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Wireless Flight Data Recorder (FDR) for airplanes

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Ankan Ashish
Ankan Ashish
S. B. Chougule at Army Institute of Technology
S. B. Chougule
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Abstract

This paper is on the urgent need of today’s Aviation Sector which comes smart materials in airplanes. We have made wireless system i.e. a real time Flight Data Recorder (FDR) in which the data(Parameters like Engine Temperature ,Fuel Level, Speed ,Location (Latitude And Longitude)etc. ) getting stored in real time, in the plane’s FDR(commonly known as Black Box), same data will get transferred to our Personal Computer(PC) which is at ground. The data will be transferred via XBEE-RF Module( long range). Also, the Global Positioning System (GPS) device will send the Position coordinates logged by the micro-controller at periodic intervals. After processing the data, the data will be uploaded to the server via the GPRS/Internet Connection. The program resident on the server will process the data and map the position on a digital map. The digital map view can be accessed through and other PC’s using the Protocol, thus giving real time positioning and different parameters of the plane on ground. “This paper focuses on sufficient data for analyzing the air disasters as short term application, and reduction of air disasters as long term goal.”
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WIRELESS FLIGHT DATA RECORDER (FDR) FOR AIRPLANES
ANKAN ASHISH
1,a
, S.B.CHOUGULE
1,b
MAEER’S Maharashtra Academy of Engineering, Alandi, Pune, Maharashtra, India
a
ankan14ashish@gmail.com,
b
chougules@yahoo.com
Keywords: Wireless FDR, Black Box, Airplane, Data Storage
Abstract. This paper is on the urgent need of today’s Aviation Sector which comes smart materials
in airplanes. We have made wireless system i.e. a real time Flight Data Recorder (FDR) in which
the data(Parameters like Engine Temperature ,Fuel Level, Speed ,Location (Latitude And
Longitude)etc. ) getting stored in real time, in the plane’s FDR(commonly known as Black Box),
same data will get transferred to our Personal Computer(PC) which is at ground. The data will be
transferred via XBEE-RF Module( long range). Also, the Global Positioning System (GPS) device
will send the Position coordinates logged by the micro-controller at periodic intervals. After
processing the data, the data will be uploaded to the server via the GPRS/Internet Connection. The
program resident on the server will process the data and map the position on a digital map. The
digital map view can be accessed through and other PC’s using the Protocol, thus giving real time
positioning and different parameters of the plane on ground.
“This paper focuses on sufficient data for analyzing the air disasters as short term application,
and reduction of air disasters as long term goal.”
Introduction
Today there are hundreds of plane flying around the world. Some of the Airports have hundreds of
plane landing in a very short span of time. Any mistakes at this point of time can mean accident.
Sometimes weather can be foggy or it can rain heavily making the runway slippery. Which can
lead to Pilot’s nervousness and it is possible he can neglect any sign of any parameter being faulty.
In this Paper , we are logging the Plane’s Parameter online ,parameters like Engine Temperature
,Fuel Level, Speed ,Location (Latitude And Longitude)etc. ,for this we have the respective sensors
interfaced to the Micro-Controller through MUX and ADC and a On Board GPS to sense the exact
location of the plane.
The plane sends this information online via XIGBEE to the Ground unit which keeps a track of
hundreds of planes at one time.
Flight Data Recorder
A Flight Data Recorder (FDR) (also ADR, for accident data recorder) is a kind of flight recorder. It
is a device used to record specific aircraft performance parameters. Another kind of flight recorder
is the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR), which records conversation in the cockpit, radio
communications between the cockpit crew and others (including conversation with air traffic
control personnel), as well as ambient sounds. In some cases, both functions have been combined
into a single unit.
Popularly referred to as a "BLACK BOX,"(in Fig 1) the data recorded by the FDR is used for
accident investigation, as well as for analyzing air safety issues, material degradation and engine
performance. Due to their importance in investigating accidents, these ICAO-regulated devices are
carefully engineered and stoutly constructed to withstand the force of a high speed impact and the
heat of an intense fire.
Following an accident, recovery of the "Black Boxes" is second in importance only to the rescue
of survivors and recovery of human [5] remains.
Advanced Materials Research Vols. 433-440 (2012) pp 6663-6668
© (2012) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland
doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.433-440.6663
All rights reserved. No part of contents of this paper may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of TTP,
www.ttp.net. (ID: 115.249.15.138-28/12/11,06:31:03)
Fig 1 An example of an FDR (Flight Data Recorder). (English translation: FLIGHT RECORDER
DO NOT OPEN)
Identification
In this project we are trying to overcome the short-comings of FDR via
1) Data Recording : A Wireless FDR can record parameters (such as Fuel Level, Engine
Temperature, Cabin Temperature, Location (latitude and longitude via GPS) of Airplane)
same data of plane in our personal computer so that if the FDR gets lost or if because of some
problem it stops working, we have the data with us.
2) Pilot can be informed : At any EMERGENCY, if due to some reason pilot didn’t notices the
malfunction in plane, pilot can be alerted, immediately. Such that we can save hundreds of
lives and prevent many Air Disasters.
