Researchers at Oklahoma State University are developing a new AI system designed to enhance aircraft safety during ship-based operations, one of the most challenging environments in aviation.

The project, known as AIRWISE, focuses on predicting turbulent airflow conditions, called airwakes, that form around moving ships and can significantly affect aircraft during takeoff and landing.

Airwakes are caused by the interaction between wind and a ship’s structure, creating unstable and difficult-to-predict conditions that can alter flight paths and increase pilot workload. Current training systems rely on simplified models that often fail to capture these complexities, while more accurate simulations are too computationally intensive for real-time use.

The research team, led by Dr. Kursat Kara and Dr. Ryan Paul, is combining computational fluid dynamics with AI to build a system capable of delivering high-fidelity airflow predictions almost instantly. By training AI models on detailed simulation data, the framework can replicate complex wind patterns far more efficiently than traditional methods.

“Ship airwakes are highly complex and directly affect the safety of flight operations,” said Kara. “This project gives us a path toward efficiently modeling those environments to enhance the fidelity of simulations and increase the quality of decisions made when studying this environment.”

Once deployed, the system is expected to generate detailed three-dimensional wind models in under 100 milliseconds using graphics processing units. This could support applications ranging from pilot training and aircraft performance testing to the development of autonomous flight systems.

“Shipboard landing is one of the most challenging operations in aviation,” Paul said. “Better predictive tools can make a meaningful difference in safety.”

Beyond operational use, the initiative also provides advanced research opportunities for students in areas such as AI, high-performance computing and aerospace engineering, with potential applications across defense and aviation sectors.