Flying Further with Simulation Decomposition: The Future of Electric Aviation

Electrification Takes Off

As the aviation industry faces growing pressure to decarbonize, electrification has emerged as one of the most promising solutions for short-haul flights. While long-distance jets will rely on alternative fuels for years to come, regional turboprops and air taxis are poised to go electric — transforming business aviation and regional connectivity alike.

But innovation in electric aircraft is not just about designing new engines or batteries. It’s about understanding how multiple technologies evolve together — and how their combined progress determines what’s actually possible in the air.

That’s where Simulation Decomposition (SimDec) comes in.

Modeling Technological Progress under Uncertainty

In their Sustainability study, Mariia Kozlova, Timo Nykänen, and Julian S. Yeomans used SimDec to analyze how improvements in battery energy density and electric motor power jointly affect the range of an all-electric eight-seat turboprop.

Using Monte Carlo simulation, they modeled thousands of random combinations of technological parameters — and then decomposed the results with SimDec to see how different states of battery and motor development interact.

Instead of a single “average” estimate, SimDec reveals a color-coded map of possible outcomes — showing exactly which technological combinations push flight range furthest (as illustrated in Figure 1 on page 8).

What SimDec Revealed

The decomposition divided both variables into three levels each — existing, near-term, and future — forming nine distinct scenarios.

The visual results (the histogram in Figure 1) show:
✈️ Battery energy density is the main driver of flight range. Every improvement in specific energy (kWh/kg) adds substantial kilometers.
⚙️ Motor power density (kW/kg) matters too — but its benefits depend on battery progress. With current batteries, better motors help only slightly; with advanced batteries, they make a dramatic difference.
📉 The marginal benefit of motor improvement eventually declines — an important insight for R&D prioritization.

In practical terms, increasing battery energy from 0.25 to 0.8 kWh/kg extends flight range from about 135 km to nearly 600 km. But the same motor upgrade yields twice as much benefit when paired with better batteries.

Why Visualization Matters

This is more than an engineering insight — it’s a communication breakthrough.

While aeronautical engineers may understand nonlinear performance relationships, decision-makers and investors often don’t. By visually decomposing uncertainty, SimDec makes complex causal effects visible and intuitive.

The chart on page 8 paints a clear story: each color band represents how combinations of battery and motor technology push the limits of flight. No equations needed — just insight.

Broader Implications

The study shows how SimDec bridges R&D and strategy. By turning probabilistic models into interactive, interpretable visuals, it helps organizations decide:

• where to allocate funding (batteries, motors, or both),
• when a new technology threshold changes the economics, and
• how far electrification can realistically go under different assumptions.

And because SimDec runs alongside any Monte Carlo simulation with almost no extra computation, it can be applied far beyond aviation — from carbon capture to electric transport systems.

A New Way to See Progress

Kozlova and colleagues summarize it perfectly:

“SimDec’s straightforward visualizations of complex stochastic uncertainties make its practical contributions very powerful in environmental decision-making.”

As the path to zero-carbon aviation accelerates, the ability to see uncertainty — not hide it — may become the most valuable flight instrument of all.

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Based on 📄 Kozlova, M., Nykänen, T., & Yeomans, J.S. (2022). “Technical Advances in Aviation Electrification: Enhancing Strategic R&D Investment Analysis through Simulation Decomposition.”Sustainability, 14(1), 414.

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Watch this analysis presented in a video:

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