AirTwinX: A High-Fidelity Digital Twin for Advanced Air Mobility with Ray Tracing

Annoy Dey; Maxwell McManus; Zhaoxi Zhang; Guanying Sun; Nicholas Mastronarde; Elizabeth Serena Bentley; Zhangyu Guan

doi:10.1109/ccnc54725.2025.10975938

AirTwinX: A High-Fidelity Digital Twin for Advanced Air Mobility with Ray Tracing

Annoy Dey
, Maxwell McManus
, Zhaoxi Zhang
, Guanying Sun
, Nicholas Mastronarde
, Elizabeth Serena Bentley
, Zhangyu Guan

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

Abstract

Ensuring the safety and reliability of emerging Advanced Aerial Mobility (AAM) systems requires wireless communication to provide real-time monitoring and control information to ground stations. This greatly depends on the quality of the wireless links during aerial transit. In this demonstration, we present AirTwinX, designed to emulate flight control of flying vehicles while generating high-fidelity, context-aware models for air-to-air (AA) and air-to-ground (AG) communication links. Using GPU-accelerated ray tracing, AirTwinX can predict the quality of wireless links with near real-time updates based on the environmental geometry observed during flight. This data is then used to guide autonomous control decision-making. Additionally, the vehicle control toolchain employed in this work is based on software-in-the-loop (SITL) emulation of a commercial flight controller, enabling seamless translation of control policies from simulation to real-world hardware.

Original language	English (US)
Title of host publication	2025 IEEE 22nd Consumer Communications and Networking Conference, CCNC 2025
Publisher	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
ISBN (Electronic)	9798331508050
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/ccnc54725.2025.10975938
State	Published - 2025
Externally published	Yes
Event	22nd IEEE Consumer Communications and Networking Conference, CCNC 2025 - Las Vegas, United States Duration: Jan 10 2025 → Jan 13 2025

Publication series

Name	Proceedings - IEEE Consumer Communications and Networking Conference, CCNC
ISSN (Print)	2331-9860

Conference

Conference	22nd IEEE Consumer Communications and Networking Conference, CCNC 2025
Country/Territory	United States
City	Las Vegas
Period	1/10/25 → 1/13/25

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2025 IEEE.

Keywords

Advanced Air Mobility (AAM)
NVIDIA GPU
Ray Tracing
Software-in-the-Loop (SITL)

Publisher link

10.1109/ccnc54725.2025.10975938

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Cite this

Dey, A., McManus, M., Zhang, Z., Sun, G., Mastronarde, N., Bentley, E. S., & Guan, Z. (2025). AirTwinX: A High-Fidelity Digital Twin for Advanced Air Mobility with Ray Tracing. In 2025 IEEE 22nd Consumer Communications and Networking Conference, CCNC 2025 (Proceedings - IEEE Consumer Communications and Networking Conference, CCNC). Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.. https://doi.org/10.1109/ccnc54725.2025.10975938

AirTwinX: A High-Fidelity Digital Twin for Advanced Air Mobility with Ray Tracing. / Dey, Annoy; McManus, Maxwell; Zhang, Zhaoxi et al.
2025 IEEE 22nd Consumer Communications and Networking Conference, CCNC 2025. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., 2025. (Proceedings - IEEE Consumer Communications and Networking Conference, CCNC).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

Dey, A, McManus, M, Zhang, Z, Sun, G, Mastronarde, N, Bentley, ES & Guan, Z 2025, AirTwinX: A High-Fidelity Digital Twin for Advanced Air Mobility with Ray Tracing. in 2025 IEEE 22nd Consumer Communications and Networking Conference, CCNC 2025. Proceedings - IEEE Consumer Communications and Networking Conference, CCNC, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., 22nd IEEE Consumer Communications and Networking Conference, CCNC 2025, Las Vegas, United States, 1/10/25. https://doi.org/10.1109/ccnc54725.2025.10975938

Dey A, McManus M, Zhang Z, Sun G, Mastronarde N, Bentley ES et al. AirTwinX: A High-Fidelity Digital Twin for Advanced Air Mobility with Ray Tracing. In 2025 IEEE 22nd Consumer Communications and Networking Conference, CCNC 2025. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. 2025. (Proceedings - IEEE Consumer Communications and Networking Conference, CCNC). doi: 10.1109/ccnc54725.2025.10975938

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abstract = "Ensuring the safety and reliability of emerging Advanced Aerial Mobility (AAM) systems requires wireless communication to provide real-time monitoring and control information to ground stations. This greatly depends on the quality of the wireless links during aerial transit. In this demonstration, we present AirTwinX, designed to emulate flight control of flying vehicles while generating high-fidelity, context-aware models for air-to-air (AA) and air-to-ground (AG) communication links. Using GPU-accelerated ray tracing, AirTwinX can predict the quality of wireless links with near real-time updates based on the environmental geometry observed during flight. This data is then used to guide autonomous control decision-making. Additionally, the vehicle control toolchain employed in this work is based on software-in-the-loop (SITL) emulation of a commercial flight controller, enabling seamless translation of control policies from simulation to real-world hardware.",

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AU - Mastronarde, Nicholas

AU - Bentley, Elizabeth Serena

AU - Guan, Zhangyu

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AB - Ensuring the safety and reliability of emerging Advanced Aerial Mobility (AAM) systems requires wireless communication to provide real-time monitoring and control information to ground stations. This greatly depends on the quality of the wireless links during aerial transit. In this demonstration, we present AirTwinX, designed to emulate flight control of flying vehicles while generating high-fidelity, context-aware models for air-to-air (AA) and air-to-ground (AG) communication links. Using GPU-accelerated ray tracing, AirTwinX can predict the quality of wireless links with near real-time updates based on the environmental geometry observed during flight. This data is then used to guide autonomous control decision-making. Additionally, the vehicle control toolchain employed in this work is based on software-in-the-loop (SITL) emulation of a commercial flight controller, enabling seamless translation of control policies from simulation to real-world hardware.

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KW - Software-in-the-Loop (SITL)

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M3 - Conference contribution

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PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.

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ER -

AirTwinX: A High-Fidelity Digital Twin for Advanced Air Mobility with Ray Tracing

Abstract

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