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Fly-by-Wireless Plane Takes to the Sky
galactic_grub writes to tell us that engineers in Portugal have built and flown a plane with no wires or mechanical connections between the major systems, only a wireless network. From the article: "Tests flights carried out in Portugal have shown that the system works well. Cristina Santos, at Minho University in Portugal, who developed the plane, says the aim is primarily to reduce weight and power requirements. 'Also, if you do not have the cables then the system is much more flexible to changes,' she says."
PS - I note the next story on the front page is "IT: Wireless Security Attacks and Defenses." Coincidence? I think not
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Does an optical cable REALLY weigh that much that someone would want to replace it with wireless? This goes for any situation where functionality is considered to be important. I have a wireless network at home, but I've also run gigabit ethernet through the entire house. The wireless goes down from time to time, but the hard cable does not. The article talks about two benefits, weight reduction and power reduction. In both situations, I would expect that a single lightweight fiber connection and some LED lasers would not be significantly heaver, and would likely use a good deal less power... It just seems to me that the whole idea is little more than academic. I can't think of a single situation where it would be more desirable for a device like an automobile or an airplane to use a wireless system for communicating control information. Someone's got way too much free time on his hands...
Slashdot, where you get modded down as redundant for stating an opposing viewpoint... Independent thought anyone?
Such wireless links could be susceptible to electromagnetic interference or even jamming, Mellor suggests. And it could be more difficult to build in back-up wireless connections, he says. "If you jam one link you would jam both," he warns.
That's also my concern. A high powered transmitter is a lot easier to attack a plane with than a shoulder mounted rocket. (Which simply doesn't have the same range as a high powered transmitter.) A truck with a few generators in series would make for an excellent jamming platform.
There's also the concern of an onboard terrorist using implementation flaws to hack the airplane. The crew would have a deuce of a time trying to understand why they're locked out of their controls.
Some planes, such as the Boeing 777 even use optical fibres, which can carry multiple signals through a single cable.
IMNO, this makes a lot more sense. Optical busses between the necessary components are fast, lightweight, and easy to install. I can't see wireless saving more than a few kilograms over fibre connections.
That being said, in-flight entertainment systems might save weight if they weren't wired up. Running fibre for such systems results in a lot of unnecessary wiring and weight. Since the entertainment system is effectively a low-security system, airplane makers can feel free to use these linkages as long as the control systems remain wired.
She also admits that stringent aviation regulations may mean the technology first appears in cars rather than planes.
That makes even less sense. AFAIK, the horrid nests of wires that previously ran all of a car's electronics have been replaced by more standardized busses. The remaining wiring merely hooks a cars features into the power system. Unless I missed something, Bluetooth can not wirelessly provide power to accessories. Which means that they can't replace the wiring in cars anyway.
Hopefully we'll see this technology help with UAVs and other super-light aircraft. But I have no desire to fly on a plane that has its key systems hooked up through a technology that can be potentially interfered with by the cellphones the passengers are carrying.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
The developer says:
I think that qualifies for understatement of the year.
Indiscriminate jamming isn't difficult. I used to hang out with a ham operator so old he had a 4-digit license. The guy had leydon jars made from all manner of old glass containers. He used to cackle with glee after applying the juice for a half-minute or so, then brag about how he had knocked out every TV and radio within a mile. I don't know about the range, but he sure managed to kill the TV and radio in his house by doing that. The point is that relying on wireless anything to stand between me and a flying machine suddenly dropping out of the sky strikes me (bad pun, I know) as a tad foolish.
Now, for deployment of cheaper, small drones in war zones against unsophisticated opponents, this might be a good strategy for making things more affordable. But for anything we might conceive of, today, as an "airplane," I just don't see it. I hope they get the problems worked out. That's what research is for and some really neat things might result. But my first reaction is pretty negative; it's just a weird idea. And it's posted right above a story on "Wireless Security Attacks and Defenses," fer Chrissakes!
Am I being too shortsighted, here?
It had to be said. Way more motivation to crack this than most anything.
Obviously the first thing they need to address is the possibility of a passenger hacking their wireless network and taking control of the plane. Or simply jamming the system to crash the plane.
Securing the network should be doable, but preventing jamming may be the problem that prevents this from becoming a real system.
Now the terrorists can sit on the ground and hijack the plane with an override signal. I hope they're using something better than WEP for encryption.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Considering that every RF technology I've ever worked with has been imperfect, I'd hesitate to ride (or even fly) a wireless network controlled plane.
Here are some of the wireless technologies I know:
She states she is working on the reliability problem. I wonder if it's possible to solve (any EEs out there to chime in?). I used to work for a telcom, and they always had an interesting poster up describing what 99.99% accuracy meant. The most interesting representation: if commercial jets took off and landed at that rate of effieciency, there would be a failure every 10,000 landings/takeoffs. For the sake of simplifying, if there were 5,000 flights a day, that would be 10,000 landings plus takeoffs implying a statistical expectation of failure each day.
I don't know to what level RF can be perfected without some backup system (also RF) that would guarantee perfection but if they ever start flying those suckers, I'm going to wait a while before I board one.
A WiFi card and a copy of MS Flight Simulator and YOU, yes YOU are in charge.
BWAHAHAHAHA.
If you think this is a horrible idea. If I can access the carrier, then anybody can access the carrier, it's only a matter of time. Hell, with internet enabled planes, is it too far fetched to think about remotely hijacking a plane? No more suicide runs, no sir. Do it remotely from the safety of your own cave ( sorry, had to ).
Quoteth the article
Tests flights carried out in Portugal have shown that the system works well.
Well ain't good enough. It has to be perfect. 100%. To the point where no one even suspects it of problems.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Composites are the future, Boeing's dreamliner and whatever Airbus's new airliner is are being made of more and more composites. Composites are strong, but composites are very flexible. They don't lend themselves well to control wires although cabling is acceptable if you have slack (which adds weight)... but movement is never a good thing so wireless kinda makes sense if you can make it fault-toloerant.
Critical parts of the plane communicating wirelessly? Whats to stop a maniac spewing noise over the same frequency range causing it to crash? TFA just says "we working on it". AFAIK its physically not really possible to stop jamming even if multiple channels are used.
