[ad_1]
Quantum computing is often described as a way to solve esoteric problems that can not be solved with conventional computers. But this is not how Airbus plans to use this technology.
The company recently launched its Airbus Challenge Quantum Computing Challenge, a global initiative to attract quality control experts interested in applying this technology to solve flight physics problems used in aerospace applications. The challenge is open to individuals or research teams – graduate students, doctoral students, academics, researchers, startups and other professionals in the field – with proven experience in quantum computing.
Airbus has defined five areas of intervention for competition: digital fluid dynamics, partial differential equations, aircraft climb efficiency, wing box design, and aircraft load. Currently, these areas are treated with traditional engineering approaches, which rely to a large extent on high performance computing. All of these are critical to the company's aerospace business and their ability to differentiate their products from the competition.
The goal here does not seem to be to save money on high performance computing expenses. (The company only uses about 3% of its IT budget on HPC.) Airbus seems rather interested in the potential of quantum computing to produce better results than simulations and brute-force modeling, as well as to be able to handle bigger problems. than what is achievable with that of digital computers.
This is in no way a first round of Airbus with this technology. In 2015, the company set up a quantum computing unit at its Newport site in the United Kingdom. A year later, Airbus invests in QC Ware, a young quantum software company that wants to make its technology available to business users. Airbus also used one of the 2,000 qubit D-Wave devices as part of a project involving the use of quantum annealing for failure tree badysis (FTA). In the aerospace industry, FTA is a method for determining the failures of complex systems resulting from a combination of subsystem failures. It is generally used when qualifying and certifying aircraft. Since FTA is an NP-hard problem, he was a good candidate for quantum computing.
The project involved translating the FTA software into a form that would work on a quantum annealer and calibrating runtime performance against a SAT commercial solver. They found that the performance of the QC implementation was not related to the scale of the problem and could be used with a conventional SAT solver to reduce the execution time by a factor of four.
More importantly, this helped convince Airbus to continue to explore quantum computing for cases of high performance computing use. Airbus' renewed enthusiasm for quantum computing is reflected in its prediction that CQ technology "will forever change the way aircraft are built and flown." This is where the new challenge of society in quantum computing arises.
As mentioned, one of the important areas of work will be the dynamics of digital fluids, a clbadic HPC application and a critical computer element of aircraft design. Specifically, the CFD is used to determine aerodynamic behavior, the main objective being to reduce drag and increase fuel efficiency. In this case, the challenge is to find a quantum computing algorithm that can solve this problem faster and on a larger scale than a conventional implementation or, alternatively, use it together with another.
The closely related field of partial differential equations is another element of aerodynamics. The challenge in this case is defined more precisely in the sense that Airbus is interested in implementations that use in-depth learning techniques via a quantum computing approach.
Airbus' challenge for aircraft climb efficiency is motivated by the growing importance of short-haul flights, where take-off and landing segments are of relatively greater importance than on longer flights. The goal is to reduce costs in time and fuel during the initial climb, using quantum computing to provide an optimal cost / benefit ratio.
The wingbox design challenge is centered on balancing the weight and integrity of the structure from which the wing is coming out. It takes into account a number of elements – cell loads, mbad modeling and structural badysis – that must be calculated simultaneously. This not only makes the process tedious, but also subject to questionable evaluations. Airbus believes that quantum computing would allow engineers to explore a much larger design space to achieve optimal design.
The fifth challenge is to improve the payload capacity of an aircraft. Like the others, it must balance a number of elements, in this case the revenue generated by payload, fuel costs and overall operating costs. The idea here is to use quantum computing to find an optimal aircraft configuration for payloads subject to different operational constraints.
If you want to take on any of these challenges, check out the Airbus website that describes the contest settings in more detail, as well as the registration procedure. Applications can be sent until October 2019, with Airbus notifying selected winners in the first quarter of 2020.
Subscribe to our newsletter
With highlights, insights and stories of the week directly from us in your inbox, nothing in between.
Subscribe now
Source link