3) Prevent Pilots Error : As pilots send information to ATC ,a wrong information can lead to an
accident, our system we can get rid of this procedure.
4) Prevent Future Accident : Also, via this project we can find the reason of accident, which
could be rectified in future.
RECENT AIR DISASTER
AIR BLUE crash
Date: July 28 2010 Time: 09:45
Location: Islamabad, Pakistan
Operator: Air Blue Type: Airbus A321-231
Aboard: 152 Fatalities: 152 Ground: 0
Route: Karachi - Islamabad -The passenger plane crashed in the Margalla hills(Fig.2)while
attempting to land at Benazir Bhutto International Airport. The tower lost contact with the plane as
it was about to land in poor weather conditions. All 146 passengers and crew of 6 were killed. This
is the 70th Worst Accident in aviation history. [11]
Figure 2 : Debris of AIR BLUE
6664 Materials Science and Information Technology
Air India Express crash
Date : May 22, 2010 Time: 06:10 Location: Mangalore, India
Operator: Air India Express Type: Boeing 737-8HG Reg : VT-AXV
Aboard: 166 Fatalities: 158 Ground: 0
Route: Dubai, UAE - Mangalore, India
Details: While attempting to land at Mangalore Airport, the plane overran the runway, slid
down a ravine into a wooded valley, and burst into flames.
Air France
Air France was also one of the disaster in which the requirement of online FDR came in
thought. Air France crashed on June 1, 2009. [11]
Figure 3: Statistical Summary of Commercial Airplane Accidents, 1959 - 2008, [11]
Accident Data
The data shows the Accident and Fatalities by the phase of flight i.e. while taking off, landing
and cruise.
In Fig.3,we can see the maximum number of ,approx.70 % of accident is taking place while
taking off and landing[1] and the maximum fatalities i.e. about 80% fatalities took place before or
after cruise. Also, Dr. Krishna Kavi [1] has mentioned in his article the main worry regarding air
accident is while taking off and landing.
Our paper is recording the data till the plane goes to cruise level and also, when it comes out
from cruise. [7]
BLOCK DIAGRAM
The components shown in Fig.4 ,is explained below :
1) GPS Unit : The GPS unit continuously sends the co-ordinates to the micro-controller kit.
These co-ordinates are received and stored in micro-controller memory[11][08]
2) XBEE-PRO RF MODULES : The XBee/XBee-PRO OEM 868 RF Modules interface to a
host device through a logic-level asynchronous serial port.Through its serial port, the
module can communicate through a level translator to any serial device. to our PC.
Here ,in this paper we are using a pair of XBEE, one will be interfaced to
microcontroller in AIRPLANE and other XBEE which will act as a receiver on ground,
which will be interfaced to our personal computer.[6]
3) LCD Section : The micro-controller is interfaced with 16*2 LCD which used to display the
readings of parameters which are being monitored and similar data will be seen on our PC
on ground .
4) Sensors : Here we are using different types of sensors as per the availability.
Since, a normal FDR in airplanes records approx 128 parameters.[10][9][7]
Advanced Materials Research Vols. 433-440 6665
Figure 4. Block Diagram
Ground Unit
The base unit after receiving the co-ordinates displays them on the Visual Basic software on board
the pc as shown in Fig.5. The position of the vehicle is then displayed on the map of VB software.
Thus the people at the base unit can track the plane as well as monitor all the parameters of plane.
In case of emergency it can warn the pilot.
Figure 5: Ground unit
Methodology
In this paper we are using four different sensors, fuel sensor, gas leakage sensor, temperature
sensor, speed sensor (these sensors are selected as per the availability) and GPS will give the
details of position of plane. These sensors will be applied to multiplexer to choose one of the
sensor’s data. As the sensors give the output in analog form it is converted into the digital form by
analog to digital converter (ADC) and applied to the Micro-Controller. The micro-controller will
store the data, and display the changes in plane sensors on the LCD. This LCD, we are using to
display data like Flight No; Fuel Level (also the other parameters) etc. We are using LCD in order
to show the correctness with the ground unit.
In the paper project we are going to use a pair on XBEE OEM PRO which acts as trans-receiver.
In which one of the XBEE will be placed on plane and interfaced to micro-controller(act as
Transmitter) and the other XBEE will be placed on ground interfaced with the CPU(act as
Receiver). The data stored in the micro-controller will be send via XBEE on plane to the ground
XBEE. The data can be seen on the VB designed window as shown in Fig.6 .Which will display all
the parameters of plane on our PC which will be in real time.
6666 Materials Science and Information Technology
Figure 6. Visual Basic window
Result
In this paper we are trying to overcome the short- comings of FDR via
1. Data Recording : An Online FDR can record parameters of Airplane, same data of plane in
our Personal Computer. Such that if the FDR gets lost or if because of some problem it stops
working, we have the data with us.
2. Pilot Can Be Informed : At any EMERGENCY, if due to some reason pilot didn’t notices
the malfunction in plane, pilot can be alerted, immediately. Such that we can save hundreds
of lives and prevent many Air Disasters[4].
