The aerospace industry is entering a period of unprecedented growth. Global air traffic continues to increase; airlines are expanding their fleets, and aircraft manufacturers are forecasting the delivery of tens of thousands of new aircraft over the coming decades. While this growth represents an opportunity for the entire aerospace ecosystem, it also creates significant challenges across the maintenance sector.
One of the most pressing challenges is workforce development.
Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) organisations around the world are facing growing difficulties in recruiting and retaining qualified aircraft maintenance technicians. At the same time, experienced personnel are progressively leaving the workforce, creating a need to transfer knowledge and expertise to a new generation of technicians. The industry therefore faces a dual challenge: increasing the number of trained maintenance professionals while ensuring that training quality and operational safety remain at the highest level.
This challenge is particularly significant because modern aircraft are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Advanced avionics, digital systems, connected equipment, and evolving regulatory requirements continue to increase the complexity of maintenance operations. Technicians are expected to master a growing quantity of technical information while complying with stringent safety and certification requirements.
Traditional training methods remain essential, but they also present limitations. Hands-on training often requires access to operational aircraft or expensive maintenance equipment, both of which may be difficult to make available for training purposes. Furthermore, preparing and maintaining training content can be a lengthy and resource-intensive process, especially when procedures evolve or new aircraft configurations are introduced.
In this context, innovative approaches are needed to complement existing training methods and support the development of future maintenance skills.
This is precisely the ambition of the MOTIVATE XR project.
Exploring the Potential of XR and AI for Industrial Training
Funded by the Horizon Europe programme, MOTIVATE XR investigates how Extended Reality (XR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) can transform industrial training and facilitate the development of future workforce skills.
Rather than replacing existing training approaches, the project seeks to augment them through immersive technologies capable of reproducing operational environments, maintenance activities, and technical procedures.
The core idea is simple but powerful: enable trainees to learn, practice and repeat maintenance tasks within realistic virtual environments while reducing the constraints associated with physical equipment, aircraft availability and traditional content creation processes.
The project brings together partners from multiple industrial sectors, each addressing different training challenges through dedicated pilot activities. Within this framework, the Aerospace Pilot focuses specifically on aircraft maintenance training and explores how XR and AI can support both training organisations and industrial stakeholders operating in highly regulated environments.
A Collaborative Aerospace Pilot
The Aerospace Pilot is built upon the complementary expertise of four organisations:
- Aerocampus Nouvelle-Aquitaine contributes its expertise as a leading aerospace training organisation and provides direct access to learners and instructors.
- CS GROUP brings extensive experience in simulation technologies, virtual environments, and immersive applications for complex industrial domains.
- Sopra Steria, contributes expertise in digital transformation and artificial intelligence, particularly regarding the automation of content creation and intelligent assistance mechanisms.
- Aerospace Valley acts as catalyst and facilitator, bringing together industrial, technological, and training stakeholders while ensuring close alignment with the needs of the aerospace ecosystem.
Together, these partners are exploring new ways to make immersive training content easier, faster, and more scalable to develop. The collaboration combines operational training expertise, digital technologies, industrial requirements and innovation management into a single demonstrator addressing a real aerospace maintenance use case.
From Maintenance Procedures to Immersive Training Experiences
Aircraft maintenance activities are governed by detailed technical documentation and strict operational procedures.
These procedures contain essential information regarding safety precautions, tooling requirements, maintenance sequences, and verification steps. While these documents provide the foundation for maintenance operations, transforming them into immersive learning experiences traditionally requires significant effort from training designers and XR developers.
One of the major innovations explored within MOTIVATE XR is the use of Artificial Intelligence to support this transformation process. The objective is to investigate how AI can assist in converting maintenance procedures into immersive XR training scenarios while reducing the manual effort required to create training content.
This approach has the potential to significantly simplify the authoring process. Instead of starting from a blank page, training designers can leverage AI-assisted tools to accelerate the generation of procedural training sequences and immersive learning experiences.
By combining AI-supported content generation and XR-based visualisation, the Aerospace Pilot seeks to create a more efficient pathway from technical documentation to deployable training content.
A Real Aerospace Maintenance Use Case
To validate this approach, the Aerospace Pilot focuses on a concrete maintenance scenario involving the removal and installation of aircraft equipment.
