Advances in Aeronautical Informatics

This chapter draws the readers into a comprehensive discussion about the advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and their influence on the technology landscape of aeronautics. It gives a rough overview of the advances in technical systems from the industrial revolution up until Industry 4.0 and elaborates the reflection of these advancements in aeronautics from the pioneers era toward Flight 4.0. It briefly describes various recent fields of research in ICT such as Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), Internet of Things (IoT), wireless networks, multicore architectures, Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), cloud computing, big data, and modern software engineering methodologies as the parts of future aeronautical engineering body of knowledge. Thereafter, it describes aeronautical informatics as an establishing interdisciplinary field of study of applied informatics and aeronautics. 1.1 Aeronautics: The Study of Flight Aeronautics is defined as the study or the practice of all aspects of flight through the air [1]. It also refers to design, construction, and operation of aircraft [2]. Aeronautical engineering is the corresponding engineering discipline. It applies the scientific principles of flight and engineering in design and development of aircraft and its operation. Aerospace engineering extends the limits of aeronautical engineeringwith including space flight and astronautics into its scope. Encyclopedia of Aerospace Engineering from Wiley documents the aspiration of the largest professional organizations of aeronautics, namely Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS) and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) in seeking the bodyof aerospace knowledge [3]. This large-scale reference that covers entire range of scientific and engineering principles of aeronautics and astronautics is organized in eight volumes: fluid dynamics and aerothermodynamics, propulsion and power, structural technology, materials technology, dynamics and control, U. Durak (B) German Aerospace Center (DLR), Braunschweig, Germany e-mail: umut.durak@dlr.de © Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018 U. Durak et al. (eds.), Advances in Aeronautical Informatics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75058-3_1 3