New Energy World™
New Energy World™ embraces the whole energy industry as it connects and converges to address the decarbonisation challenge. It covers progress being made across the industry, from the dynamics under way to reduce emissions in oil and gas, through improvements to the efficiency of energy conversion and use, to cutting-edge initiatives in renewable and low-carbon technologies.
How can artificial intelligence contribute to more sustainable aviation?
9/11/2022
6 min read
Feature
A major source of global emissions, decarbonising the aviation sector is crucial for achieving net zero. Clara Argerich Martín, AI Lead for Aviation Sustainability at Innaxis, discusses the role of artificial intelligence (AI) and data science for this.
Following the Paris Agreement and the European Green Deal, all flights from the European Union (EU), UK and EFTA (The European Free Trade Association) should reach net zero emissions by 2050. The decarbonisation of aviation is to be achieved through improved technology, optimised air traffic management and fleet renewal, among other solutions.
In September 2022, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) published an extensive analysis on different scenarios regarding decarbonisation in aviation, along with a set of recommendations built on the performed analysis. The recommendations include:
- Integrating effective environmental measures into the European Air traffic Management System.
- Scaling up the supply and use of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF).
- Promoting research and identifying solutions to address environmental and climate impacts as well as building climate change resilience.
- Incentivising technological innovation through continued international cooperation.
- Fostering green airport operations and infrastructure.
- Promoting investments and market-based measures to enhance the sustainability of the aviation industry.
Consequently, it is clear that sustainable aviation is crucial for the viability of the sector and there is a need for investment and innovation in order to make climate neutral aviation a reality. The question that arises is: How can current on-point technologies be used to help achieve those goals? Finding ourselves in the so-called Big Data era, in which we are capable of storing and analysing large amounts of data, the emerging thought is: What role can data science and AI play on the roadmap towards greener aviation?
Data science and AI
Data science and AI are rapidly growing technical disciplines. On the one hand, data science is an interdisciplinary field that relies on scientific methods, processes, algorithms and systems to extract or extrapolate insights from heterogeneous data sources, and it benefits from the knowledge gained from the data in a wide range of application areas.