Now I can use my magnetron to jam more than just cell/microwave towers!
Seriously, what brainiac decided this was a good idea?
Great. Now how am I going to keep my cold pizza?
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
This could be useful for combat aircraft, as you don't have to worry about losing control of a flap or other system because the cable was severed by enemy fire.
Also, with combat aircraft, you might be able to shield the interior of the aircraft such that it would be immune to jamming. That might be necessary anyway to prevent signal leakage that might give away the aircraft's location, either defeating stealth advanatages or allowing for another type of weapons lock.
Does this mean that I won't be able to take my tin foil hat on the plane with me anymore? It could be much more dangerous than nail clippers on one of these...
Seriously, I would be worried about defending against intentional interference.
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
"This is your captain speaking. If you all look out the left side of the plane, you'll see the lovely San Fernando valley, which we are heading downward toward at increasing speed. Please tell the kid in row 12 to please switch off his Nintendo DS."
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
The article mentioned something about Bluetooth (it is not clear whether it is a simply a security comparison or an indication that it is the protocol used). Now hijackers can control a plane without entering the cockpit. I am guessing that all wireless devices (including laptops and phones) would have to be checked on a craft like this.
but this is just plane silly!
Because you can - or because you should?
In any real system there must be some type of common electrical bus or hydrolic system. This prototype system may use batteries at each physical element (the article isn't clear), but that is hardly weight saving.
The article mentions that this technology might first appear in cars, but even entertainment system components are going to need to be powered. It really doesn't make much sense to add an expensive wireless transmitter and receivers to eliminate the need to run speaker cables and while it may be more convenient for the manufacturer to make changes (e.g. moving speakers to accomodate body style changes) it will certainly make it more difficult for the owner to make modifications or upgrades.
Die-By-Wireless
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.
Not an EE but I can make one observation for you. One of the big things is every piece of equiptment you mention is operating in high-traffic bands. Lots of devices, mostly low power, competing for a small sliver of airspace. FAA-regulated aircraft concievably wouldn't have that problem, they could get a hunk of the airwaves carved out for them. In air you are far enough from disturbances, the concern is takeoffs and landings.
I really don't think that this is much of anything new. There's no reason why this couldn't have been done 20 years ago, or probably 50 years ago, had someone been sufficently motivated. You could do it with the same sort of PCM systems that are used in radio-controlled models, if all you wanted was controls.
But there's a reason why nobody has done this, and I think that's because it just seems like a really bad idea. There's no safe failure mode for a system like this. If the controls stop working, bad things happen. The only safe way to work around the interference issues would be to have wired backup controls, and at that point you've made the wireless system redundant anyway, because it's only advantageous if you can eliminate the wires.
A plane is always going to have some sort of mechanical connection between all of its parts (otherwise it wouldn't be a "plane," it would just be a collection of stuff moving in the same direction through the air), so I can't imagine that routing wires is really that difficult a proposition.
The only interesting application that I can think of this is perhaps a "semi-wireless" system. If your plane has a lot of metallic parts, maybe you could use the body as a single control wire to tie everything together. You use RF modulators, but rather than transmitting through the air, you just couple the transmitting and receiving antennas directly to contiguous metallic parts on the plane. I think that most of the metal parts on planes are bonded together anyway, to prevent static buildup, to this might be practical. In this case, the signal from the transmitter also attached to the same piece of metal elsewhere in the plane would be so much stronger than the signal from an external transmitter, interference might not be quite so much of a problem.
Still, I'm not sure I'd want to trust my life to it. I guess people probably said that about fly-by-wire originally, or by fly-by-hydraulic when it replaced steel cables, but there are generally good reasons why those transitions are made. I don't see a compelling reason for this.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Has anyone really tested the reliability of Bluetooth during an electrical storm?
I think all your weight savings from the components would be lost to the shielding necessary to keep the plane flying through jamming and EMP
If you want to eliminate wires and cables in a military craft then transmit over the internal structure of the plane, or even the skin of it. No need to broadcast anything, which could also give away your location.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
its just Jack Bower trying to land the plane before getting shot out of the sky ...
damn you, 24!
...will come when a terrorist simply runs some script from his modified PDA/cellphone effectively blocking all inter-plane communication. Check out the wiki on Bluetooth for some glaring security issues already associated with bluetooth. What I'm curious about though is their supposed backup system. Are they going to end up installing old-fashioned wires as a backup and completely negate the weight savings of the bluetooth?
"By the same logic, if he has no good reason for what he says, he is just making noise and we need pay him no attention.
Security guard: Sir? Can you turn on your laptop please?
Osama: Sure thing officer.
*backtrack boots up*
Security guard: That looks funny, what's that?
Osama: Linux.
Security guard: You must be a computer guy, huh?
Osama: Yes sir.
Security guard: Alright, well you have a good flight.
Three hours later, a plane crashes due to a massive DOS attack against the systems controls.
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
You can't jam a signal inside a tin can from outside it.
Any jammer would have to be inside the plane. So, NO, you can't hijack/crash this from the ground.
The hijacker would have to be on the plane, with his equipment.
an airplane that could only go 1500 feet from my house? Oh, wait....
Because teenage pranks are fun when you're about to die!
If this whole plane is 'wireless', what is powering the tranceivers at the 'remote' parts? Little button batteries?
"These people look deep within my soul and assign me a number based on the order in which I joined" --Homer re:
Wouldn't this be easy to crash with a frequency jammer? The bad guys wouldnt' even need to make mombs or anythign anymore, just make a cheesy signal jammer look like any normal piece of consumer electronics and this plane is toast. The cables and stuff may weigh more, but at least they're a lot harder for the bad guys to mess with.
A quick google says a 747-400 has 171 miles of wiring. While some of that is likely not replaceable (power distribution, etc...)-- a good chunk is almost certainly control wiring. Let's make a wild guess and say that just 1/10 of that is control wiring, since those wires are likely thinner than the power lines, even if they are more numerous.
It's hard to imagine 17 miles of anything, even tiny glass fibers, not weighing quite a bit. Anybody have real numbers on this, or the quantity of wire that could be eliminated on a plane like this?
