DISCO Innovation Machine

Aircraft design innovation is a lever to improve safety when combined with appropriate procedures and flight operations. The introduction of, for example, Terrain Awareness and Warning Systems or Flight Envelope Protections are cornerstones of aviation safety improvements.

Future further enhancements are likely to involve evolutions  that will increase the capabilities of aircraft and improve operational efficiency. 

To innovate in that field, Airbus launched a research programme called DISCO, an acronym  for “DISruptive COckpit”, with the objective to explore a different kind of cockpit for commercial aircraft of the 21st century, that could enhance safety, flight operations, crew situational awareness, while improving aircraft performance. 

The team was given a blank sheet. It’s noteworthy that they started building the tools and means to iterate quickly and to “fail fast”, determining  as soon as possible whether an idea has value or not, in order to drop it and give space to move the more promising ideas forward.

The DISCO programme just reached a milestone, a so-called “Proof of Concept” with several outcomes. Although this research exercise is far from being completed, we are now convinced that perception, navigation, automation, human-system interface related technologies have the potential to further enhance aviation safety and aircraft operational efficiency.It would now be necessary to further mature  the concept.

This project has received funding from the Clean Sky 2 Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement No 945583. The JU receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and the Clean Sky 2 JU members other than the Union.

The results, opinions, conclusions, etc. presented in this work are those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily represent the position of the JU; the JU is not responsible for any use made of the information contained herein.