Since 2005 DLR develops the Common Parametric Aircraft Configuration Schema, short CPACS. It contains a parametric description of aircraft configurations as well as the complete transport system, e.g. fleet and airport descriptions.
The number of interfaces in multi-disciplinary aircraft design is crucial for a flexible and efficient flow of information. Along with CPACS the number of interfaces between analysis modules is not only reduced but also do these become replaceable, as all adapt to one common definition. The CPACS format allows the automatic generation, validation and documentation of data-sets. As a part of the Release Kit, CPACS format, documentation and sample configurations are made available.
CPACS can be obtained from software.dlr.de