PLANA Pioneers the Future of Advanced Aviation on AWS

Established in 2021, PLANA is one of a few companies around the world working on advanced air mobility (AAM)—a concept that employs innovative aircraft and flight technologies to revolutionize city transportation. AAM aircraft, also known as electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) vehicles, are designed to mitigate urban traffic and air pollution, assuming roles akin to today’s taxis, emergency services, and delivery vehicles. Based on a hybrid electric system, PLANA's CP-01 aircraft takes off and lands vertically and can be used for both urban and regional transportation of up to six persons.

When it launched, PLANA set an ambitious timeline for making its CP-01 aircraft production-ready by 2028. This timeline included development, construction, successful flight trials, and acquiring certifications from authorities like the US Federal Aviation Administration. However, as its aircraft’s design evolved and simulations grew more intricate, PLANA’s engineers encountered inefficiencies within their traditional workstation setup, resulting in time-consuming simulations. Additionally, the company faced high costs because it relied on engineering software that is charged on an hourly basis. This software plays a crucial role in simulating real-life design performance, generating valuable data for design refinement and expediting production.

To tackle the typical 15−20 year aircraft design period, PLANA needed a more efficient and cost-effective solution that would provide the necessary computational power and responsive support to streamline its simulation process. Arun Subramanian, PhD, aerodynamics engineer at PLANA, explains, “As a growing company in its early stages, we have limited resources. We felt the pricing wasn’t competitive enough, and the support wasn’t as responsive as we needed it to be.”

Exploring its options, PLANA considered Amazon Web Services High Performance Computing (AWS HPC). Local AWS experts linked PLANA with Korean AWS Partner ISBC, known for its HPC expertise. ISBC helped PLANA launch a proof of concept (POC) for running Siemens STAR-CCM+, a computational fluid dynamics software tool, on AWS. “We really appreciated ISBC’s assistance in setting up a POC,” says Subramanian. “We chose AWS because of the platform’s scalability and HPC capabilities, including access to exceptional AWS Partner support. ISBC consistently checked in to ensure everything was proceeding smoothly.”

By taking advantage of AWS HPC services, PLANA estimates that it has already seen a 70 percent reduction in HPC simulation costs. This is thanks to a combination of On-Demand and Spot-Instance pricing to access Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) C5n HPC instances, with Amazon FSx for Lustre for fully managed HPC storage and AWS ParallelCluster for configuring HPC resources for each simulation quickly and flexibly. “Cost savings are crucial to us because any amount saved can be reinvested in hiring additional engineers or executing more tasks to expedite the design process,” comments Subramanian.

Running on AWS has also proved more scalable than the company’s previous traditional workstation setup. “The airflow simulations, which previously took 10 days, can now be completed in 5−8 hours due to the ease of scaling compute cores on AWS,” says Subramanian.

Transitioning to AWS has made the design process for CP-01 vastly more efficient. Engineers now use NICE EnginFrame for job submissions and NICE DCV, an AWS-owned display technology, for streaming graphics-intensive visualizations of simulation results. This has eliminated the need to transfer files to a local PC before working on the data, saving hundreds of hours and supporting timely project completion. “Before NICE DCV, I couldn't access my workstation remotely for graphics-intensive work,” Subramanian adds. “Now, the data interface that NICE DCV provides allows me to swiftly access flow visualizations, leading to earlier design modifications and expedited testing.”

Currently, PLANA is on course to ready CP-01 for production by 2028. In 2023, it successfully flight-tested a mini-CP-01 prototype with a 3-meter wingspan. “It validated our designs and methodologies,” Subramanian recalls.

The team is now scaling the mini prototype into a full-sized CP-01 that boasts a 15-meter wingspan, a six-person payload, and a cruising speed of 185 mph. This version is targeted for launch in 2025. “We’ll be heavily leveraging AWS HPC services to validate every facet of the aircraft. We estimate compressing eight years’ worth of work into just three, thanks to the ease of scaling any number of cores we need,” Subramanian concludes. “With support from AWS and ISBC, we’re crafting an exceptional aircraft. I’m really looking forward to flying in the creation we’ve poured our hearts into soon.”