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Pilot a Plane with a PDA?
An anonymous reader writes "This whitepaper describes how engineers at IBM's Pervasive Computing Advanced Technology Laboratory created a Linux-based, intelligent, remote control system for a model airplane as a way to showcase gateway server technology. The onboard computer controls various navigational equipment and interfaces to a wireless access point and PDA. The user can control the plane through handheld wireless technology. A 3-dimensional virtual flight environment tracks the plane's flight and provides a gps-based autopilot function. The environment is based on LandSAT maps and gives the user a virtual view of the flight from the cockpit of the plane, which can be augmented by real-time updates from an onboard camera. The article briefly introduces "gateway server" concepts, describes the embedded hardware and software architecture, explains how the IBM developers implemented the control systems, and includes lots of cool photos."
Anyone know what the distance of transmission for the pda's signals to the plane is?
From your wireless PDA, you could turn on lights, set your VCR, monitor your alarm system, or even fly a plane.
Its 2003 and I can't even control my alarm clock with my computer. It looks like I won't have computer controlled devices at home anytime before 2010. Anyway, this PDA experiment is keeping my hopes alive.
New year Resolution: Don't change sig this year
Perhaps there's a way to increase the range? I guess they used WiFi because mobile phones are more limited because of the transfer rate. What about also installing a PDA inside the plane? If you install a few extra sensors and a PDA, the plane could probably fly itself for a limited time. When a PDA can run flight simulators, it should be able to control the plane for a few seconds. The transfer rate would then not be an issue (you would just send course corrections)
Honestly i think this is great news. Just the other day i was thinking about how feasible it would be to control an airplane (comerical airliner) outside of the cockpit. If someone did gain access to the flight deck and was able to take control of the plane, it would be a lot easier for a US Air Marshal to break out a PDA and take back control of the plane. This would prevent the possibility of another 9/11 from happening, and it would also prevent a US jet from shooting the plane out of the sky because they know who its being control by. I know the risk of a terrorist or even a curious fellow with his PDA, gaining control of the aircraft becuase they found a security flaw or stumbled accross something interesting is too risky for anything like this to be implimented. But in theory, it would be a nice option to have just incase something awful did happen.
eh, food for thought...
A global positioning system (GPS) and independent gyros are used to maintain synchronization between the virtual and physical positioning of the plane and allow real-time flight path correction. The current position of the plane is determined by the onboard GPS module and the gyros are integrated to indicate horizon and heading information as well as determine when the plane should terminate a turn. The navigation software is implemented as an SMF Bundle with native library support to interface with the GPS module and the gyros. The collected data is plugged into positioning algorithms that compare the actual state of the plane with the intended flight path and actuate the servos based on the result.
The breakthrough isn't that a cerfBoard can fly a plane. It's that a cerfboard can fly a plane AND take directions from you in the form of gps coordinates... from any java capable browser.
A global positioning system (GPS) and independent gyros are used to maintain synchronization between the virtual and physical positioning of the plane and allow real-time flight path correction. The current position of the plane is determined by the onboard GPS module and the gyros are integrated to indicate horizon and heading information as well as determine when the plane should terminate a turn. The navigation software is implemented as an SMF Bundle with native library support to interface with the GPS module and the gyros. The collected data is plugged into positioning algorithms that compare the actual state of the plane with the intended flight path and actuate the servos based on the result.
The plane flies itself using the cerfBoard it has onboard. You tell it where to go by pointing on a map.
It's a lot more advanced than the joystick method. The legitimate reason for doing this is to show that we can control a device that has to react in hard real time with minimal user input from any java capable browser in the world. Think about how many such devices exist? My ex-boss runs an adhesive factory in his spare time... with computer controlled mixers on a proprietary interface hooked up to a modem. His big dream is to get the emergency stop buttons on those mixers onto the internet behind some appropriate security... and if that works, try something a bit more interesting...
If there's any interest I'll make it available (with source code of course).
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Not exactly, you can legally place a high gain antenna on the Access point, getting up to 1 Watt Equivilent power (comercial data AP's are limited to 100 mW EQP,) if you have filled the specific application to the FCC.
IBM would not have a problem getting that approved, especially for a demo.
Then they would have several thousand feet, safely, from the access point, even with a lower than 100mW reciever in the plane.
RTFA.
"Communication between the PDA and the onboard CerfBoard 405EP is achieved through cellular communications... An 802.11b connection is used for near field communications and software updates."