The article is woefully short on real numbers.
You still need to distribute power to wherever it's needed to both power the device you're controlling and power the wireless equipment, you're only removing a piece of control cable and replacing it with the electronics necessary to implement wireless connectivity in a reliable, redundant manner. Seems that would increase power requirements, what power consumer is being removed? Or are they planning on putting heavy batteries at each control site?
You could pick up the same weight savings (if any) by simply passing RF over the power cables (ala X-10, but made robust), and have more secure/robust communications than with wireless.
This just seems like a dumb idea.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
..and serve genetically-engineered meals. They could use hydrogen fuel reserves, and use H1-B pilots.
They could call it the FUDBus.
Terrible idea from a marketing standpoint. "Look! Our planes are cheaper! The pilot can even control the plane from the toilet!"
[I'm joking of course]
I'm just wondering what will happen to the usual ... . I hope the pilot does not ... :-)
announcement "Please switch off all mobile equipment"
prior to take-off
follow the rules
Have fun,
R.
"Cables are already a problem in cars," Santos says, because many manufacturers cram ever more electronic gadgetry into each new model.
She admits the idea of having no physical connections may seem scary at first but believes ultimately it will become an accepted way to control brakes and even steering mechanisms in road vehicles.
Gives new meaning to the expression: War Driving !
Just fire up a strong RF source, drive down the road, and point it at, e.g., the police car that is chasing you. :/ Or, with suitable hacking, you could suddenly take over control of the car next to you on the interstate and take care of his steering and braking for him! Or, for the ambulance chasing types, set up shop downtown and arrange for an "accident" when business is slacking off.
Or, set up with a cantenna and pick planes out of the air whenever you want.
Don't need to blind the pilot with a green laser, blind the plane's electronics, instead. Geesh!
Seriously, I wish people would have a little more common sense. This is just an accident waiting to happen.
If you don't have at least a homebrew MASER, you don't belong on /. !
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
That right below an article where a PLANE is using Wireless ONLY controls, there is a nice article about Wireless Hacks.
;-)
Hmm, was that planned?
Scott Carr
lightning.
If these systems use bluetooth, I'll just bring my Wii-mote on board with a bluetooth headset to talk to the tower. Bingo, I'm in control. Who needs flight simulator or a laptop?
Congradulations to Portugal!! I'm sure that this is a tremendous improvement over their previous, wired-aircraft, which always had that annoying issue once the cord reached it's length and suddenly snapped mid-air from the airport.
Oh, THAT kind of wireless...gotcha.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
A fly by wire system only requires a couple pounds of wire, can be easily rerouted for configuration changes, and doesn't have interferance issues.
Any plane which would crash if you pointed an EMF jammer at it would not be a good thing.
Test your net with Netalyzr
It's fairly obvious that outside (or inside, from a cell-phone or laptop) would be a concern. For this to become practical, we'll obviously need a bit more research to find ways of electronically isolating the plane's controls from both the outside and the cabin. This doesn't seem like much of a technical challenge, of course, given that most commercial planes have a double metallic hull. But making the double hull into a good waveguide (or at least a Faraday cage), and sealing all the holes will take quite a bit of detail work.
;-)
In the long run, we might see one real benefit: Since the plane's controls are electronicaly isolated from the cabin and outside, there will no longer be any reason to restrict passengers' electronics. It's rather strange now that airlines would be permitted to fly planes that are subject to such electronic interference. But a totally wireless plane would probably be legally required to be immune to interference.
Of course, current wireless networks won't work all that well from 10km up. Cell phones do sorta work, but usually not for very long before you lose the connection. There's a threat that we might start using cell phones as wireless modems, which would work from a plane, but the phone companies are pretty good at locking that out.
On a flight a few days ago, I found that my cute little Garmin GPS gadget worked fine. I was able to follow the plane's track across the map, and identify a few small towns from the highway patterns, when the clouds cleared. (I'm in the NE US, where we've had a huge storm system covering the whole area for the past week or so. Very odd, except to the people who've been following the climate-change models, who just say "Yeah, we're gonna see a lot more of that."
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Why not have the wireless option as a failsafe for the wired system? It makes sense to use this just in case the conventional wired system failes. Just my $.02
Most of the early comments seem to be in the vein of "OMG wireless hax!", but consider a real worst-case scenario, like the one that brought down ValuJet 592. It was caused by a fire in the cargo hold that cut critical links between the cockpit controls and the hydraulic systems needed to keep the plane running.
As long as you have a physical connection from point A to point B, it is vulnerable to the most brute-force of DOS attacks: cut the connection and it's lost. A wireless link between the pilot and the control surfaces, on the other hand, can't be cut by a fire in the cargo hold, or even by a shoulder-fired missle (as long as it missed the kablooie stuff).
In a real-world application, I'd expect both wired/optical links *and* wireless backup links. Such a fully redundant system would work both as a sanity check (both systems should be reporting the same results) and as a backup (wired works when wireless is jammed, wireless works when wire is cut).
Plus, I can hardly wait for the netstumbler/kismet folks to write a monitor program to let me monitor things from the comfort of my tray table (on the emergency exit row, of course).
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Secondly, if it's used for navigation & engines, it's susceptible to remote hijacks - the Bluetooth "gun" featured on Slashdot before can blast Bluetooth signals over a mile and Bluetooth devices are forever being cracked due to poor security, including poor security of the protocol.
I agree that the cabling in modern planes is excessive and heavy. If we were talking about one optic fibre, that would be one thing, but aviation protocols seem to be point to point, not busses, so you need one physical or virtual connection for EVERY possible combination of end-points. Actually, triple that as they usually use triple redundancy. The aviation protocols are also loosely derived from RS232, so five or so lines are needed for each connection. With triple redundancy, this means that for every given pair of endpoints, you have 15 lines.
Optic fibre is better, but needs repeaters and complicates the endpoints as you have to figure out how to encode the lines into packet form. The problem isn't the data, the problem is the behaviour of the ARINC devices. You've got to mimic the behaviour and characteristice of the hardware they're expecting.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Whose response to this idea is wrapped up by the fact that it is chronologically right above this story?
