Accelerating Ascendance’s ATEA VTOL
Context
Ascendance, a pioneer in hybrid-electric propulsion systems, is developing ATEA, a VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) aircraft designed to provide a low-noise, low-carbon alternative to helicopters while enabling innovative regional transportation solutions.
To accelerate the development of ATEA’s avionics, flight-control, and energy-management systems, while preparing the evidence required for flight clearance and future certification, Ascendance needed an open, highly representative HIL (Hardware-in-the-Loop) platform capable of evolving at the pace of the aircraft program.
Spherea Group was selected to deliver the system integration bench and U-TEST® software within a demanding six-month schedule, supporting Ascendance’s critical path to first flight.
Our Solution
The bench integrates 350 I/Os (discrete and analog I/Os – ARINC 429, RS485, CAN, and LVDT) to interface with cockpit avionics components and flight-control computers, enabling the simulation of various flight scenarios. This allows Ascendance to simulate normal, degraded, and failure scenarios before flight.
Powered by U-TEST, Spherea Group’s real-time simulation and test software, the platform provides an open, fully scriptable environment for MIL (Model-in-the-Loop), SIL (Software-in-the-Loop), and HIL validation.
This digital continuity is central to the approach: Ascendance can reuse the same U-TEST models and test scripts from a purely simulated SIL setup through to HIL execution on the physical test bench, then extend the same toolchain to the ATEA flight simulator and flight-test systems.
Key benefits
- The test platform’s ability to be rapidly reconfigured in parallel with the ongoing development of the aircraft systems and models, combined with the efficiency of the test setup process, has enabled Ascendance’s teams to perform integration, validation, and verification testing within a demanding schedule.
- Its PCB-based architecture, generated from Ascendance’s engineering data, reduced wiring complexity and helped Spherea Group deliver a highly connected bench in just six months while preserving agility as ICDs (Interface Control Document) and aircraft configurations evolved.
- Test pilots have been able to interact with the cockpit avionics and flight-control systems in a highly representative environment, contributing to a high level of system maturity prior to flight testing.
- This test bench strongly supports Ascendance’s safety case and future certification roadmap by providing structured evidence for system integration validation. Its ability to record flight data and replay these datasets on the bench further accelerates verification and troubleshooting activities.
Client Testimonial
The automation capabilities of U-TEST are highly appreciated by our design teams, as they allow us to perform non-regression testing quickly and automate a wide range of processes. One of the key aspects appreciated by our pilots is the productivity of the overall setup, as we are able to run up to 25 test cases per day, which is remarkable. I have never seen such a high number of validation points achieved in a single day within the industry. In just one year, we accomplished what would normally take four years to develop.