Periodic Reporting for period 2 - ICARUS (Aviation-driven Data Value Chain for Diversified Global and Local Operations)
Reporting period: 2019-07-01 to 2021-06-30
Despite the large investments to mine data and explore analytics in the aviation industry, though, there is currently little data diffusion and sharing between the different stakeholders of the aviation-related sectors.
ICARUS realises a novel data value chain in the aviation-related sectors towards data-driven innovation and collaboration across diversified and fragmented industry players, acting as multiplier of the “combined” data value that can be accrued, shared and traded. ICARUS addresses critical barriers for the adoption of Big Data in the aviation industry (e.g. data fragmentation, data provenance, data licensing and ownership, data veracity), and enables aviation-related big data scenarios for companies, organisations and scientists, through a platform that will allow exploration, curation, integration and deep analysis of original, synthesised and derivative data characterised by different velocity, variety and volume in a trusted and fair manner.
ICARUS pursues its realisation through 7 objectives:
• Business Obj. I: To deliver a pan-European multi-sided big data platform for the aviation data value chain, validated through a set of demonstrators;
• Business Obj. II: To bring forward novel collaborative business models driven by big data sharing and analytics services; and
• Business Obj. III: To nurture a sustainable and ever-growing open ecosystem of collaborating organisations from diverse domains, taking advantage of the business offerings of the ICARUS platform.
• Technical Obj. I: To deliver a novel Big Data platform as a Service powered by aviation relevant data, allowing central and federated experimentation with big data analytics, service composition, data sharing, assets reuse and business value generation; and
• Technical Obj. II: To integrate existing approaches, tools and libraries that accelerate the data management and analysis cycle for powering the ICARUS platform.
• Scientific Obj. I: To successfully tackle the semantic enrichment, data improvement and value addition on existing hybrid big and open data sources, resulting in widely-adopted value chain models; and
• Scientific Obj. II: To deliver an innovative, secure, privacy preserving and IPR respecting data exchange methodology, propelling the creation of a joint venture of data owners and analytics providers.
ICARUS realises a novel data value chain in the aviation-related sectors towards data-driven innovation and collaboration across diversified and fragmented industry players, acting as multiplier of the “combined” data value that can be accrued, shared and traded. ICARUS addresses critical barriers for the adoption of Big Data in the aviation industry (e.g. data fragmentation, data provenance, data licensing and ownership, data veracity), and enables aviation-related big data scenarios for companies, organisations and scientists, through a platform that will allow exploration, curation, integration and deep analysis of original, synthesised and derivative data characterised by different velocity, variety and volume in a trusted and fair manner.
ICARUS pursues its realisation through 7 objectives:
• Business Obj. I: To deliver a pan-European multi-sided big data platform for the aviation data value chain, validated through a set of demonstrators;
• Business Obj. II: To bring forward novel collaborative business models driven by big data sharing and analytics services; and
• Business Obj. III: To nurture a sustainable and ever-growing open ecosystem of collaborating organisations from diverse domains, taking advantage of the business offerings of the ICARUS platform.
• Technical Obj. I: To deliver a novel Big Data platform as a Service powered by aviation relevant data, allowing central and federated experimentation with big data analytics, service composition, data sharing, assets reuse and business value generation; and
• Technical Obj. II: To integrate existing approaches, tools and libraries that accelerate the data management and analysis cycle for powering the ICARUS platform.
• Scientific Obj. I: To successfully tackle the semantic enrichment, data improvement and value addition on existing hybrid big and open data sources, resulting in widely-adopted value chain models; and
• Scientific Obj. II: To deliver an innovative, secure, privacy preserving and IPR respecting data exchange methodology, propelling the creation of a joint venture of data owners and analytics providers.
ICARUS project has identified the market need for: (I) trusted and fair data sharing, (II) affordable and cost-efficient data linking and (III) insightful and understandable data analytics, in the aviation data value chain, in alignment with the recommendations of a number of policy and industry-specific initiatives. The achievements of ICARUS project can be summarized:
· The ICARUS 6-Phased Methodology and the final MVP consolidated upon internal and external validation activities.
· The ICARUS Data Management and Value Creation Methods that span over 9 different dimensions, namely data collection, data curation, data safeguarding, data analytics and data sharing.
· The ICARUS Architecture that is built on 3 layers: the ICARUS Core Platform, the ICARUS On-Premise Environment and the ICARUS Secure and Private Spaces, consisting of 23 key components in total (including the dedicated secure storage solution, namely the Secure Storage, and the Data Preparation Manager component that facilitates the preparation and manipulation of a dataset prior to data analysis or visualisation, which were introduced on M24). The updated design specifications of 15 Core Data service bundles and the 3 Added Value service bundles were iteratively produced based on the internal and external user and technical requirements that were gradually elicited, and embedding the constant feedback gained in the various platform and demonstrator releases. A series of workflows (29 in total) that illustrate the functionalities of the integrated ICARUS platform and interfaces to allow the seamless integration of the different components were also specified and agreed.
