EASA signed contracts for five new research projects, all funded from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme. The contracts were concluded following calls for tender and EASA as contract manager will work side by side with the appointed project leaders.

The projects cover the following research topics:

• Enhanced fault detection and diagnosis solutions for air data systems, to propose and assess novel methods to detect and/or be robust to multiple consistent and possibly simultaneous air data probe failures.
• Monitoring of flight control laws, to investigate the introduction of flight control law monitors to detect errors and assess changes to certification standards.
• Impact of Security Measures on Safety, to understand the nature and extent of the interdependencies between safety and security in order to assess the impact of security measures on safety.
• LOKI-PED — Lithium Batteries Fire/Smoke Risks in Cabin, to fully characterise the hazards related to the carriage of lithium batteries and Portable electronics Device (PED) by passengers in the aircraft cabin.
• eMCO-SiPO – Extended Minimum Crew Operations – Single Pilot Operations – Safety Risk Assessment Framework, to assess the main safety hazards associated to extended minimum crew operations and single pilot operations, evaluate whether the compensation measures proposed by industry, in addition to the measures considered necessary by EASA, enable the eMCO and SiPO operational concepts to be implemented with level of safety equivalent to today’s two-pilot operations.

The projects fall under the six research actions that address EASA’s and European Member States’ research needs and requirements related to civil aviation:

• Lessons-learned from recent accidents / incidents in Air Transport
• Safety standards for the introduction of key concepts and technologies
• Solutions for runway safety
• Standards supporting the digital transformation of aviation
• Development of new aviation health safety standards
• Impact of security measures on safety

More information on EASA’s Research activities can be found on EASA’s website ‘Research & Innovation’.