The Quantum Quest for the Aerospace Sector

Scientific computing capabilities are the backbone of engineering solutions in various industrial sectors, including aviation and space. Quantum Computing is expected to create a massive paradigm shift in design and operation.

Within the EQUALITY project (Efficient QUAntum ALgorithms for IndusTrY) Airbus is part of a consortium consisting of various partners from industry and academia and was selected by the EU’s key funding program for research and innovation, Horizon Europe. The project targets industrial use cases that can benefit from the quantum-enabled speed-up in near and medium terms. These include computational fluid dynamics for aerodynamic flows as a key capability to design efficient aircraft, batteries and fuel cells, new materials for energy applications, multidisciplinary optimization, space mission optimization, and space data analysis.

Each of these challenges require a multidisciplinary approach involving industrial end-users, hardware providers, and academia working collaboratively. Specifically, Airbus focuses on computational fluid dynamics, a key capability to model aerodynamic flows to design efficient aircraft. Another area is satellite mission planning, a complex challenge for today's classical computers. Additionally, we explore quantum machine learning algorithms for efficient processing of radar satellite imagery.

Even though currently the problem size and granularity remains on a toy level, the solutions open up an outlook on upcoming opportunities and put into perspective roadmaps for technology, the numbers of qubits and error rates. This makes the outcomes valuable for long lead strategic considerations.