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Inside the cockpit: mile-high computing

Posted on 25 Jun 2010 at 16:55

The ever-improving systems will give pilots even greater control during flights. “One of the more interesting applications is Synthetic Vision, which displays a three-dimensional view of the flight path similar to what you can find in Google Earth,” said Steve Nieuwsma of Rockwell Collins.

Using these aids with more advanced positioning systems, pilots will have a better idea of the ground below them and what’s going on in the surrounding skies.

Air traffic control

This becomes particularly important when you tie it to developments going on inside the world’s busiest airspaces. At the moment, the majority of the world’s air traffic control (ATC) authorities still rely on voice, radar and basic data communications to guide and manage traffic.

Without precise data to work with, ATC bodies have to apply lengthier than necessary gaps between landing aircraft, and this in turn affects the capacity of airports and increases congestion. The future is seen to be in what’s called 4D trajectory management, where ATC can monitor in real-time the trajectory of a plane in four dimensions (latitude, longitude, flight-level and time) and diminish separation without compromising safety.

To make this happen, both Europe’s and America’s next-generation ATC systems will rely on a new communications standard, automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B), where the GPS and navigation systems on the aircraft are used to define its position and trajectory accurately, and this information is broadcast to ground stations and other aircraft using a 1,090MHz RF data link (although the specification supports several options).

With positions updated in real-time on high-resolution cockpit displays and next-generation ATC consoles, it becomes easier to establish where everyone is in the sky and predict collisions. The advanced ATC facilities at the Shanwick and Prestwick UK stations do this already using radar and trajectory prediction tools, but the roll-out of ADS-B will take this to another level.

Even with all this in place we’ll still need the human pilot, but the co-pilot’s days might be numbered. Steve Nieuwsma believes that in 20 to 30 years’ time, one pilot could operate the aircraft on his own.

“However”, Nieuwsma warns, “this will require technology to land the aircraft autonomously and safely in any type of weather at the most challenging airports, where you must assume the pilot could become incapacitated at the worst possible time. Some of this auto-land technology is available today, but not for the difficult situations – for example, a curved approach to the runway with a mountain wall 170m from the wingtip”.

Pilot substitutes?

If there’s a danger in increasing computerisation, it’s the adverse effects that automated systems and fancy displays might have on the pilot’s trained instincts.

Situational awareness has been linked to several high-profile incidents, ranging from Air France Flight 447, where it’s believed (although yet to be proved) that system errors and inconsistent speed readings caused either the flight computers or the crew to speed; to the momentary loss of Northwest Flight 188, where pilots overshot the destination partly because they were going over schedules on their laptops.

High-tech mavericks

Passengers may prefer a pilot, but the military already uses unmanned aircraft

For BALPA’s David Reynolds, this issue is partially the result of taking work from the flight crew and placing it in the care of computers.

“It’s not a major problem,” he notes, “but it is a creeping concern of ours. The pilot is, in many respects, being technologically taken out of the loop.” Luckily, Reynolds adds, it’s “something that the manufacturers of the aircraft, the airlines that operate the aircraft and the regulators are aware of”.

What’s more, it’s a problem where technology, in the shape of ADS-B, may prove to be a solution as much as a cause.

Author: Stuart Andrews

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User comments

Military aircraft use Redundancy Management

I have in the past been involved in testing the code within the Flight Control Computer for a military aircraft currently in service with the RAF and other countries.
The time taken to complete the project meant that before the end product was delivered, the COTS micro used within the FCC was obsolete and a replacement was being sourced whilst we were in the final stages of the testing!
The FCC was duplicated 4 times within the fuselage and as a result Redundancy Management (RedMan) was built into the code. The rules of RedMan make great bedtime reading, especially if you're an insommniac!
There was also redundancy within the testing - I was a member of one of two different and seperate teams each testing the code in different ways. I was doing system testing, the other team were doing unit testing. We very rarely compared notes.
Now you know why military aircraft cost so much and are usually over budget and late!

By BornOnTheCusp on 25 Jun 2010

A Flaw in the system

So let me get this strait.If Terrorists really wanted to have an impact.All they would need to do is an Oceans 11 at the Airports.Let off an E.M.P. and all of the planes that have Avionics on board ( That is most of them!) will promptly drop out of the sky
!

By Jaberwocky on 26 Jun 2010

I think that's a little easier said than done there Jaberwocky. For a start, you can't just go and buy a suitably powerful EMP generator from Maplins - even in Hollywood they had to go and nick the make-believe thing from a secure location!

Making a powerful enough, 'weapons-grade' EMP from a non-nuclear devise is pretty difficult.

I should also rather hope that the plane's more sensitive equipment has some form of shielding protecting it. (I say 'hope', I don't know).

If you really want to worry about it, I suspect nefarious new ways of smuggling bombs on board and hand-held rocket launchers near airports are still far more viable threats than EMP attacks to a plane's computers.

Fancy the boat anyone?

By Mr_John_T on 27 Jun 2010

Note: I meant to say 'device', not 'devise'.

By Mr_John_T on 27 Jun 2010

Do we have to give people ideas, Jaberwocky?

For my part, it still puzzles me how the 9/11 hijackers managed to control those fly-by-wire commercial jets so precisely after just a few lessons on a Cessna.

By 0thello on 28 Jun 2010

Nominative determinism

Is it just me, or is there some humour in the fact that a guy who works on computers to keep planes in the air is called Chip Downing...

I'll get my coat

By Mat1971 on 28 Jun 2010

Don't need to go to Maplin!

Many years ago, in an electronics magazine (can't rememember which one) there was an article re EMP and electronic devices. The main point was that an air burst would produce the necessary pulse (killing precisely no-one on the ground directly), but knocking out all electronic equipment not protected for a very large radius. The sort of protection required was either very large power transistors on input stages or valves!

Most military equipment should be protected against EMP, but not COTS of course.

By BornOnTheCusp on 28 Jun 2010

Flying is not so difficult

@0thello

I have worked on flight simulators and can assure you that once the difficult parts of the flight are done by experts (i.e. take off) the flying around is a doddle. Whilst flying a Nimrod MR2 simulator around it was very easy to fly through ships placed at 5,000 feet in the air (produced in the visual model and able to be located at any altitude)

By BornOnTheCusp on 28 Jun 2010

Oops

A friends dad (electronics engineer) worked with a defense contractor a while back, and he was telling me that he wrote code to check the redundant systems on an aircraft only to discover that the result was not in agreement across the systems! (firing systems i think). Apparently someone left a component out of one of the redundant systems!

By GAZZAT5 on 6 Jul 2010

"Redundant" systems are usually identical!

@GAZZAT5, I think you are misremembering the anecdote since a quad redundant system (for example) means ALL four units have identical software loads and the software is written to be aware of the other three units.

By BornOnTheCusp on 6 Jul 2010

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