-- Teh Gecko
Snarfle.
Actually those are very useful... maybe you should have said "Solar powered nightlight in a cave that gets no direct sunlight during the day"?
*doosh*
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Wireless plug-and-play is a great idea and this is a great way to demonstrate the feasibility and test out new ideas. The concept of dynamically building up systems that auto-configure and work together is a very powerful concept.
Cables are a huge pain in the ass in automobiles (or just about anything else that moves). They introduce many points of failure from connector problems to cable wear and tear (particularly in moving environments).
Wireless systems provide far more flexibility to move, redesign, and replace components throughout the life of the vehicle. It may also be able to harden individual components by minimizing external connections, so the end result might actually be a much more stable and robust solution.
So the technology isn't 100% there yet, but, you've got to admit, if they can do it for airplanes and it works, folks will trust wireless alot more for cars and many other apps.
So when the wing snaps off... the pilot can still see the flaps responding to command as it spirals away...
Sweet!
Redundant FDDI perhaps? Reduce the weight, but still have a non-interferable network. This smacks of a PR stunt rather than a realistic approach to airplane systems.
Blar.
I doubt the actual steering controls of an airliner will ever be wireless. But I can envision many parts of the avionics system being wireless. If the air speed indicator, for instance, gets jammed, the airplane isn't going to suddenly drop out of the sky, though the crew may have to manually take over control of the aircraft. Things of that nature seem like a decent place to use wireless technology if it matures to the point where failure rates are along the same order of magnitude as their wired counterparts.
This brings to mind the Dilbert strip where the PHB is reminded by his secretary that he should NOT turn off his laptop while in-flight: "how else would they turn over control of the jet to you in an emergency?!"
This space intentionally left (almost) blank.
I believe that NASA has already tried and shown that fly-by-wireless works. You can find spacecraft and shuttle related documents (sorry, got no good links for ya). But obviously it is a human safety risk. Using bluetooth is not necessary and indeed the tools/equipment needed to do fly-by-wireless have been around for a long time. But there is probably a reason you do not see it being used today. Too much can go wrong.
The only reason I could think of doing it is to make maintenance easier since you don't have to track down wires through bulkheads and such. Manufacturing would be quicker too.
Didn't I see on CNN a couple of days ago where a Senators plane was struck by lightning and the entire electrical system went down? Hmmm. Wonder what the headline would of been if the control system was based on wireless or fiber only. Aircraft are mission critical by nature and if the system goes down, you go down. Now I see no reason why you couldn't have an optic or wireless control system as the primary, but you still need something machanical if all else fails.
R.H
It'll quit hurtin' once the pain stops.
Jeez - lighten up - it's a prototype
..DON'T turn on your cellphone!
When you said that the first thought that came to my mind were the James Bond inventions in Q's lab.
Bond: Hey, Q, what's that?
Q: It's our new prototype for a wireless plane. Just make sure you DON'T...
(Plane starts moving and goes through a wall)
Q:
As a backup system, this would be a great idea. So if any leads get cut for whatever reason (explosion in cargo hold cuts lines to the elevators, for example) you'd still have some mechanism to maintain control. But I wouldn't rely on a solely wireless system.
Of course if you have the kind of damage that would cut electrical lines, you'll probably have lost hydraulics as well which isn't going to be fixed with a wireless network.
Okay, these guys are slow... real slow. They try stuff over and over a hundred times.
What they are doing, however, is separating the concept of control system from a bunch of wires down to a single signal containing a data stream.
When they figure out how vulnerable this is (and trust me, they will), they will try to figure out some other ways to deliver the data packets to the rest of the plane--at this point the design of microcontrollers at every interface point will have been completed and so all it will take is simply modifying the transport mechanism.
They will probably, at this point, figure out that a few fiber cables (say between 2 and 8 in redundant loops that each connect to every system like SONET) can deliver the signal just as easily and with little additional weight over wireless, and on top of that is virtually unhackable without physical access--even safer than copper.
Just give 'em time.
What happens when a bunch of planes are sitting on the tarmac waiting to take off? Are they all going to confuse each other (wirelessly)? Or is there some fancy signal hopping that the internal components do to avoid interference? That would be annoying if plane #8's jets reacted to plane #1's take-off, rammed plane #7 from the rear, and plane #1's engines mistakenly shut down due to plane #7's collision alarms... could be a chain reaction of yuckiness and fire...
Of course, it would be killer fun for a terrorist to bring some kind of jamming device onboard to disable the whole plane.
Sadly, the worst part would be waiting for the TSA to verify that your electric shaver wasn't said jamming device... they already treat laptops like dirty bombs...
Self-referential Sigs are cool on /. these days...
54
What we need is "pilotless"*. They're still the ones responsible for most crashes. Oh, and don't even fly this thing into a thunderstorm, made even worse by all these static producing composites. And if they want to protect these from outside hackers, they'd better go back to good old aluminum.
*almost...cockpit crew consists of one pilot and a dog. The dog is there to bite off the pilot's hand if he reaches for any of the controls.
What?
Wireless interference could crash this plane, whether intentional or accidential. Crap, quick reboot the wifi router we're going down! Also, couldn't this plane be remotly hacked, say from another nearby small plane, and made to fly somewhere the pilots don't intend? Yikes!
GM announced today that it would be removing the steering wheel in all 2008 models, new models will rely on the Nintendo Wii controller in order to "reduce mechanical strain" on the equipment.
barack to the future?
Of course, but if you can shield the baggage areas and cabin from wireless interference, then all is well.
Within an isolated and predictable area, there's no issue... probably is will they do that?