· The ICARUS Platform Releases 1.00 1.50 and 2.00 incorporating a set of core functionalities that are logically organised into 5 workflows: a) the data asset check-in workflow, b) the data asset search and acquisition workflow, c) the data analytics and visualisation workflow, d) the user management workflow, and e) the administrator view workflow. The ICARUS Platform has been documented in detail: (a) online in the platform’s Help menu from a user-oriented perspective; and (b) through the APIs it exposes from a developer-oriented perspective.
· The 4 ICARUS Demonstrators, that are representative of the three tiers of the aviation data value chain defined in ICARUS, have been executed through the early, intermediate and final iterations in order to test, evaluate and validate the releases of ICARUS platform
· The ICARUS 6-Phased Methodology and the final MVP consolidated upon internal and external validation activities.
· The ICARUS Data Management and Value Creation Methods that span over 9 different dimensions, namely data collection, data curation, data safeguarding, data analytics and data sharing.
· The ICARUS Architecture that is built on 3 layers: the ICARUS Core Platform, the ICARUS On-Premise Environment and the ICARUS Secure and Private Spaces, consisting of 23 key components in total (including the dedicated secure storage solution, namely the Secure Storage, and the Data Preparation Manager component that facilitates the preparation and manipulation of a dataset prior to data analysis or visualisation, which were introduced on M24). The updated design specifications of 15 Core Data service bundles and the 3 Added Value service bundles were iteratively produced based on the internal and external user and technical requirements that were gradually elicited, and embedding the constant feedback gained in the various platform and demonstrator releases. A series of workflows (29 in total) that illustrate the functionalities of the integrated ICARUS platform and interfaces to allow the seamless integration of the different components were also specified and agreed.
· The ICARUS Platform Releases 1.00 1.50 and 2.00 incorporating a set of core functionalities that are logically organised into 5 workflows: a) the data asset check-in workflow, b) the data asset search and acquisition workflow, c) the data analytics and visualisation workflow, d) the user management workflow, and e) the administrator view workflow. The ICARUS Platform has been documented in detail: (a) online in the platform’s Help menu from a user-oriented perspective; and (b) through the APIs it exposes from a developer-oriented perspective.
· The 4 ICARUS Demonstrators, that are representative of the three tiers of the aviation data value chain defined in ICARUS, have been executed through the early, intermediate and final iterations in order to test, evaluate and validate the releases of ICARUS platform
The ICARUS project has defined, designed and developed the fully functional release of a unique data and intelligence platform for the aviation industry, taking into account the concrete stakeholders’ needs and requirements. Progress beyond the state-of-the art is substantiated along the following dimensions: (a) End-to-End Data Security allowing to encrypt data on-premise, (b) Trusted Data Sharing for creating, signing and validating smart data contracts, (c) Advanced Access Control to regulate access to the privately owned data assets, (d) Secure and Private Analytics Spaces for designing and executing analytics and “applications”, (e) Intuitive Data Exploration in order to find, understand and explore aviation-related data, and (f) Effortless Data Linking that aims at curating, mapping and linking the privately owned data assets with external data based on a common data model (which is built based on state-of-the-art aviation ontologies and data models). Such dimensions are brought together under the ICARUS methodology and architecture and are driven by the theoretical ICARUS data management and value creation approaches.
Departing from existing aviation approaches that focus either on data analytics or data sharing, the ICARUS platform provides a one-stop shop for the discovery and analysis of native-aviation, extra-aviation and derivative-aviation data assets. With the help of the ICARUS platform, the aviation data value chain stakeholders are able to securely share their data in a trusted way that assuages their inherent concerns, and run various descriptive and predictive analytics that are interrelated to different operational problems they face, going beyond the analytics they currently employ on-premise and potentially offering their analysis outcomes as an application in the ICARUS marketplace. In accordance with a data population monitoring plan, data and applications were populated the ICARUS platform originating from the ICARUS consortium along with open aviation-related data and shall gradually expand over external aviation stakeholders who will be on-boarded in the platform.
The novelty and added value of the ICARUS platform has been acknowledged by all stakeholders with whom the ICARUS consortium interacted till now in different engagement activities (in events, through dedicated interviews and online questionnaires). The potential impacts of the project for the different stakeholder categories remain valid and relevant, as originally described in the ICARUS DoA.
Departing from existing aviation approaches that focus either on data analytics or data sharing, the ICARUS platform provides a one-stop shop for the discovery and analysis of native-aviation, extra-aviation and derivative-aviation data assets. With the help of the ICARUS platform, the aviation data value chain stakeholders are able to securely share their data in a trusted way that assuages their inherent concerns, and run various descriptive and predictive analytics that are interrelated to different operational problems they face, going beyond the analytics they currently employ on-premise and potentially offering their analysis outcomes as an application in the ICARUS marketplace. In accordance with a data population monitoring plan, data and applications were populated the ICARUS platform originating from the ICARUS consortium along with open aviation-related data and shall gradually expand over external aviation stakeholders who will be on-boarded in the platform.
The novelty and added value of the ICARUS platform has been acknowledged by all stakeholders with whom the ICARUS consortium interacted till now in different engagement activities (in events, through dedicated interviews and online questionnaires). The potential impacts of the project for the different stakeholder categories remain valid and relevant, as originally described in the ICARUS DoA.