What is CPACS?

The Common Parametric Aircraft Configuration Schema (CPACS) is a data definition for the air transportation system. CPACS enables engineers to exchange information between their tools. It is therefore a driver for multi-disciplinary and multi-fidelity design in distributed environments. CPACS describes the characteristics of aircraft, rotorcraft, engines, climate impact, fleets and mission in a structured, hierarchical manner. Not only product but also process information is stored in CPACS. The process information helps in setting up workflows for analysis modules. Due to the fact that CPACS follows a central model approach, the number of interfaces is reduced to a minimum.

Cite & Acknowledge

CPACS is available as Open Source and we encourage anyone to make use of it. If you are applying CPACS in a scientific environment and publish any related work, please cite the following artice:

M. Alder, E. Moerland, J. Jepsen and B. Nagel. Recent Advances in Establishing a Common Language for Aircraft Design with CPACS. Aerospace Europe Conference 2020, Bordeaux, France, 2020.