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
isn't this really a PROOF OF CONCEPT? the plane the portugese tested was 3 meters long... not big enough for human passengers. currently fly-by-wire has multiple paths to the same device for redundancy, so having a wireless connection would be a good thing. considering the fact that airplanes are basically metal tubes, there aren't too many pathways that could be considered truely redundant... no matter if the wiring is harnessed above/below/port/starboard of the cargo or passenger cabin, all paths are still running parallel to each other. the wireless connection would allow a redundant connection without a pathway limitation. as a response to the comment that wires don't take up too much space, try having 5 redundant connections from point a-b, and you're talking a minimum of 2 wires for the simplest circuit(on/off switch) per pathway. what happens when it's a system that requires multiple degrees of motion with feedback? you think 2 wires is gonna do that? fiber, maybe, but not copper. and when you consider the amount of cabling that goes into a passenger class jet, you be safe to bet there's probably 1/4-1/2 mile worth of wiring for all your electrical systems. saving space and weight can become an important issue. and lastly a comment about hacking/jamming/disruption of fly-by-wireless: any flight control system that would actually use wireless technology will not end up using a consumer band of wavelength, nor would it use consumer grade software protocols. airflight as a business is culturally too important and profitable to allow disruption by such commonly available technology. fly-by-wireless tehnology will end up being very expensive, and very difficult to compromise, licensed and regulated heavily, and will operate in a far different spectrum band than bluetooth or 802.11.
three can keep a secret, if two are dead - benjamin franklin
I'm not sure I'm ready for wireless aircraft controls either, but some major airline accidents have already occurred because of control system failures. For example, UAL 232 and JAL 123. These were both redundant hydraulic systems. But because the hydraulic lines had to be run through the same structures (i.e., the tail) they were all vulnerable to damage in the same event. The same thing could happen with mechanical or fly-by-wire controls. Wireless would actually be LESS vulnerable to this kind of problem.
A better idea might be to use the plane's power cables to transmit digital signals around the plane (this, like BlueTooth, is existing technology.) Or maybe the plane has multiple independent power sources? If so that seems unnecessarily complex and prone to individual failures bringing the plane down. I do like the idea of the bluetooth system as a redundancy in case the wired system fails.
If you think this is a horrible idea.
Hey, maybe it's not a good idea for large passenger planes, but that's not the only thing that can be in the air.
This is probably good for UAV's, some classes of airplanes that are too expensive to fly if you need to have a pilot on board, airplanes that aren't safe enough for pilots but would be just fine for carrying packages, etc. Half-price air-mail maybe.
Just think outside the fuselage.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I'm sure you meant the "pilot" could be remotely "flying the plane" from India.
See, worse all the way around.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Great...now the terrorists can just run airpwn and Goatse everyone on their in-flight TV monitor. Ugh.
A 'wireless' plane! My first thought was why the hell would you want to do that?
It does solve one problem. There have been crashes due to primary and redundant systems having to be routed through a single chokepoint. Such an area was damaged and all systems were lost in a few high profile crashes. Wireless would address this issue. However in reality you are not simply fixing one vulnerability, you are trading one vulnerability for a different vulnerability. Hopefully the new one is lesser.
Oh wow, he invented an RC plane, although I suppose the engine is larger than 10cc.
Oh well, what the hell...
system. Hmmmmm. I am sure that I will enjoy flying in these aircrafts.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
After all, all airliners are controlled with a wireless multicast network. Or did you think there was a twisted-pair cable between ATC and the pilots?
PS: When I say the FAA has non-idiots, I don't mean to imply there are no idiots there -- the bureaucrats, for instance, are mostly pinheads.
Unlimited growth == Cancer.
zap!
I am sure the use of Bluetooth was just a prototype to get things working and I am sure that if this were to make it mainstream, and past the FAA there would have to be some sort of Digital Spread Spectrum technology used. Even better, add encryption and digital watermarks to the mix and you got yourself a secure and reliable signal that could survive in an aerospace application.
Turn of all cell phones and portable electronic devices or catstrophic system failure could occur!
No more Polish jokes. We need some Portugalian jokes! (sorry I'm too stupid to know what people from Portugal are called; and I'm from Portugal!)
They tried to remove having a cable between the cockpit and the rudder. They replaced it with "wireless", which means that that both ends need some sort of a sending/receiving device, which uses power, which is provided by a cable, which connects from the power source to both the cockpit and the rudder. So, no wires between the cockpit and the rudder, right?
Modern radio networks use spread-spectrum techniques to combat jammers. You're effectively requiring the jammer to radiate impractical amounts of power to flood the entire band your equipment is using. That's unless he can figure out how to concentrate his power just in the part of the spectrum you're using at any given moment, which is similar in difficulty to a spy breaking your communications encryption.
So what happens when you get struck by lightning and all electrical systems go down? Oh, right, you crash.
just ask Sen. Kennedy
But there's a reason why nobody has done this, and I think that's because it just seems like a really bad idea. There's no safe failure mode for a system like this. If the controls stop working, bad things happen.
Maybe for submersibles then, no drilling a hole throught the pressure hull. Of course I am guessing, for all I know submersibles use magnetic induction or something rather than cabling of some kind to make the transition between the interior and exterior. And of course the failsafe, well surface.
Lightning is already a big problem with aircraft, if anything, wireless subsystems could actually help keep the plane in the air. Right now, with all the copper connections a lightning strike can easily kill all the systems and fry all the fly-by-wire connections. If everything was wireless, the strike can potentially be isolated, which would mean less systems failing.
Every 11 years or so we enter into a period of intense solar activity that has been known to knock out our power grids.
If this wireless flight is going to be safe, it needs to survive a massive burst and still be able to land. Anything less, and I'll take good old hydraulics, any day.
--
But what I really want to see is the time when pilot A turns on his plane and we see planes B, C, D and E all do the same thing. CRUNCH!
Chivalry is not dead, it's just frequently misspelt. - M. Langley
When they get it done, anyway. By then, they'll have potential sources of interference worked out. Assembling and repairing such aircraft will be much simpler, and all of that space and weight devoted to conduit will be history.
Sometimes I worry that I'll develop Alzheimer's disease, but no one will notice.
S'pose you'll ever get Ted Kennedy up in one of those?
This can be useful for military application. In the past, flight controls were mechanically linked or fire by wire, which means they all have some wire/cable/shaft..etc running through the plane and were subjected to damage especially in combat situations. While they usually have multiple backup systems, there have been cases that there were multiple failures due to enemy fire before. I can see the benefit of this wireless system can be use as a backup system.