The objective is not only to demonstrate the technical feasibility of XR-based training but also to evaluate how such technologies can improve understanding of procedures, facilitate learning, and support operational readiness.
The immersive environment enables trainees to familiarise themselves with procedural sequences, identify key maintenance steps, and interact with virtual representations of aircraft components. Repeated practice is particularly valuable in maintenance contexts where access to equipment may be limited or where operational constraints make additional training sessions difficult to organise. The possibility of reproducing a maintenance operation multiple times, under identical conditions, creates opportunities for more consistent and repeatable learning experiences.
Why XR Matters for Aerospace Training
Extended Reality technologies offer several advantages for maintenance training environments.
- XR makes it possible to visualise complex equipment, systems, and maintenance operations directly within immersive environments. Trainees can better understand spatial relationships between components and gain a clearer understanding of maintenance sequences.
- Immersive training can increase engagement and active participation during learning activities. Instead of passively reviewing documentation, learners can interact with procedures and perform tasks within simulated operational environments.
- XR environments provide a safe space for learning. Trainees can make mistakes, repeat procedures, and practice specific operations without impacting operational aircraft availability or generating additional risks.
- Finally, immersive technologies provide flexibility. Training sessions can be reproduced consistently across different locations and audiences, enabling organisations to scale training activities more efficiently.
The Role of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence represents another key pillar of the Aerospace Pilot.
Within MOTIVATE XR, AI is not viewed solely as a content generation tool. It is also considered an enabler capable of supporting trainers throughout the training creation process. The project explores several areas where AI can contribute:
- Assisting the transformation of maintenance procedures into training scenarios.
- Supporting content structure and scenario generation.
- Improving consistency between technical documentation and training materials.
- Facilitating the creation of immersive learning experiences.
- Reducing the time required to produce XR content.
This is particularly important within aerospace environments, where procedures are detailed, highly structured, and subject to strict regulatory controls. Even modest improvements in content creation efficiency can have a significant impact when multiplied across numerous maintenance procedures and training programs.
Expected Benefits
The Aerospace Pilot aims to demonstrate several potential benefits for training organisations and industrial stakeholders.
✅ Delivering more engaging and interactive training experiences – XR technologies have the potential to increase learner engagement through greater interactivity and realism.
✅ Reducing dependence on operational aircraft – Certain phases of learning can be completed in virtual environments, reducing the need to immobilise aircraft or equipment for training purposes.
✅ Reducing the time and cost required to create immersive training content – The creation of XR learning environments often requires significant development effort. AI-assisted approaches may help streamline this process and improve scalability.
✅ Reducing errors in the interpretation of documentation and modelling procedures – AI-supported workflows can contribute to greater consistency during the conversion of maintenance procedures into training content.
Supporting the Future Aerospace Workforce
Beyond technological innovations, the Aerospace Pilot ultimately addresses a human challenge.
The aerospace industry requires a continuous flow of highly skilled maintenance personnel capable of working within complex technical environments and maintaining the highest levels of safety.
Meeting this challenge will require a combination of traditional expertise, innovative learning methods, and digital technologies. Projects such as MOTIVATE XR demonstrate how collaboration between training providers, technology companies, industrial stakeholders and innovation clusters can contribute to addressing future workforce needs.
The objective is not to replace instructors, maintenance experts, or existing training programmes. Instead, the goal is to provide additional tools capable of enhancing training efficiency, accessibility, and effectiveness. As aircraft technologies evolve and maintenance requirements continue to increase, ensuring the availability of qualified technicians will remain one of the key success factors for the aerospace sector.
The future of aerospace depends not only on the aircraft that will be designed and manufactured in the coming decades, but also on the people who will maintain them safely throughout their operational life.
Through the collaboration between Aerospace Valley, Aerocampus Nouvelle-Aquitaine, CS GROUP, Sopra Steria, and the MOTIVATE XR Aerospace Pilot contributes to exploring how XR and AI can help build those critical skills for the next generation of aviation maintenance professionals.
Author
Aerospace Valley
Emilie Luño Chlyah is a computer engineer (ENAC graduate) based in Toulouse with over 20 years of international experience in project management, innovation ecosystems, and aerospace cooperation across France, Spain, and Morocco. At Aerospace Valley, she fosters collaborative initiatives and builds synergies between industry, academia, and public institutions to strengthen the European aeronautical ecosystem.
