Over the past four years, the CAELESTIS project has made groundbreaking strides toward revolutionizing aviation manufacturing, delivering impressive innovations that are paving the way for carbon-neutral flight. With a dedicated consortium of 11 partners spanning 8 European countries, CAELESTIS has combined world-class expertise in aeronautical engineering, advanced manufacturing, automated production, and high-performance computing to address one of the biggest challenges in aviation: reducing the sector’s carbon emissions, which currently account for 3.8% of the EU’s total emissions and are projected to grow by 50% by 2050.

A central achievement of CAELESTIS has been the development of a fully digitalized Automated Fiber Placement (AFP) manufacturing cell. This state-of-the-art production environment integrates cutting-edge inspection and monitoring technologies that capture real-time data at every step of the composite manufacturing process. Notably, profilometers scan each ply layer by layer, producing detailed 3D point clouds, while sophisticated algorithms automatically detect manufacturing defects such as gaps and overlaps. Complementing this, thermal cameras continuously monitor temperature ranges within critical limits, ensuring optimal process control.

Beyond manufacturing innovation, CAELESTIS has built a hyperconnected simulation ecosystem—a true digital twin that connects physical manufacturing processes with virtual models, real-time services, and advanced data analytics. This ecosystem allows for extensive virtual manufacturing simulation, including Monte Carlo analyses of batch production and virtual coordinate measuring for tolerance validation. Artificial intelligence plays a role as well, with neural networks predicting resin flow in real time to anticipate and prevent defects during production.