Does this mean that while the plain is at the terminal, we could see its wireless network from the boarding lounge? Perhaps you could run etherial or other sniffer and get into the network, could you even exploit the bluetooth weakness like is done on cell phones. Think BlueSniper wifi / bluetooth gun. Another question, do they even have to use 802.x or bluetooth at all, they could use any frequency they want as long as they could secure it and make it reliable. I for one would not use one until all this is figured out and tested. I do not welcome our new fly by wire overlords.
As my subject says...
I have spent the last 5 months trying to find a shorted wire in my airplane. A bundle of cables from the main circuit breakers had chafed against the metal frame holding the radios, and shorted out, welding together two of the wires, causing the wing flaps to become inoperative. Luckily, the original failure happened while the aircraft was still on the ground. Had this occurred in flight, it could have been a very serious problem.
;-) Wires will probably always be required for delivering power, but for instrumentation and control, IMHO it is worth pursuing.
My airplane is a relatively simple two-seat, single engine, with only one comm and one nav radio and basic instruments. Yet behind the panel are over 200 individual wires, grouped and routed in various bundles. Some of the wires carry as much as 30 amps at 28 volts. Every single one has its own unique 5-character alphanumeric identifying code printed at regular intervals along its length.
It's a challenge to envision all of that being replaced by a wireless network, but I can certainly see the appeal
I believe you may have overlooked the fact that all the places the communication lines go have power for other reasons. You're not gonna be moving the rudder without power nearby, and you're not gonna see anything on the cockpit displays without power.
So there is indeed one less line between the two, even though everything remains connected to power.
As long as my parachute isn't wireless too, I'd have no problem flying on the plane.
Lightning, and all that. I wouldn't want to be flying in a wireless aircraft coming in for landing with a storm at the airport. Gotta make a last-minute adjustment as a lightning bolt goes off? Too damn bad!
Slashdot Patriotism: We Support our Dupes!
One had a fire break out because of a bad cable and it simply burned out the controls.
This couldn't happen with wireless. As long as the two components remain within reach of each other then all is fine. If your control surfaces start to distance themselves from the cockpit you got bigger problems (Japan Air 123)
So a couple of big accidents would not have happened if physical links had been wireless or had wireless backups.
Yes there are other problems but physical connections ain't without problems either.
Perhaps a backup system?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Hey, this is exactly the technology that would allow Optimus Prime to come to life! There's no way you could get a truck (or aiprplane, or motorcycle, or...) to sprout legs and arms with wires to worry about. Bring on the wireless!
Except that this does happen as has been found in several big accidents.
The problem isn't one wire running from the cockpit to the controls. It is hundreds of wires running from the cockpit to the controls. Each one critical and not exactly easily replaced.
Wireless makes sense because you would save not just weight but also remove a major maintenance worry. No more short circuits, no more cables coming loose. No problems if a part of the aircraft falls off and takes the cables with it.
Yes interference will be something that must be overcome and I have no idea if it is possible BUT replacing wires in aircraft is not stupid or a waste of time. It would save both money and lives. IF it can be made to work regardless of interference.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
And comes as standard equipment.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
is a frequency jammer, hidden inside a laptop, or luggage, or whatever. Brilliant idea!
Call me paranoid but I would never trust a wireless network for security. Terrorist could employ Hackers to hack into the network. Why board the plane when you can just hack the wireless network and slam it into nearest building?
I STILL use Wired Network for the Internet
\
Controls need power right? That's never going to change. Why not just transmit controls over power lines? There's lots of safety in that, because you only lose control if you lose power. Existing wiring is easy.
Why not?
E
Awesome! Now finally I can get my own remotecontrol 747!
>>PcolaXPCat-girl As a more serious thought on the matter than my friend, the idea has some merit and some obvious spin off ideas. For example, used as a support system in situations where the pilot is disabled or the plane is hi-jacked a shortrange version of the system could be used to take over the plane from nearby towers or any other cleared Aircraft. It could also be used for assistance with autopilot mechanisms for automatic readjustment via satelite; however I do agree that the system does have its far and fair shares of flaws that need to be completely ripped out before the system is even considers full run. Start on something less massive, IE, Public transportation or maybe more like, kids toys.
It's just a helluv-a-lofty idea...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
.. has just acquired a new meaning.
My first thought was that this system is pointless. Power must run to the devices. Running another cable for control does not seem to be a big deal. Then I remembered routing. Which cable goes where can make for quite a mess. Then I remembered shared buses and multiplexing. A common data bus can be routed to many components with the components only responding to the relevant control signals. Is most fly-by-wire done with shared buses? Wireless control seems useless since a power cable must run, and small variations in the number of wires in the bundle of wires being routed should not matter. The questions of buses and which buses to route where seem interesting, though.
So they save weight by removing wires but add wireless mechanics??? And wouldnt they need wires to provide power to different devices, or has portugal mastered wireless power too?
So I said to him, I said, "hey! look the plane's doing fine! Flying around, all wireless and such." And so then he was like, "what does '+++NO CARRIER' mean? That can't be good..." And that, honey, is why we have no income.
#include <disclaimer.h>
#include <beer.h>
Wow so in the future if you turn your cell phone on in flight the plane really will crash! Great idea, im totally with them on being able to move things around easily because planes are always needing to have the wings moved somewhere completely different like on the nose, or in Mexico. It just makes the system much more flexible. I know aircraft manufacturers have been screaming for something like this, they've just never come up with the idea of whacking a transmitter/receiver in to an aileron before! They really must be kicking themselves!
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
...are rubbing their hands with glee right now. Can you imagine the truckloads of "cease and desists" going out to airports all over the world asking them to stop using the word "AirPort" in their names? Yeah I know, that was pretty bad, but I had to say it. I'm so sorry.
... Well... I guess it would be stupid to come onto the plan and put out a jamming signal on all frequencies? How stupid are these designers... Why not print "Fly me into tall builidings" on the plane. Someone could hi-jack it and not even be on the plan. (Leave a laptop under the seat turned on with scripts set up?)
We modify our test aircraft with alot of SI equipment for data collection. Modding a test bed with all the extra power and data lines takes most of a year to put in and eventually to remove. A wireless system would cut down on the time needed to get from the mod to the test phase.
