Case Study: Airbus Defence and Space achieves a digital twin aircraft framework and real-time fault simulation with MathWorks (MATLAB & Simulink)

Airbus Defence and Space Establishes Framework for Digital Twin Aircraft

Airbus Defence and Space set out to build a Model-Based Systems Engineering digital twin for the A330 MRTT to digitize requirements, functionality, and design across concept, manufacturing, verification, and support while enabling end-to-end traceability. To meet this challenge they worked with MathWorks tools — including MATLAB, Simulink, Simulink Requirements, Simulink Coder, Stateflow, Simulink Check, and Simulink Coverage — to establish a consistent framework for requirements, models, simulation, and traceability.

MathWorks helped implement a common framework that produces a 3D virtual aircraft (viewable in VR) driven by Simulink models that run hundreds of equations, allowing engineers to inject faults and observe affected elements in real time. The MathWorks-based solution automated processes such as wire naming, generated tests to compare the virtual and real models, and delivered end-to-end traceability—saving engineering time, enabling real-time fault exploration, and improving verification through automatically generated tests.

Airbus Defence and Space

Alonso Pardo Sanguino

Airbus Defence and Space