Airbus Innovates with Azure Cognitive Services for Enhanced Pilot Training and Aircraft Maintenance
Technology Category
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Public Cloud
- Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms
Applicable Industries
- Aerospace
- Education
Applicable Functions
- Maintenance
- Product Research & Development
Use Cases
- Chatbots
- Virtual Training
Services
- Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services
- Training
About The Customer
Airbus is a pioneer in the aerospace industry with over 50 years of innovation. The company is a leading producer of aircraft and helicopters for both commercial and military customers, plus launch vehicles and satellites. It also delivers navigation, secure communication, data services, and other solutions to its global customers. Airbus is known for pushing technical boundaries to help make a better-connected, safer, and more prosperous world. The company is based in Germany and is a corporate-sized organization with over 10,000 employees.
The Challenge
Airbus, a leading producer of aircraft and helicopters, was facing challenges in meeting the needs of its aerospace and defense customers due to complex and cutting-edge solutions. The company had to comply with highly restrictive regulations that precluded the use of public clouds, especially for its military and government sector customers. Additionally, many countries have strict data nationalization rules that also required a non-public option. Another challenge was the increasing complexity of aircraft, which escalated the volume of pilot training material to more than 6,000 pages of technical information. Pilots had to master all this during intensive multiple-week courses and recall it accurately for as long as they were certified for that aircraft.
The Solution
Airbus turned to Microsoft Azure technologies, particularly Azure Cognitive Services, to build its restricted cloud while maintaining compliance with data sovereignty regulations. To address the challenge of pilot training, Airbus created a pilot training chatbot that supports trainee pilots to self-guide through the material. The chatbot was deployed as a mobile website, accessible on mobile devices for fast answers to spoken questions. For military aircraft, Airbus deployed speech containers via Cognitive Services on its own Kubernetes cluster, part of its restricted cloud. To manage the complexity of military aircraft flight operations, Airbus deployed Anomaly Detector, part of Cognitive Services, to gather and analyze telemetry data. The company also plans to use translation APIs in Cognitive Services to overcome language barriers between countries using Airbus systems.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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