Any aircraft that has multiple rolls could benefit from going wireless.
I can see it on my cell phone now... "New Partnership" Boeing 777 Passcode: 0000
what i'm wondering is exactly how wireless you can get considering you still need to power everything. Assuming there is no such thing as wireless power, then there's gotta be some conduit that's giving all the motors, actuators, and wireless devices juice. and i woldn't imagine that, say, a cat5e cable (which has more than enough bandwidth for the entire plane) is gonna be that much more of an obstruction than power cables...
I co-authored a proposal last year to do the same thing with 802.11 on 100-300lb UAVs. For cheap, multipurpose UAVs, a short range wireless connections for some components isn't a bad idea. A good example would be to increase the modularity of devices that you can put on your UAV; IR cam, TV cam, targeting laser, flight data recorder, the list goes on. If Bush makes the order for more UAV patrols along the Mexican border, we will need to manufacture more UAVs. A simple interconnect will keep costs down and ease troubleshooting. There's a lot more people familiar with WiFi than 1553 bus, and WiFi is much cheaper and lighter than 1553 equipment. If you make the wireless connection solely used for features and nothing flight-critical, I don't see a problem using it on recon drones.
.01 and .1. So, if you get shot at, you have between a 90 and 99% chance of surviving. There are plenty of instances where an aircraft is engaged in battle and not destroyed. You can have significant damage, but redundancy can save your life.
On real aircraft, most mission-critical systems have dual-redundancy and flight-critical systems have triple redundancy. That means, that if you have a fighter jet with electrohydrostatic control surface actuators, there are at least three actuators that are as far apart from each other as possible, each capable of sufficient deflection of the control surface to permit flight, and there are three signal cables, one running to each actuator, again, as far from each other as possible. You're likely to have dual or triple redundant computers also. The point is that there should not be a single point of failure that can lead to total loss of the aircraft. For a modern American fighter/attack aircraft, the probability of a kill in an engagement (P_K|E) could be between
With a completely wireless aircraft, there can be no redundancy. In an attack using directed energy weapons (i.e directional jamming) the P_K|E would rise sharply. The inherent single point of failure would prevent all communications from taking place, which would eventually lead to loss of the aircraft. I've done flight testing with a Yamaha RMax UAV, and the only thing wireless on it is its data downlink to a ground station, which is not flight-critical.
For those of you who are afraid of this technology ending up on passenger aircraft, you can relax, its not going to happen. The FAA is extremely anal when it comes to safety, and you can be sure the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) would throw a fit about the risks involved. The AOPA has been quite vocal in it's opposition to UAV flight activities, and this "fly-by-wireless" is only going to give the AOPA more ammunition to fight UAVs with.
Detectability.
People don't respect old mechanical controls, but they have one enviable attribute in that wear can be detected and measured before a failure occurs. All it requires is that someone pays attention. My JD-2 is wide open and I can inspect anything with nothing more than a hand mirror taped to a stick. Electric controls might be lighter than the 1"x.065 4130 tube running the length of the plane, but I'd never be able to feel the play increasing in a joystick.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
to stay away from computer controlled airplanes? Wired or wireless. Not that hydraulics are any better. I think I'll just take the train or a boat. And don't try to convince me with statistics. I'm a lousy gambler.
What?
After the plane is controlled by wireless, they could remove the heavy barricaded door to the cockpit because a terrorist no longer needs access to it to control the plane.
processing...................... please wait...................
Hey, maybe this could be considered a benefit/feature. Maybe reducing security would make the product (i.e. the plane) cheaper to run.
I wonder if the botnet in the sky is worth more than $500 per 50,000.
I wonder if governments would allow websites with the latest exploits to exist.
Information must be dangerous
Really, how would you shield this from a delibarate and very high powered RF attack? Maybe you couldn't hack in, maybe you could, that's a "maybe", but I bet it wouldn't be hard to overwhelm it, like a DOS styled attack. You can't faraday cage the APs for the sensors and controlling computers enough to keep them both safe and also functional *at the same time*, you would still have to run wires anyway for security reasons, so why bother? Ya, maybe the plane is aluminum-again, so what? You bump up the volume, RF will go through, seen it plenty before, in planes or airstream campers, you can get radio and TV signals through just fine.. You'd have to have a plane with zero windows, none, to even think about this, and the exterior skin would have to be much thicker than normal, negating any weight or safety features, to even try and have an effective Farrady cage deal.
It's a cute trick, but not too likely to be useful anytime soon, except on expendable UAVs, which might be their ultimate market anyway, military/cop sales.
The FAA, after completing their investigation of the Flight 489 wireless hijacking, released their report today on commercial "fly-by-wireless" (FBW) systems currently used by all commercial aircraft carriers today. Flight 489, the latest in a string of 7 wireless hijackings this year (5 of which resulted in fatal crashes), has the airline industry on its heels as commercial passengers continue to weigh the potential dangers of flying on planes susceptible to violent technical terrorist hijackings as well as "prank" hijackings such as the fatal Flight 59 hijacking that took place in Russia this year where the plane was taken over and crashed by an 19 year old freshman from Moscow University.
The FAA now admits that 60% of the commercial carriers still do not enable VIWsec security (Virtually Impentratable Wireless security) on their wireless systems. The airlines state that systems integration with their subsystem and component suppliers is easier when VIWsec is turned off and that commercial customers are not able to buy and operate the 802.32c wireless transmitters used in commercial airline equipment operating in the 7.22 Mhz band. Possession of these transmitters, punishable as a felony under federal law, may be used in hacking into and hijacking airplanes. Labor, training and internal maintenance costs associated with configuring and insuring subsystem and component interoperation using VIWsec are simply too high to justify the cost of turning it on, the airlines state.
