AutoFlight and Dassault Systèmes to work together and strengthen R&D capabilities

Aut­oFlight has recent­ly entered into a strate­gic part­ner­ship with Das­sault Sys­tèmes to strength­en its research and devel­op­ment (R&D) capa­bil­i­ties. 

The col­lab­o­ra­tion will see the two com­pa­nies build an inte­grat­ed dig­i­tal plat­form that cov­ers the entire prod­uct devel­op­ment process.

The part­ner­ship aims to cre­ate an end-to-end prod­uct life­cy­cle devel­op­ment plat­form, com­bin­ing exper­tise in tech­nol­o­gy man­age­ment, engi­neer­ing design, sim­u­la­tion, and man­u­fac­tur­ing. 

This plat­form is designed to help Aut­oFlight expe­dite the devel­op­ment of its eVTOL prod­ucts, bring­ing them clos­er to achiev­ing air­wor­thi­ness cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

Tian Yu, Chair­man and CEO of Aut­oFlight, high­light­ed the sig­nif­i­cance of the part­ner­ship, not­ing, “Das­sault Sys­tèmes has an impor­tant posi­tion in the avi­a­tion indus­try.

“Through coop­er­a­tion with Das­sault Sys­tèmes, we will enhance AutoFlight’s dig­i­tal inno­va­tion capa­bil­i­ties and core com­pet­i­tive­ness in col­lab­o­ra­tive design and project man­age­ment, improve the prod­uct devel­op­ment sys­tem guid­ed by for­ward design, and accel­er­ate the devel­op­ment and air­wor­thi­ness cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of AutoFlight’s series of prod­ucts.”

Through Das­sault Sys­tèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE plat­form, the alliance will focus on stream­lin­ing dig­i­tal prod­uct devel­op­ment for eVTOLs. 

Das­sault Sys­tèmes, which has over four decades of expe­ri­ence in the aero­space indus­try, has sup­port­ed projects rang­ing from large com­mer­cial air­craft to advanced eVTOL tech­nolo­gies. 

The 3DEXPERIENCE plat­form, util­is­ing dig­i­tal twin tech­nol­o­gy, will pro­vide Aut­oFlight with com­pre­hen­sive sup­port, from design and sim­u­la­tion to man­u­fac­tur­ing.

Zhang Ying, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of Das­sault Sys­tèmes Greater Chi­na, also empha­sised the impor­tance of this col­lab­o­ra­tion.

He said: “Das­sault Sys­tèmes was born in the avi­a­tion indus­try and has accu­mu­lat­ed pro­found and sys­tem­at­ic indus­try excel­lent prac­tices in the fields of research and devel­op­ment, inno­va­tion, pro­duc­tion and man­u­fac­tur­ing, main­te­nance and oper­a­tion.

“Aut­oFlight and Das­sault Sys­tèmes are both inno­va­tion lead­ers in the indus­try. With this strate­gic coop­er­a­tion, we will fly togeth­er in the low-alti­tude econ­o­my and eVTOL indus­try.”

Recent Milestone

Last month, Aut­oFlight com­plet­ed an inau­gur­al cross-Yangtze Riv­er flight with its Pros­per­i­ty eVTOL air­craft.

The jour­ney began at the Nan­jing unmanned aer­i­al vehi­cle (UAV) base in Puk­ou Dis­trict, Nan­jing, where the air­craft took off. It flew over the Yangtze Riv­er — the longest riv­er in Eura­sia and third largest in the world — and cir­cled along the riv­er before return­ing to base.

The flight cov­ered a dis­tance of 25km and the flight took 10 min­utes. It also marked the first cross-Yangtze Riv­er jour­ney by an eVTOL air­craft weigh­ing more than one ton.