COMPANY INTRODUCTION

AIXTREE is a small private enterprise dedicated to research, development and training in the area of the ‘operator (human pilot, automaton) – vehicle – operating environment’ system dynamics for flight safety and mission effectiveness.

The focus of our activity is innovations for enhancing flight safety and mission effectiveness of aircraft and other vehicles in multifactor (complex, off-normal, unusual, demanding, anomalous, ‘chain reaction’) and unknown operational situations. The company specialization is two-fold:

• the development of techniques and technologies for mathematical modeling, fast-time computer simulation, artificial intelligence and virtual reality, and
• the application of these research tools to predict and enhance the vehicle safety performance (mission effectiveness) in multifactor or unknown situations.

This expertise is the result of scientific and academic activities of the company founder since 1977 in a cross-cultural environment, including the ex-USSR, UK, USA, Russia, and now France.

The intellectual asset of AIXTREE incorporates theoretical concepts, mathematical models, computational algorithms, data structures, software programs and research processes aimed at comprehensive, affordable and quick examination of the system safety performance in multifactor or unknown situations – before the vehicle is designed or flown.

Given a specific problem, our methodology makes it easy for customers to implement a ‘standardized’ process of flight safety research in multifactor operational situations. In particular, this process includes development of a physics-based system dynamics model, design of fast-time simulation experiments, automatic analysis of the system behavior in multifactor situations, and output knowledge mapping.

For over 35 years, our fast-time flight simulation tools have been applied to study flight safety performance of 30+ aircraft types and projects, including fixed-wing, rotary-wing, hybrid, subsonic, supersonic, and hypersonic vehicles, for major phases and conditions of flight. This know-how constitutes the company’s intellectual property and unique competences of excellence.

AIXTREE was founded in France in December 2013 at the invitation of the Provence Promotion Economic Development Agency and the Invest-in-France Agency (AFII).

‘AIXTREE’ stands for Artificial Intelligence eXperimental TREE, where ‘tree’ is a mathematical structure, which is used to efficiently store, search, map, and extract large sets of data or knowledge. Also (not least), AIX relates to Aix en Provence – a wonderful city, which represents a true synergy of historic traditions and innovative developments.

Due to combinatorial, financial, methodological and technical constraints, multifactor operational domains are difficult to study using classic techniques, such as desktop flight simulators, manned flight simulators, flight control design software, and flight tests. We are experts in fast-time simulation and analysis of multifactor system dynamics for mission safety and effectiveness in civil and special (emergency counter-acting, disaster relief, etc.) applications.

AIXTREE offers an innovative solution approach to the flight safety problem in multifactor situations. It consists of two interrelated components:

• ISAFE methodology (Intelligent Situational Awareness and Forecasting Environment) – a generalized theoretical framework, which is used to formalize the task of mathematical modeling and knowledge based forecasting of a complex system behavior, and
• VATES technology (Virtual Autonomous Test and Evaluation Simulator) – a software implementation of the ISAFE methodology, which incorporates a generalized mathematical model of the system dynamics, which is employed as a virtual fast-time flight test and operation article, and artificial intelligence and virtual reality techniques used to ‘mine’, ‘granulate’ and map knowledge on the system safety.

The ISAFE methodology helps the user to formulate a specific flight safety research problem using a theory of multifactor flight situations and to plan the process as a standardized step-by-step study. It is essential that the complexity of the ISAFE based research planning task does not depend on the complexity and the size of a multifactor flight domain of interest.

The VATES technology enables the user to quickly generate and screen for unsafe anomalies extra large multifactor flight domains on a plain computer. VATES-based virtual flight experiments run on a PC autonomously, 100 … 200+ times faster than real time. The speed of flight simulation is limited only by a processor performance and the number of computers. Neither a research human pilot nor a special hardware is required in the fast-time flight simulation loop.

The power of the ISAFE-VATES based approach is in the integration and automation of the following tasks of the system-level research and knowledge management:

• virtualization – ‘de-materialization’ of flight and flight safety research in multifactor situations by means of a valid ‘pilot/automaton – vehicle – operating environment’ system dynamics model and a computer,
• generalization – ‘mining’ and ‘granulation’ of new knowledge on the system safety or mission effectiveness derived from raw data – time-histories of flight parameters recorded in virtual experiments,
• visualization – ‘a bird’s eye’ view presentation of the generalized information on the vehicle safety by means of color-coded graph-analytic formats or knowledge maps.

The ISAFE-VATES concept is practically universal. This quality has been achieved due to a generalized mathematical representation and an efficient computer implementation of all its components: the system dynamics model, the techniques for multifactor flight scenario planning, as well as the techniques for simulation experiment and output knowledge management, etc.

As the result, the ISAFE-VATES concept can be applied to study system dynamics and safety problems of various vehicle classes: airplanes, helicopters, dirigibles, spacecraft and hybrid, wing-in-ground (WIG), underwater, surface and ground vehicles. It is applicable to the majority of missions, trajectories, maneuvers, control tactics, and operational conditions of flight, including multifactor composites.

• designer (specialization: vehicle, aerodynamics, flight dynamics, flight control avionics, flight safety, pilot-vehicle interface)
• flight test engineer/ pilot (flight tests and manned simulations)
• airworthiness specialist (aircraft certification)
• pilot instructor/ educator (flight operations, flight dynamics, emergency situations, simulator pilot training, etc.)
• operator, mission planner/ flight safety manager (flight operations, simulator pilot training, unmanned system control, safety risk management)
• accident investigator (reconstruction and prevention of flight accidents and incidents)
• researcher, graduate student (new classes of vehicles, missions, control tactics and maneuvers, intelligent flight control and pilot-vehicle interface systems).

Technical advantages of embedding the ISAFE-VATES concept into the process of flight safety research include the following:

• 100 … 200 times increase in the speed of simulation of complex flight situations
• automation of flight safety analysis for large multifactor domains of flight
• independence of the situation complexity level
• unified representation of heterogeneous scenarios
• capability of carrying out flight safety research on the system level
• experimentation autonomy (independence of a research pilot and special equipment)
• affordability of safety research in multifactor flight situations
• possibility of studying and mapping complex multivariate effects
• flexibility of experimentation (by means of the ‘what-if’ technique)
• preservation of scenarios and repeatability of virtual flight experiments.

The overall goal of AXITREE offerings is to help predicting and enhancing safety performance of new vehicles in complex or unknown operational conditions from the outset – before an accident can happen.

The customer benefits include:

• reduced costs and shorter schedules of aircraft design, flight test, certification and pilot training,
• substantial increase in the volume and quality of knowledge on the system safety in multifactor or unknown situations gained earlier in the lifecycle, and
• minimized risks of an unexpected occurrence of anomalous accidents in tests and operations; enhanced flight safety.

It is essential that the system dynamics model does not require sensitive data (‘parametric definition’) of the vehicle of interest to be released by the customer.

Finally, using the ISAFE-VATES concept, research into complex system dynamics can be carried out as a complete cycle: problem analysis and solution concept development → research task formulation → mathematical models, algorithms and data structures development / tuning up → software programming / debugging / tuning up → fast-time simulation experimentation →  simulation output data analysis and safety-related knowledge mining & mapping  (automated steps) → conclusions derivation → report writing, presenting and defending.