But the fact that the latest hijacking took place from the airline supplied integrated lap computer used to surf the Internet 2, select and play movies and games, and order drinks has commerical passengers, the FAA and the FCC in an uproar. While the airline supplied integrated lap computers operate using the public 802.13x standard, it was not confirmed until this fatal accident that airlines, in a cost-cutting move, have been using the 802.32c wireless system as a backbone for carrying 802.13x and routing traffic. This allowed the Flight 489 hijacker to attack and hack the FBW system from his seat after locating and hacking a router (a networking device that routes traffic between disparate networks) on the plane, funneling his hijacking attack from his lap computer into the FBW system. The FAA theorizes that the passenger/hijacker mistyped a routing command intended for the tail section of the plane to the pressurization system resulting in the crash.
A spokesperson from the FAA as well as the State Department, in spite of the report, still vehemently denies that it's possible for terrorists to obtain the 802.32c wireless equipment capable of launching a wireless attack and hijacking inspite of the fact that remnants of 802.32c equipment were found in 3 of the 5 wireless hijacked crashes this year. The fact that FBW is still not used on military aircraft was dismissed as a mere coincidence by the State and Defense departments who state that federal laws regulating 802.32c equipment insures the security and safety of FBW. Lobbyists from Boeing, McDonnell Douglas and GE Aircraft Engines stated they were not able to comment.
Use cat5 or optical between "nodes" in the vehicle. still flexible. Still light compared to bundles of cables
The next shoe-bomber is going to have copper wire wound round his shoe. The links at the bottom of this page are pretty interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emp_bomb
Then when the new fangled fancy computer controlled version breaks/locks up, then you litterally crash. The word is r-e-d-u-n-d-a-n-c-y Unlike a car when it breaks, you just can't pull an aircraft over to the side of the road when something stops working...
Great! This will make hijackers obsolete!
I have to think about this for a minute.Hmmm.Ok, I got it, Your at 35,000 feet and every part around you is built by the lowest bidder. Now which do you think is more reliable when built on the cheap,Heavy duty cables,hydraulic pumps,servos,and lines or computers,routers,switches,and soleniods? I gotta tell ya I would rather try to recompile a kernel to get a dotty server back up at 35,000 feet than climb out on a wing at 600 knots and replace a blown hydraulic line
Yeah, like that change from controlled flight to uncontrolled flight.
I'll take cables, anyday.
"In reality though, most electronic onboard aircraft (at least Military and large commercial) are contained within faraday cages and no RF/EM energy leaks in or out of the system."
I'm not sure which reality you live in , but in the one I'm in people
use cellphones in aircraft and they seem to work ok plus if you're going to
build a faraday cage it helps if you use something a bit more magnetic than
aluminium or composite which all aircraft are built out of.
No more having to break through those reinforced cockpit doors. No more having to smuggle weapons on board to kill the crew and cow the passengers. No more having to put down passenger revolts. Just hack the plane and fly it into whatever building you want. Better living through technology.
The more I get to know people the more I like my dogs.
http://merriamwebster.com/dictionary/segway
http://merriamwebster.com/dictionary/segue
My first thoughts went along with many others out there. I can't help but think about the security of the wireless. People here have argued (affectively) that wireless can be safer because cat5 can become damaged and cause failure. I still say it's a lot more secure, so why not use both. Use the cat5 connection, but install a wireless network (just leave it off). If the primary network fails fall back to the wireless.
While I would be reluctant to fly on a plane that used wireless as the primary control system, I think it would be an excellent backup system.
I designed inspection tooling for the Boeing 777 control system, including the cockpit controls. While the 777 is fly-by-wire, there is a backup mechanical cable system that interfaces with hydraulic actuaters at the control surfaces. The hydraulics are powered by localized power sources. As I recall, there is just enough local reserve to get a plane on the ground. Using wireless would do away with all of the cables, pulleys, fittings, access holes, etc. required for the backup system. The wireless system itself could be redundant, working on two or more widely separated frequencies using different protocols, power sources, etc. I'm sure the military has already developed/deployed hardened wireless systems that can deal with interference and jamming.
When you think about it, any kind of mechanical damage to a fly-by-wire system has a pretty good chance of taking out the backup cable system as well. Wireless would eliminate this risk.
The more I think about this, the more I like it. If wireless is successful as a backup system, it could eventually evolve into a primary control system. Failsafe wireless is going to be necessary to support the cars and highways of the future so we might as well get busy using it.
Okay, so who thinks that this is a VERY BAD IDEA? I mean, wireless networks have gotten a lot better, but mine still falls down and dies every time the dipstick neighbor yaks on his cordless phone. And security? Even the latest and greatest WPA security has been shown to have weaknesses (okay, granted, the weakness is if the user doesn't use a good enough passphrase, but still...)
What if the plane hit some sort of weird air turbulence (or lots of EM activity in the air caused by, I dunno, sunspots or lightning or something); surely that would play havoc with the wireless link. And of course you also have to worry about those Morons who insist on leaving their cell phones on, or forgetting to shut off their laptop's WiFi (or even deliberately leaving it turned on, maybe playing Deathmatches with the guy three seats down).
And if you think that's bad, well then think of how this could be used in terrorism, for example. Want to crash a plane into something? No problem! Forget box-cutters and shoe bombs. Just whip open your laptop in-flight and run nmap or other such hacking tools. (Don't forget the "Boss Key" that puts up a harmless looking spreadsheet or DVD movie if someone happens to pass by!)
Ok, so maybe your country didn't train you properly in 1337 h4x0r techniques. Or maybe you accidentally left your laptop in your camel this morning. No sweat! Just whip out your handy dandy broad-spectrum frequency jammer (don't have one? You can probably MacGuyver one from a FRS/GMRS radio or some other piece of radio gadgetry!); interrupt the signals between cockpit and controls/instrumentation. Can't fly the plane very well without those. Sure, you can't guarantee hitting a specific target that way, but you can still be guaranteed of causing lots of general pandemonium, mayhem, and fear. Do it near enough to a population center (e.g. while taking off or landing) and you're bound to hit something, perhaps something big and/or vital/symbolic.
Between you and me, this gets my vote for World's Worst Idea.
Yomigaeru Aiyan Geek!!!
I have just spoken to Cristina on the phone, and she says that flights have not happened. They have conducted tests on the lab bench, but no plane has yet flown, and is unlikely to do so for some time yet.
Matthew Sparkes