IIT Bombay is developing an ‘AI digital twins’ model to provide diagnostics and prognostics for the gas turbine engines of Su-30 MKI fighter jets
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The Indian Air Force (IAF) has signed three contracts with IIT Bombay to develop a ‘health index’ of every engine of Su-30 MKI fighter aircraft undergoing midlife maintenance, which will bring down its service costs, increase their availability and life for operations. To achieve that, IIT Bombay is developing an ‘AI digital twins’ model to provide diagnostics and prognostics for the gas turbine engines of the IAF’s mainstay Russian Su-30 MKI fighter jets. This was shared by Professor Asim Tewari from IIT Bombay’s Centre for Machine Intelligence and Data Science (C-MInDS) and Mechanical Engineering departments, in an exclusive interview with businessline." The deals between IAF and IIT Bombay were signed on Wednesday. Predictive MaintenanceThis is a stepping stone towards path-breaking advanced technology for prognostic and prescriptive maintenance, which will be developed using fully indigenous know-how evolved at the IIT Bombay.“We will be using a ‘physics-informed AI model’, which means it will not just be AI but advanced engineering as well. Through that, we will be able to get personalised health parameters of every engine to know beforehand what can go wrong in an engine and accordingly provide solutions,” Prof Tiwari, who is the Principal Investigator (PI) for the projects, said.An AI digital twin is a highly advanced virtual replica of a physical object, system, or process that uses AI to simulate, predict, and optimise its real-world counterpart’s performance. The IAF currently operates a fleet of approximately 259 to 260 Su-30 MKIs.According to him, IIT Bombay has been working for a while on these issues with the IAF, which has culminated in the three projects. Multiple milestones have to be reached for three separate contracts to record progress in each of them. We have aggressive timelines with milestones that have to be achieved from less than a year to a couple of years for completing the three projects, he stated “It will have a huge impact on the IAF, as the engine maintenance turnaround will go down, leading to cost savings and longer availability of engines,” the project PI elaborated.The move is part of the overall motto of ‘minimal human intervention, maximum combat potential', which is driving the IAF towards automation of certain levels of maintenance and overhaul of fighter jets and copters by using AI and robotics, businessline had earlier reported.“This paradigm shift will strengthen IAF’s operational readiness, deepen technical self-reliance and accelerate the march of Indian aerospace technology towards the frontiers of predictive, data-driven engineering,” said the IIT.On why the Su-30 MKI was shortlisted for the project, he stated that this was the best time since the fighter aircraft has already been in 20-plus years of operations, generating enough data for tech-based solutions for its maintenance and repair.The IIT Bombay is also working on a similar AI digital twins model for helicopters and radar systems, as these tools can be stretched to offer tailor-made automation solutions for military platforms. It would help amplify inventory management to the next level and scale up the capacity utilisation of machines and weapons so that the armed force is ready 24x7 in case of a war. Published on May 28, 2026
