High Performance Computing, cloud, big data, artificial intelligence, cyber security and cyber resilience, urgent computing, robotics: these are the main skills of the Leonardo Pole dedicated to the digitalization of industry
The data, to be processed, enhanced and protected along the entire digital supply chain, is the basis of Leonardo's competitiveness
The activities of the Leonardo Industrial Digitization Center are central to the achievement of the SDG objectives, through the creation and enhancement of new skills in the STEM field and the development of sustainable technologies
Leonardo accelerates the digital transformation of the Aerospace, Defense and Security (AD&S) industry and consolidates in Genoa the hub of national competence from which to develop the main programs and processes of the Group. The goal is to increase Leonardo's technological and product competitiveness by focusing on the data-driven economy and the enhancement of data to strengthen the company's core activities and implement digital transformation.
Leonardo's drive for digitalization - in line with the Be Tomorrow 2030 strategic plan - is based on and develops from the synergy of key skills and infrastructures starting from the davinci-1 HPC (High Performance Computer), equipped with an architecture that integrates the flexibility of the cloud with supercomputing capabilities and cyber security technologies. Strategic assets at the heart of the Leonardo Lab, the long-term Research and Development network with the highest innovative content, focused on eight research areas and involving about 60 young researchers.
Today the frontier of the digitalization of the AD & D industry is represented by the creation of digital twins of its platforms and technologies to accelerate design, improve performance, optimize maintenance in a predictive key, increase simulation potential (up to the possibility of certification by simulation in the aerospace sector) and virtualize training.
The modeling of the behavior of products such as aircraft, both fixed-wing and rotary-wing, through big data, numerical simulation and AI are the most advanced point in this direction. The ability to process and correlate information from products in use and simulations in a virtual environment is allowing Leonardo to accelerate design and innovation on materials (lightness and strength), on performance (aerodynamics and energy saving) and on the customer. care (augmented reality maintenance and pilot training).
The use of these techniques in the analysis of flight data has made it possible, for example, to develop advanced applications for the management of helicopter fleets (about 5.000 units worldwide) that optimize performance and maintenance activities. Maintenance takes a decisive step towards predictive maintenance and remote support capabilities through collaborative digital platforms also based on augmented reality devices. For fixed-wing aircraft, predictive analysis through sensors and precision electronic systems is expanding to the dynamic evaluation of individual aircraft components. The objective is to accelerate the so-called "digital transformation" of the activities and technical processes of logistic support and to offer the infrastructure suitable for the progressive implementation of artificial intelligence tools aimed at a continuous improvement of the efficiency and effectiveness of maintenance operations.
The simulation of the simultaneous take-off and landing of multiple helicopters on aircraft carriers and the predictive models of ice formation on the wings are two of the most significant examples of the applications developed in the field of virtual modeling. The combination of all these skills is at the basis of the development of the new generation of aircraft conceived as a "system of systems" capable of high interconnection with other systems and interoperability even with unmanned platforms.
Numerical simulation combined with data analysis in the perspective of the digital twin also affects the production chains. In this direction, Leonardo is carrying out a project for the digitization and interconnection of the design and production processes of the production line of the ATR aircraft at the Pomigliano d'Arco (Naples) plant.
Guaranteeing IT security is essential to extract all the value contained in the data, ensuring operational continuity. Genoa is one of the key nodes of Leonardo's network of cyber security centers, which in the Ligurian capital, as well as in Rome, Chieti, Florence, Milan and Bristol, designs and develops solutions aimed at protecting both corporate information assets and strategic infrastructures and institutions from multidomain threats, contributing to their secure digitalization. There are over 5.000 networks and 70.000 cyber-protected users by Leonardo in 130 countries. In Italy alone, around 90.000 security events are monitored per second and over 1.500 alarms are managed per day. In this context, digital twin technologies are used to virtualize the IT infrastructures to be protected and to test products and solutions to respond to cyber attacks.
Data management, an essential element for improving process efficiency, is at the heart of Leonardo's offer and an integral part of its products. An example above all is the X-2030 platform, created precisely to enhance the data in support of the resilience of critical infrastructures. X-2030 makes it possible to integrate and correlate an enormous amount of information from heterogeneous sources - from aerial platforms to satellite data, from field sensors to databases to social media and open sources - thanks to cloud computing, supercomputing and IA This solution is the basis of Global Monitoring and Situational Awareness, that is, the control and monitoring of the territory, allowing informed decisions even in cases of emergency for hydrogeological protection and for increasing citizens' safety, also in a preventive key. This application in the emergency field - urgent computing - allows an objective evaluation and a rapid response in the event of extraordinary events, of natural or anthropogenic origin.
Another example is the OCEAN software, developed in Genoa, to dynamically and quickly configure test and training systems for operators who have to interact with digital monitoring and control systems.
A more prospective frontier is linked to the research activities on robotics and quantum computing of the Leonardo Labs. In particular, the latter constitute a technological accelerator and a key element for business development in several domains: from cyber security to defense electronics up to to space.
In robotics, the projects in progress in Genoa - in collaboration with the Italian Institute of Technology and the University of Genoa - concern the construction of adaptive robots to be used in complex production environments, with the aim of improving the safety of operators, the flexibility of uses in unstructured environments, unforeseen situations and critical environmental conditions, and the ability to act independently. The main applications are in the aerospace, civil protection, security and defense sectors.
As for quantum technologies, the projects cover a broad spectrum of applications. The most pioneering involves the use of the davinci-1 HPC to simulate a quantum processor in a supercomputing environment, a fundamental prerequisite for working with real quantum computers. Leonardo's quantum simulators, once optimized on the davinci-1, are used to develop programs in quantum logic, avoiding the problems of today's real quantum computers, and compared with the latter to judge their effectiveness in terms of performance, identifying where there may be a prevalence on digital computers (quantum supremacy). Thanks to these skills, Leonardo is the first player of the AD&S that is starting research on the application of quantum technologies in the radar field, the "Quantum Sensing Radar" capable of overcoming the current limits of traditional radars, being able to increase the range of recognizable objects. and expanding the reconnaissance spectrum, thanks to the use of photon beams able to "overcome" obstacles.
For Leonardo, HPC, data, artificial intelligence and cyber resilience are strategic assets at the basis of the current digital industrial revolution, in which it is necessary to invest and bring together an increasingly broad ecosystem of public-private subjects, with the aim of overseeing the better this critical phase of development, a key element for growth that is sustainable from an environmental, economic and social point of view.
Assets which, when enriched with new skills, can also be decisive in new industrial and application fields, including healthcare, given the need for shared and secure data (electronic health record), telemedicine applications (rehabilitation and surgical robotics), predictive and epidemiological analyzes (epidemic management, precision medicine, genomics). A sector that in Genoa sees one of the most specialized and fertile areas of development. In this context, Leonardo actively participates in projects, the result of specific agreements, including the collaboration with Dompé Farmaceutici for the construction of the first nucleus of the national digital health security infrastructure with cloud architecture, with Movendo Technology, a biomedical company and, finally, with IIT at the Human technologies laboratories, as well as participating in European research projects in the Digital Health field.