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This paper describes an optimization algorithm that provides an economical Vertical Navigation profile plan by finding the combinations of climb, cruise and descent speeds, as well as the altitudes for an aircraft to minimize flight costs. The computational algorithm profits from a space search reduction algorithm to reduce the initial number of speed and altitude combinations. Additional search space reductions were performed with the implementation of the branch and cut algorithm. A bounding function that correctly estimates the flight cost considering step climbs was developed to reduce the number of calculations. The full flight fuel burn cost was obtained using a performance database- based method. The fuel flight cost was computed using the cost index. This algorithm used a performance database instead of equations of motion to compute fuel burn. This database was developed and validated by our industrial partner using real flight experimental data.

The efficiency of the glass cockpit paradigm has faded away with the densification of the aeronautical environment. Today's problem lies with “non-defective aircraft” monitored by “perfectly trained crews” still involved in fatal accidents. One explanation is, at crew level, that we have reached a system complexity that, while acceptable in normal conditions, is hardly compatible with human cognitive abilities in degraded conditions. The current mitigation of such risk still relies on the enforcement through intensive training of an ability to manage extremely rare (off-normal) situations. These are explained by the potential combination of failures of highly complex systems with variable environment & with variable humans.

As part of the current initiatives aimed at enhancing safety, efficiency and environmental sustainability of aviation, a significant improvement in the efficiency of aircraft operations is currently pursued. Innovative Communication, Navigation, Surveillance and Air Traffic Management (CNS/ATM) technologies and operational concepts are being developed to achieve the ambitious goals for efficiency and environmental sustainability set by national and international aviation organizations. These technological and operational innovations will be ultimately enabled by the introduction of novel CNS/ATM and Avionics (CNS+A) systems, featuring higher levels of automation. A core feature of such systems consists in the real-time multi-objective optimization of flight trajectories, incorporating all the operational, economic and environmental aspects of the aircraft mission.

Recent years have seen a rise in the number of air crashes and on board fatalities. Statistics reveal that human error constitutes upto 56% of these incidents. This can be attributed to the ever growing air traffic and technological advancements in the field of aviation, leading to an increase in the electronic and mechanical controls in the cockpit. Accidents occur when pilots misinterpret gauges, weather conditions, fail to spot mechanical faults or carry out inappropriate actions. Currently, pilots rely on flight manuals (hard copies or an electronic tablet) to respond to an emergency. This is prone to human error or misinterpretation. Also, a considerable amount of time is spent in seeking, reading, interpreting and implementing the corrective action. The proposed augmented head mount virtual assist for the pilot eliminates flight manuals, by virtually guiding the pilot in responding to in-flight necessities.

In the Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA) domain, THALES developed a high performance communication network named SAEN (Self Adaptive Embedded Network). SAEN is a switchless network solution, fully embedded in a single Network Component Interface (NCI), aimed to interconnect easily several modules of a system, in any mesh network topology. Once each module is equipped with its network component, just connect them together to realize the wanted topology and switch ‘on’ the modules power supplies. At power-on, all the nodes of the network aggregate to form a complete global and coherent network, autonomously managing its configuration and the optimal static routing between any emitter and receiver. The constituted network is deterministic, autonomous, self-discovering, and auto-adapting to the network variations and guarantees an optimal routing in any situation of the graph, as long as a path exists.

Multi core platforms offer high performance at low power and have been deemed as future of size, weight and power constrained applications like avionics safety critical applications. Multi core platforms are widely used in non-real time systems where the average case performance is desired like in consumer electronics, telecom domains. Despite these advantages, multi core platforms (hardware and software) pose significant certification challenges for safety critical applications and hence there has been limited usage in avionics and other safety critical applications. Many multicore platform solutions which can be certified to DO-254 & DO 178B Level A are commercially available. There is a need to evaluate these platforms w.r.t certification requirements before deploying them in the safety critical systems thereby reducing the program risks. This paper discusses the advantages of multi core platforms in terms of performance, power consumption and weight/size.

