this issue will only grow with time.

Due to the potential for new EV based transport, this will present new and unique challenges energy management due to their novel propulsion systems and operational characteristics.

This challenge aims to understand the impact on energy supply and operational capacity of eVTOL operation within an airport operation by observing the current energy management models.

The learnings from this challenge should include how we might reduce energy consumption and operational costs through an accurate representation and modelling of the system, to accommodate for future operations.

Alongside this, how can we observe the introduction and rolling out of EV charging on landside (and/or airside), to understand the impact on energy supply and demand (specifically carbon monitoring, cost models).

Eligibility Criteria

To be eligible, applicants must:

Be a UK-registered business.
Present an innovation solution at or above TRL (Technology Readiness Level) 5.
Address one of the specified challenge areas.
Be prepared to travel to Glasgow as required.

Selection

The competition will be open from 8 February 2024 to 7 March 2024.

We will shortlist for interview in March 2024.

Up to five organisations will be selected for the opportunity to showcase at Glasgow Airport for Phase 1, they will be notified in April 2024.

One organisation will be selected for the full-scale development and implementation of a digital twin solution for Phase Two, with full details to follow.