Digital Twins in Aviation
A special issue of Aerospace (ISSN 2226-4310). This special issue belongs to the section "Air Traffic and Transportation".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2026 | Viewed by 351
Editors
2. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan
Interests: air traffic management; air transport; modeling and simulation; data science; flight control
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: air transportation; data-driven and model-based environments; predictive analysis; integrated airspace and airport management
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The increasing digitalization of aviation systems has led to a growing interest in digital twin concepts to support the design, operation, and management of complex socio-technical systems. In aviation, digital twins are understood as virtual representations of physical assets, processes, or entire systems that are continuously updated using operational data and models to reflect the current and predicted system state. These concepts offer new possibilities to improve system understanding, operational efficiency, safety, and resilience across the aviation domain.
Digital twins are increasingly applied at different levels of abstraction, ranging from individual components and aircraft systems to airport infrastructure, air traffic management processes, and passenger-related operations. By combining physics-based models, data-driven approaches, and real-time sensor information, digital twins enable advanced monitoring, prediction, and decision support capabilities. Potential applications include predictive maintenance, trajectory optimization, capacity management, disruption handling, and the evaluation of operational strategies under varying boundary conditions.
Despite their growing adoption, the development and operational use of digital twins in aviation pose significant challenges. These include data availability and quality, model fidelity, computational scalability, integration into existing operational workflows, and the validation and verification of digital-twin-based decision support. Furthermore, the interaction between human operators and digital twin systems raises questions regarding transparency, trust, and effective human system integration.
This Special Issue on “Digital Twins in Aviation” invites original research and review articles addressing theoretical foundations, methodological developments, and practical applications of digital twins within the aviation system. Contributions may cover, but are not limited to, digital twin architectures, data assimilation and state estimation, coupling of simulation and optimization, real-time and predictive applications, and the role of digital twins in enhancing safety, efficiency, and sustainability in aviation.
Prof. Dr. Eri Itoh
Prof. Dr. Michael Schultz
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Aerospace is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- digital twin
- air traffic management
- aviation
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