UTOPIAE is the first training network that addresses the challenge of finding the ideal compromise between enhancing reliability and safety and reducing resource utilisation. UTOPIAE will build upon the existing theoretical and practical developments in the areas of Uncertainty Quantification (UQ) and Optimisation and will incorporate elements of past and current EU and non-EU projects with the inclusion of Stanford University.

From the control of manufacturing processes to air traffic management, from decision making on multi-phase programmes to space situational awareness, UQ plays a key role to deliver reliable solutions. At the same time optimised solutions have become a necessity and optimisation is now an essential tool to handle the complexity of our world. Different sectors and communities, deal with uncertainties and optimisation in different forms often equivalent or complementary.

Even more interesting is the fine line separating sensitivity analysis and stochastic optimisation. UTOPIAE will look into all these similarities and, by promoting cross fertilisation, will exploit the intimate relationship between optimisation and UQ to make Optimisation Under Uncertainty (OUU) tractable.

The Department of Aerospace Science and Technology (DAER) of Politecnico di Milano contributes to UTOPIAE its knowledge on in-flight icing simulations and morphing technologies and it is in charge of Work Package 1.2, Multi-fidelity Modelling. The Principal Investigator at DAER is prof. Alberto Guardone.

Prof. Alberto Guardone and prof. Giuseppe Quaranta will supervise one PhD student (ESR 10) working on Uncertainty Characterisation in Multi-Fidelity Anti-Ice System and Design. Objectives: to develop and analyse diverse models of variable complexity to determine the aerodynamic flow-field, the droplet trajectories and the ice accretion over an aircraft equipped with an anti-ice system; to characterise both aleatory and epistemic uncertainties in the above multi-fidelity models; to produce the optimised design of a robust anti-ice sys-tem for fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft. Expected Results: a set of multi-fidelity icing models verified and validated against experimental data; a Bayesian-based techniques for model and experimental uncertainty of an aircraft anti-icing systems; the optimisation under uncertainty of an anti-ice systems on complex aircraft configurations; the assessment, against experimental data, of in-flight icing accretion model predictions. Secondments: Alenia (3-6 months) and INRIA (3 months).

DAER will also host ESR 4 from INRIA to work on UQ for morphing applications and it will organise and host the II Local Training Workshop gathering all 15 PhD candidates working on UTOPIAE.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 722734.