Airplane Wire - If you took all the wires out of the wide passenger plane and tied them together, you could connect St. Louis to Chicago or London to Amsterdam, a distance of about 500 kilometers. If you were to roll these 100,000 threads into a ball and the brackets that hold the structure of the plane and put the ball on a ladder, it would come to about 7,400. kilograms or about 3 percent of the aircraft's weight.
Many of these cables provide power to components, but many others carry operational data, including avionics, flight control commands, and sensor data about the performance of components such as pneumatic and hydraulic systems. Research engineers believe that within five years they will have overcome enough technical and regulatory hurdles to begin replacing most data-carrying cables with wireless transmitters.
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The first is the wiring of non-avionic components such as cabin lighting controls and passenger audio and video equipment, or equipment that collects routine health management data from aircraft. Next come the safety-related cables connected to smoke detectors, emergency lighting, cabin and air pressure sensors, and possibly even controls that move the flight control points.
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In all, it can be relatively easy for a large modern organization to dispose of up to 1,800 kilograms of wire, according to Mauro Atalla, vice president of engineering and technology in United Technologies Corp.'s sensors and integrated systems division. in Minnesota, one of the companies researching indoor wireless communications for airplanes.
Eliminating so much wiring is a major goal, fueled in part by airlines' increasing desire to maintain more and more health monitoring equipment to identify malfunctioning components before they pose a safety risk or disrupt safety programs flight. A move to wireless communication would also improve security and make it easier to update devices, advocates say.
Some of the leading avionics and aircraft experts have taken up the challenge in a project called WAIC, short for wireless indoor communications, coordinated by the Aerospace Vehicle Systems Institute at Texas A&M University. is sponsored by participating organizations and includes a growing list of avionics companies. and aircraft manufacturers.
US component suppliers Honeywell and United Technologies were involved, as were Airbus, Boeing, Canada's Bombardier, GE Aviation, Brazil's Embraer and Gulfstream. The most recent to join are NASA, Lufthansa Technik of Germany, Thales of France and Zodiac Inflight Innovation of California and Germany. They will contribute their expertise to laboratory and flight tests.
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How does a wireless system work? United Technologies, better known as UTC, agreed to explain its approach to us. Modules with a diameter weighing less than 13 grams would be installed in components in the aircraft. Each would send data from a component or receive commands from the flight crew or automated systems.
To enable these modules, UTC considers different methods. Power can be provided by a long-life lithium battery or by harvesting ambient energy and storing it in large batteries. Any batteries must not be rechargeable to avoid overheating and fire risks.
These data transmission modules, or nodes, would be connected to remote data connectors weighing less than 200 grams strategically placed near the aircraft. These routers, similar to routers in homes and buildings, will be powered by the aircraft's electrical system. They would collect data from (or send it to) conversion modules and direct it where it needs to go. This could mean an aircraft interface device for ground transmission via radio, broadband or cellular network. If the crew needed to see the data, it would be sent to a cockpit interface module that would connect wirelessly or via cables to tablet PCs to display to the pilots.
WAIC's research focuses on the boldest part of the wireless revolution, which will be the transmission of data related to the safety and regularity of flights. Passenger entertainment and communication are also wireless, but with different systems, although partly for the same reasons: to reduce weight, cost and complexity.
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The need to change the wiring is more and more, especially for wide planes. In 1984, a Boeing 767-200ER had 140 km of wire, and today, a modern biplane like the Boeing 787 has about 500 km of wire. The wire weight in the unidirectional plane is about half of the total of the two directions, but the load ratio is the same.
David Redman leads the Aerospace Vehicle Systems Institute's effort to coordinate research on WAIC. He recalls that it took from 2008 to 2015 to take the first regulatory step: obtaining the WAIC specific frequency of 4,200 to 4,400 megahertz from the World Radiocommunication Conference, which meets every three to four years for make decisions about frequency. by radio.
Redman coordinates research to help RTCA, an association established in 1935 as the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics, establish performance standards for WAIC equipment. The main purpose is to ensure that the WAIC programs will not interfere with those on other aircraft, themselves or the radio measuring equipment, which finds height by measuring the time it takes for radio waves to reflect from the ground and back to the aircraft. All these devices operate in the same 4,200 to 4,400 megahertz band.
UTC's Atalla expects the WAIC minimum performance standard to be in place by mid-2019. Redman expects WAIC-approved applications in about five years.
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Wireless nodes must be light, small, cheap and accessible to be an attractive and realistic alternative to wires. How to strengthen the knots is still the main question. Lithium batteries and ambient energy harvesting are among the options, but there is a third idea. Radio frequency identification tags can remain static until they are momentarily activated by signals from RFID readers that interrogate them.
With both nodes and strengths, Redman hopes WAIC can push consumer development or other industrial markets that have higher rates of return on investment.
As confidence in the technology grows, some of the cables that carry data in fly-by-wire jets may be replaced. This would be a major breakthrough, as safety-related connections now require two or three redundant wires to ensure functionality if one of the wires burns out or fails for some other reason. If a wireless link were installed instead of a single wire, the result would be what Redman calls non-uniform attenuation, which is often a viable strategy. The same security data would be carried by wired and wireless connections, rather than relying on wires that could both fail for the same reason.
And Redman notes that WAIC's weight reduction could be even greater than if engineers reduced the cables needed to power the components. Wires that carry data, including fiber optic cables, are usually heavier, more expensive and more complex than those that carry electricity.
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Redman notes that eliminating cables also frees up space, always for in-flight loading. Wires take up their own space and require additional space for their separation.
Upgrading equipment on current jets can be a daunting task, but with the new approach, mechanics will only need to replace the component and attached module, rather than safely disconnect, remove and replace wire bundles. Especially for new aircraft, installing wireless devices can be easier than installing all the wires that connect them.
In addition to these benefits, advocates suspect there will be an as-yet-unexpected payoff. In today's designs, the sensors require wires and that limits where they can be placed. Jobs that aren't practical or economical today with wired systems can suddenly make sense.
The Air Vehicle Systems Institute says wireless technology can be used in all aircraft, including these safety applications:
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We're glad you enjoyed the easy access to the digital version of Aerospace America. If you wish to continue reading our publication, you will need to join AIAA or register. Please follow one of the steps below. . But what's the key to enabling lightning-fast data transfer across all the planes needed to keep these new technologies running? Specialized wire and cable solutions that support data transfer rates up to 10 GB per second. Now consider that this happens on today's commercial, military and corporate aircraft at altitudes above 30,000 feet, sometimes in remote airspace, where bandwidth availability is limited for functions such as passengers connecting to Wi-Fi systems. Be it from inside the plane.
Wires and cables are also becoming increasingly important in the data architecture of modern aircraft. For example, when building the 787, Boeing chose lighter, more efficient solutions capable of reducing cable length by 60 to 70 miles—about 25 miles less than the 767. Even the aircraft's wires and cables were installed on the 787 .When it first entered service, it will eventually become obsolete as Boeing works with suppliers to modernize its flagship aircraft. And many general aviation and commercial aircraft still in service today require wire and cable upgrades. For example, more than 80 percent of Avionics magazine readers
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