The nature of aerospace innovation has changed dramatically in the past few decades, including some subtle changes that might go unnoticed to a casual observer outside our industry. The achievements of the 1950s through the 1990s were often epitomized by events that made headlines throughout the world - for example, breaking the sound barrier, walking on the Moon, receiving the first images from a roving vehicle on Mars, or launching the first airliner designed solely using computers. Aerospace engineers today are creating feats that are no less innovative or impressive but that often lack the universal sensational appeal of those past “miracles.” Now the accomplishments are likely to be concerned with using data more effectively to reduce risk and enhance the safety and affordability of products and services rather than flying faster, higher or more stealthily.

During the 1930s and 1940s, aircraft designers worked on developing novel design features. Some of these features worked and are commonplace today. Other features fell by the wayside and have been forgotten. These novel design features include laminar flow wings, low-drag cooling systems, buried propulsion systems, canard configurations, jet engines, break-away wing tips, pressure cabins and swept wings. The development and applications of these features will be examined. Specific technical details of these applications will be included in this examination. For the design features that fell by the wayside, the reasons for this outcome will be discussed

While operational airships globally number in the low dozens, interest in buoyant or semi-buoyant platforms continues to arouse imaginations of commercial and military planners and developers alike. The airship-as-advertisement business model is the only model that has proven sustainable on any scale since the crash of the initially successful LZ-128 Hindenburg effectively ended regular passenger and cargo transport by airship, and the 1962 termination of the US Naval airship program terminated regular large-scale surveillance from airships. Efforts in the US and Japan during the 2000's to have a self-sustaining sight-seeing business model using the modern semi-rigid Zeppelin NT both failed. In theory, the buoyant nature of airships provides compelling endurance and cost-per-ton-mile capability which fills a niche arguably not currently occupied by other modes of transportation.

Loads slung under aircraft can go into divergent oscillations coupling multiple degrees of freedom. Predicting the highest safe flight speed for a vehicle-load combination is a critical challenge, both for military missions over hostile areas, and for evacuation/rescue operations. The primary difficulty was that of obtaining well-resolved airload maps covering the arbitrary attitudes that a slung load may take. High speed rotorcraft using tilting rotors and co-axial rotors can fly at speeds that imply high dynamic pressure, making aerodynamic loads significant even on very dense loads such as armored vehicles, artillery weapons, and ammunition. The Continuous Rotation method demonstrated in our prior work enables routine prediction of divergence speeds. We build on prior work to explore the prediction of divergence speed for practical configurations such as military vehicles, which often have complex bluff body shapes.

During aircraft development, mathematical models are elaborated from our knowledge of fundamental physical laws. Those models are used to gain knowledge in order to make the best decisions at all development stages. Depending on the application, different models can be used to describe, in one way or another, the aircraft behavior. The goal of this paper is to develop a high-fidelity aircraft simulation model that is exceptionally capable, flexible and responsive to the needs of the researchers. The proposed model includes nonlinear aerodynamic coefficients, a generic engine model and a complete autopilot with auto-landing. The simulation model has been designed to help researchers develop and validate new algorithms for trajectory optimization, control design, stability analysis and parameter estimation. To make it easy to use, the simulation model also includes algorithms for stability and control analysis.

Aerodynamic database update from the flight tests using system identification techniques is a crucial tool for the development of control laws and high fidelity simulators. For the certification of aircraft under test, aero-database needs to be validated from flight tests throughout the flight envelope and also to certain levels beyond the envelope boundaries. Validation of aero-database close to envelope boundaries entails additional complexities which necessitates careful handling of flight data identification and update process. This paper discusses the approach adopted for aero-database update and flight clearance, followed by a discussion on the issues relevant in the extreme flight test regimes, such as, flow angle accuracy at higher angles-of-attack, center-of-gravity variation with fuel pitch angle for high-g maneuvering conditions and inaccuracies in Mach number at transonic speeds.

There is a concern that the continuing trend on miniaturization (Moore's law) in IC design and fabrication might have a negative impact on the device reliability. To understand and to possibly quantify the physics underlying this concern and phenomenon, it is natural to proceed from the experimental bathtub curve (BTC) - reliability “passport” of the device. This curve reflects the combined effect of two major irreversible governing processes: statistics-related mass-production process that results in a decreasing failure rate with time, and reliability-physics-related degradation (aging) process that leads to an increasing failure rate. It is the latter process that is of major concern of a device designer and manufacturer. The statistical process can be evaluated theoretically, using a rather simple predictive model.

