The Wall Street Journal
By Andy Pasztor
Sept. 24, 2015 7:34 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON— Airbus Group SE has asked aviation officials and regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to draft joint standards that could eventually allow pilots to use wireless technology to help fly airliners.
So far, most public attention has focused on enhanced wireless technology to improve connectivity for passengers surfing the Web during flights. But the European company’s move is part of a broader, less well-known initiative—which includes rival Boeing Co. and several international avionics suppliers—to potentially harness onboard wireless signals for safety-related applications.
Airbus hasn’t publicly spelled out its goals, and at this point any such efforts are merely concepts bound to face years of regulatory and engineering debate and analysis. They also are likely to spark skepticism from average travelers, already concerned about the proliferation of cyberattacks directed at government and corporate computer systems.
But if the industrywide initiative gains traction, according to aviation experts, wireless signals could end up serving as backups for engine controls; monitoring the condition of landing-gear systems; detecting dangerous icing on airplane surfaces; alerting about defective airspeed sensors; and warning pilots in case of excessive vibration or structural stress.
On Thursday, Airbus indicated that company engineers already envision more safety-critical applications. They are looking at relying on wireless technology as “an additional layer of redundancy” for moving critical wing and tail surfaces that control flight, according to spokesman Clay McConnell. “If this is to be done, it’s a long process,” he said, adding that Boeing and other industry players also are inviting trans-Atlantic cooperation on standards.
Proponents envision such wireless applications will be separate from signals used by passengers for entertainment or communications.
In a statement, Boeing said it supports creation of industry standards for wireless communication between aircraft systems but “until we have these standards fully defined and vetted, we can’t speculate about how these capabilities would be used.”
The general concept was spelled out in a Sept. 4 letter from Jean-Paul Platzer, a senior Airbus flight-systems manager, to Margaret Jenny, president of RTCA Inc., an industry-government group that serves as the Federal Aviation Administration’s primary adviser on technical standards. Referring to eventual certification of what Airbus called a “wireless onboard avionics network,” the letter was the most concrete indication yet of high-level Airbus interest in the topic.
Released Tuesday during a gathering of RTCA’s top policy-making panel in Washington, the letter surprised and puzzled U.S. industry and government experts attending the meeting. At this early stage, the generally worded letter conceivably pertains to “anything safety-related” on aircraft, according Christopher Hegarty, a Mitre Corp. expert who chairs RTCA’s program-management committee.
The concept, according to these experts, also raises significant issues about future aircraft vulnerabilities to cyberattacks. The idea entails broad systems-reliability questions, Richard Jennings, an FAA safety manager, told the RTCA panel, “not to mention cybersecurity issues.”
The industrywide effort, dubbed Wireless Avionics Intra-Communications, must secure dedicated bandwidth and develop common engineering rules applicable to a host of airliner models. The topic is expected to come up at the World Radiocommunications Conference in November in Geneva, during debate over allocating new radio spectrum for aviation-safety purposes.
Current fly-by-wire controls—used by both Airbus and Boeing—rely on a host of onboard computers and actuators connected by an extensive network of electrical conduits to carry out pilot commands.
Replacing even some of those “hard wired” connections with wireless links could mean significant savings in weight and maintenance costs. Modern jetliners are stuffed with hundreds of miles of electrical conduits weighing thousands of pounds, and those wires can be subject to chafing, corrosion, short-circuits and other damage.
The proposed wireless technology could eventually take the place of roughly one-third of all the wiring on current jetliners, according to industry estimates.
Representatives of the FAA and Boeing at Tuesday’s session said they intended to study the request, which said the initial goal is merely to draft minimum technical standards.
On Thursday, the Airbus spokesman said the range of potential uses is likely to expand as manufacturers gain experience and become more comfortable with new wireless applications.
—Robert Wall in London contributed to this article.
Original article can be found here: http://www.wsj.com
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