ITP Aero has secured its participation in two far-reaching state of the art technology projects that will contribute significantly to sustainable aviation and efficient digital transformation of production processes.

ITP Aero is the only Spanish company that will take part in the research and innovation project "Investigation and Maturation of Technologies for Hybrid Electric Propulsion" (IMOTHEP), within the EU's Horizon 2020 framework. IMOTHEP is aimed at achieving a key step in assessing the potential offered by hybrid electric propulsion and, ultimately, building the corresponding aviation sector-wide roadmap for the maturation of this technology. This four-year long project, which started on January 2020, is comprised of seven research & development centres, 11 aeronautic and electric system companies, a service SME and 7 universities from 9 EU countries, as well as 6 research, technology and development organizations from Canada and Russia.

ITP Aero's contribution within IMOTHEP, as one of the main development partners, is focused on the Energy Generation Work Package. The company is responsible for the conceptual design of three power turbine configurations for electrical power generation in flight, applied to three different aircrafts architectures: one regional aircraft with distributed propulsion, and two short/medium range commercial aircrafts. ITP Aero is also responsible for the conceptual design of the gas generator.

ITP Aero will also be "Joint Action towards Digital Transformation" (JANO) Project Leader, starting 4th February 2020 with a kick off meeting at the Aeronautics Advanced Manufacturing Center (CFAA) in Biscay (Spain), under the 2019 CIEN (National Business Research Consortia) call programme from the Spanish Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI). JANO aims at developing key technologies for the digital transformation of the companies that make up the consortia – Siemens Gamesa, Gestamp, Danobat, Nippon Gases, Renishaw, ONA and Trimek.

ITP Aero leads the JANO consortia, and will contract universities and technology centres such as UC3M, Azterlan, Ideko, Inovalia, Basque Center of Applied Mathematics (BCAM) and the CFAA to support research activities. This project's objective, which will be ITP Aero's responsibility, is based on developing technologies towards the "smart factory" concept, such as: big data, including machine connectivity in a safe environment and the development of high impact predictive models in production processes; advanced additive manufacturing application developments and predictive maintenance of machines; augmented reality and artificial vision systems applied to maintenance and automatic defect recognition.

Inaki Ulizar, Executive Director of Engineering & Technology of ITP Aero, has commented: "In ITP Aero we work to make aviation an increasingly sustainable industry. We are proud to be leading Spanish research into hybrid electric propulsion and to spearhead digital transformation within our industry; both projects will contribute to a cleaner, quieter and smarter future for aviation".