Powering the virtual design of Hybrid-Electric Regional aircraft with an integrated platform approach

Open digital platform solution for virtual design of hybrid-electric aircraft

For us at Siemens, providing innovative virtual design engineering solutions to our industrial end users reflects our commitment to shaping a more sustainable future towards a new era in aviation. As partners in the ODE4HERA research project, we drive the digital transformation of aerospace together with a strong consortium, creating an open digital platform solution for virtual design of hybrid-electric aircraft.

1. Challenge: Achieving climate neutrality by mastering the complex design of new regional aviation solutions

The air transportation industry is confronted with the formidable task of achieving climate neutrality by 2050, a goal set by the majority of the world’s economies through the Paris Agreement (COP21). This ambitious and transformative shift, required within a tight timeframe, necessitates the development of new technological pathways towards climate-neutral aviation¹. Innovative technologies are vital to meet clean aviation targets and to optimize aircraft performance. This means that aircraft manufacturers must skillfully navigate the design complexity and integrate emerging technologies, while simultaneously addressing changing consumer and societal demands for air travel.

Hybrid-electric regional (HER) aircraft are seen as one of the most promising options for the future of regional aviation due to their potential for fuel efficiency, lower emissions, and reduced noise pollution. This is achieved through optimized hybrid propulsion in combination with intelligent power management, leveraging electric motors for cleaner, quieter operation. The limited distance and suitable operational profile of regional aircraft make them highly appropriate for pioneering new hybrid-electric technology, to realize the benefits of hybrid-electric technology and effectively test the performance, and reach sustainability goals, thanks to innovative technologies that can pave the way for future introduction in the broader aviation industry².

However, the design of hybrid-electric aircraft is highly complex. Virtually, this complexity must be mastered to be able to design the HER aircraft, which involves an order of magnitude increase in system complexity as compared to conventional aviation. As an example, a HER architecture has around 4800 model parameters and 23 million parametrization mappings (vs. 1800 parameters and 3 million mappings of a conventional propulsion system), which also increases complex interdependencies³. Each HER design must incorporate new materials, manufacturing techniques, innovative propulsion systems and advanced onboard software. Extensive virtual and physical testing remain required to ensure the aircraft safety, reliability, performance and cost-effectiveness⁴. This necessitates a multi-disciplinary approach, integrating diverse engineering fields and solutions.

2. Context: Clean aviation joint undertaking – ODE4HERA

Europe has the objective to recharge innovation to preserve global competitiveness, with sustainability and digitalization as twin pillars of future aerospace strategy. Along these lines, the clean regional aircraft technology innovation challenge has become an important focus of the EC for funding collaborative research in Europe. The majority of this research runs within the Clean Aviation Joint Undertaking (CAJU), the European research and innovation program for transforming aviation towards a sustainable and climate-neutral future, via reduction of fuel consumption and reduction of pollution emission. To achieve this goal, CAJU includes several projects linked to technology evaluation and design for innovation. Figure 1 summarizes the CAJU projects constellation, including also the ODE4HERA project.

Towards addressing the clean aviation challenge, Siemens partners in the ODE4HERA research project (see further: section ‘Acknowledgements’), focusing on technology innovation to achieve performant and clean future hybrid-electric regional aircraft. The objective of ODE4HERA is to enable and accelerate the development of Hybrid Electrical Regional Architecture and Aircraft design thanks to modeling and simulation workflows and other improved tools and techniques. The ODE4HERA mission is to advance new digitalization solutions and contribute to new aviation products and solutions by its end user partners.

3. Solution: Open digital platform (ODP) for virtual design of hybrid-electric aircraft

To make virtual design of hybrid-electric aircraft a reality, the ODE4HERA R&D effort focuses on realizing an Open Digital Platform (ODP), including key features towards a green aviation future: collaboration, methodology and openness. The ODP platform connects multiple engineering tools. The set of tools and associated workflows are to be adapted for each user. The purpose is to consider multiple domains, represented by tools, and their synergies, supported by business logics and processes. The ODP can be explained from theoretical and technical points of view:

• Theoretical: The ODP is integrating a specifically designed for ODEHERA multi-domain unified ontology⁵. One of the most important principles is openness supported by ontology, allowing to connect tools from different domains. Information transfer and traceability are important.
• Technical: From architecture and implementation aspects, each tool to be connected to ODP shall have a specific connector enabling you to openly exchange information. The format for selecting information exchange is SysML v2.

Figure 2 illustrates 2 different instances of the ODP in its current version (V1.1) status. 