The amount of functionalities in modern aircrafts is increasing to satisfy performance, safety and economic benefits. Therefore, the communication needs of avionic systems are growing. Furthermore, the portability and reusability of applications are current challenges of the aerospace industry. The use of the Data Distribution Service (DDS) middleware technology would reduce the complexity of communications and ease the portability and reusability of applications with its standardised interface. Few previous works used a DDS middleware within the aerospace industry and those didn't take into account the impact of this technology on the applications performances. Therefore, this paper presents an impact evaluation of using a DDS middleware on the performances of avionic applications.

The USAF T56 engine Program Office has adopted a unique maintenance approach which utilizes the concept of complete system reliability in order to optimize their cost of workscoping aircraft gas turbine engines. While classical Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) focuses on the actual reliability and failure modes representative of a particular system, its benefits are limited since it only describes individual system components9. The workscope cost optimization program provides the user with recommended optimal repair workscopes based on the underlying reliability and cost of repair options. This maintenance concept is based upon the methodology documented in SAE Aerospace Recommended Practice (ARP) JA6097, which is a “Best Practices Guide” established to provide direction in objectively determining which other maintenance to perform on a system when that system requires corrective action, with the goal of improving overall system reliability at the lowest possible cost.

Rotordynamics developed from the beginning of the 20th century to deal with problems associated with steam turbines. This paper deals with intense developments starting around 1975 through 2000 in rotordynamics to deal with new, larger machines running at higher speeds and higher power levels. Most of the new problems of interest dealt with subsynchronous instabilities. Issues associated with “synchromnously unstable” motion due to the Morton Effect is also reviewed.

Traditional User/Maintenance Manuals provide useful information when dealing with simple machines. However, when dealing with complex systems of systems and highly miniaturized technologies, like UAVs, or with machines with millions of parts, a commercial aircraft is a case in point, new technologies taking advantage of Augmented Reality can rapidly and effectively support the maintenance operations. This paper presents a User/Maintenance Manual based on Augmented Reality to help the operator in the detection of parts and in the sequence to be followed to assemble/disassemble systems and subsystems. The proposed system includes a handheld device and/or an head mounted display or special goggles, to be used by on-site operators, with software management providing data fusion and overlaying traditional 2D user/maintenance manual information with an augmented reality software and appropriate interface.

In many parts of the world, uncontrolled fires in sparsely populated areas are a major concern as they can quickly grow into large and destructive conflagrations in short time spans. Detecting these fires has traditionally been a job for trained humans on the ground, or in the air. In many cases, these manned solutions are simply not able to survey the amount of area necessary to maintain sufficient vigilance and coverage. This paper investigates the use of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) for automated wildfire detection. The proposed system uses low-cost, consumer-grade electronics and sensors combined with various airframes to create a system suitable for automatic detection of wildfires. The system employs automatic image processing techniques to analyze captured images and autonomously detect fire-related features such as fire lines, burnt regions, and flammable material.

The maturity reached in the development of Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs) systems is making them more and more attractive for a vast number of civil missions. Clearly, the introduction of UAVs in the civil airspace requiring practical and effective regulation is one of the most critical issues being currently discussed. As several civil air authorities report in their regulations “Sense and Avoid” or “Detect and Avoid” capabilities are critical to the successful integration of UAV into the civil airspace. One possible approach to achieve this capability, specifically for operations beyond the Line-of-Sight, would be to equip air vehicles with a vision-based system using cameras to monitor the surrounding air space and to classify other air vehicles flying in close proximity. This paper presents an image-based application for the supervised classification of air vehicles.

SUAV is a 4 year investigation with the aim of designing, manufacturing and integrating a 3kg Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) into an existing 11kg fixed wing UAV which is already in commercial service. The project comprises of a collaboration of ten partners, each having a commercial or scientific interest in the design. Individual partners provide specific specialist knowledge at system component level. This paper will present an overview of the problem space and show the methods used to generate the system level requirements. A top level overview of the resultant system design is also given.