• Instance #1 (left): This instance is linking Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) / Simulation Product Data Management (SPDM) to Model Based Design (MBD) and then optimization with Multidisciplinary Design Analysis and Optimization (MDAO).
• Instance #2 (right): This instance links Requirements to System Architecture and then optimization with MDAO.

The ODP promises several advantages to future engineering users pursuing new green HER aircraft:

• The ODP is tool agnostic – Several domains are covered which can fit to several tools. 
• The ODP is customizable to match the setup and tools of the user – one just need to create a connector to include a tool.
• The ODP is process-oriented – a workflow is required to ensure information transfer.

4. ODP status and outlook

Within the ODE4HERA R&D project activity, the 2 instances in Figure 2 have been tested and validated on the same Thermal Management System use-case (TMS). They are independent from each other, but there are similar aspects between the two instances.

ODP V1.1 has been used as a basis to verify and demonstrate the workflow. As shown in Figure 3, each instance (#1 and #2) is composed of multiple domains and corresponding tools. The 2 instances are not connected, as they use a different set of tools with a different workflow.

As an example of flexibility, interoperability and openness of the ODP, we at Siemens brought into Instance #1 some products from our Simcenter portfolio⁶. In a test that involved Simcenter Amesim⁷ and Teamcenter Simulation⁸, we verified that multiple Simcenter software can bundle their powers into the ODP, delivering the targeted innovation together with other information and tools, with the ODE4HERA R&D partners.

Within the ODE4HERA research project, an Open Digital Platform (ODP) has been researched and developed in an agile way, pursuing an associated research road map. The next steps are towards a next generation ODP (V2), which will need to consider new and more realistic use case (both in terms of modelling and simulation challenge and HER design ambition). Stay tuned for future news!

Acknowledgements

The R&D work leading to this publication has been performed in the frame of the research project ODE4HERA, Open Digital Environment for Hybrid-Electric Regional Architecture’, nr. 101140510, coordinated by DLR (German Aerospace Center) as part of the Horizon Europe Joint Undertaking Clean Aviation (CA). The European Commission (EC) is gratefully acknowledged for their support.

ODE4HERA and other research projects in the Clean Aviation Joint Undertaking (CAJU) demonstrate Europe’s commitment to digital transformation and sustainable air transport, including at public events as the 15^th EASN conference, which served as a hub for dialogue among academia, industry, research institutions, and policymakers, promoting synergies across disciplines to accelerate progress in aerospace innovation. Siemens actively participated in multiple papers at EASN, including ^{8 9 10}.

References

1. Siemens Digital Industries Software, White paper – Carbon neutral aviation by 2050, 2023. ↩︎
2. Pacome Magnin, Clean Aviation by 2050? The EU’s public-private partnership approves €380 million for eight new Clean Aviation projects, Simcenter Blogpost, March 19, 2024. ↩︎
3. ODE4HERA, ODE4HERA Project Leaflet, Retrieved 2026. ↩︎
4. Thierry Olbrechts, Driving digital transformation in aviation (with capable engineering simulation software), Simcenter Blogpost, November 21, 2024. ↩︎
5. Jasper Bussemaker, Francesco Torrigiani, Carlos Cabaleiro, HERA Architecture Framework Libraries (1.0). ODE4HERA Consortium, January 16, 2026. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18267043. ↩︎
6. Siemens Digital Industries Software, Simcenter, Retrieved 2026. ↩︎
7. Siemens Digital Industries Software, Simcenter Amesim, Retrieved 2026. ↩︎
8. Klara Ziegler, Rafael Parzeller, Olexiy Kupriyanov, Elias Allegaert, Pierre Brionne, Roland Wüchner, Philippe Barabinot, Juan Manuel Lorenzi, Fabien Retho, Connecting simulation and data management tools through open standard to support hybrid aircraft design, Proceedings of the 15^th EASN conference, Madrid, Spain, October 14-17, 2025.  ↩︎
9. Francesco Torrigiani, Fabien Retho, Philippe Barabinot, Andrea Terracciano, Pierpaolo Borrelli, Tim Klaproth, Andrea Masi, Carlos Cabaleiro de la Hoz, Development of an Open Digital Environment for Design and Verification of Hybrid-Electric Architectures, Proceedings of the 15^th EASN conference, Madrid, Spain, October 14-17, 2025.  ↩︎
10. Andrea Terracciano , Pierpaolo Borrelli, Elias Allegaert, Gerardo Carbonaro, Danilo Ciliberti, Vito Primavera, Alfredo Renzetti, Fabien Retho, Novella Saccenti, Design and Integrated Verification of Hybrid-Electric Power System for Regional Aircraft, Proceedings of the 15^th EASN conference, Madrid, Spain, October 14-17, 2025. ↩︎