3. Prevent Pilots Error : As pilots send information to ATC ,a wrong information can lead to
an accident. via this project we can get rid of this procedure.
4. Prevent Future Accident : Also, via this project we can find the reason of accident, which
could be rectified in future.
The prototypes we have designed have following result shown in table 1.
TABLE 1
Number of
Parameters
5
Location of Airplane GOOGLE
MAP
Data Transfer rate 24 kbps
Data Transfer (5-25
km)
20 kbps
Frequency 868 Mhz
Receiver Sensitivity -112 dbm
Conclusion
Dr. Krishna M. Kavi in IEEE Spectrum-August 2010, mentions in his article named ”Beyond The
Black Box” that there is an urgent need of a real time FDR[1]. So,that we are just trying to make a
wireless data transmission system which can solve many problems related to FDR. Because air
passengers safty is our main concern.
Through this paper, we are trying to over-come the problems faced by people working in air
maintenance field. Through this paper we are not only trying to prevent the air disasters but also
trying to solve the problem related to Black Box or FDR.
Since, today’s FDR cant able to record the data for more than 17-25hrs. in Online FDR we can
record data for more than the time limit. Also, as the FDR records the data of cabin camera too.
Advanced Materials Research Vols. 433-440 6667
The future of the paper is for our aviation sector by this we will be able to controll many air
disaster. In future we will be able to send many other parameters to ground unit. We are looking
forward and doing research to make our system a peer-to-peer network.
Also, If we have online recording the data, At the time of HIJACK we can watch every step of
hijackers, which would be helpful for investigators. They can then take fast action against the
hijackers. [10][12][11] This could have helped the investigators in WTC attack investigation.
Important: The black box of both planes which attacked WTC is yet not found.
References
[1] Krishna M. Kavi,”Beyond The Black Box”, IEEE Spectrum, August 2010,pp.44-48,
[2] Jerry Nelson,, “Thinking out of the Box”,IEEE Spectrum,September 2010,pp.08.
[3] Min Xu, Rastislav Bodik,Mark D. HillI,” A “Flight Data Recorder” for Enabling Full-
system Multiprocessor Deterministic Replay” in International Symposium on Computer
Architecture (ISCA-30) San Diego, CA, June 9-11, 2003,pp 44-56.
[4] A. R. Alameldeen, M. M. K. Martin, C. J. Mauer, K. E.,Moore, M. Xu, D. J. Sorin, M. D.
Hill, and D. A. Wood.,”Simulating a $2M Commercial Server on a $2K PC”. IEEE
Computer, 36(2):50–57, Feb. 2003..
[5] K.M. Kavi (Editor) IEEE CS Tutorial on Real-Time Systems: “Abstractions, Languages
and Design .Methodologies, “IEEE Computer Society Press, Nov. 1992, pp89-109.
[6] Joseph Tardo and Luis Valente. “Mobile Agent Security and Telescript. In Proceeding of
COMPCON Spring -96,” pages 58-63. IEEE, 1996.
[7] Information on Flight data recorders can be obtained from the following website.
http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/aero_02/s/s01/story.html
[8] Aeronautical Telecommunications Network. Web Site: http://www.atnsi.com/
[9] Huaiqing Wang, and Chen Wang, Intelligent Agents in the Nuclear Industry, IEEE
Computer , v30, n11, 1997
[10] Introduction to Flight Data Recorder obtained from the website :
www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Flight_Data_Recorder
[11] Air disaster details obtained from the website :www.aircrashinfo.com
[12] 3
rd
National Research Conference on Managing Diversity for Inclusiveness, Pune,
Maharashtra, India,January 2011
6668 Materials Science and Information Technology
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  • Mar 2003
The Internet has made database management systems and Web servers integral parts of today’s business and communications infrastructure. These and other commercial transaction-processing applications work with critical personal and business data—storing it, providing access to it, and manipulating it. As dependence on these applications increases, so does the need for them to run reliably and efficiently. Our group at the University of Wisconsin (www.cs.wisc.edu/multifacet/) researches innovative ways to improve the performance of the multiprocessor servers that run these important commercial applications. Execution-driven simulation is a design evaluation tool that models system hardware. These simulations capture actual program behavior and detailed system interactions. They are more flexible and less expensive than hardware prototypes, and they model important system details more accurately than analytic modeling does. However, the combination of large systems and demanding workloads is difficult to simulate, especially on the inexpensive machines available to most researchers. Commercial workloads, unlike simpler workloads, rely heavily on operating system services such as input/output, process scheduling, and interprocess communication. To run commercial workloads correctly, simulators must model these services. In addition, multiprocessor servers introduce the challenges of interactions among processors, large main memories, and many disks. To make effective use of limited simulation resources, researchers must balance three goals: • developing a representative approximation of large workloads, • achieving tractable simulation times, and • simulating a sufficient level of timing detail. We developed a simulation methodology to achieve these goals. Our methodology uses multiple simulations, pays careful attention to scaling effects on workload behavior, and extends VirtutechAB’s Simics full-system functional simulator with detailed timing models.
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Mobile Agent Security and Telescript
Article
  • Aug 1996
Telescript is a software technology for building distributed applications using the mobile agent paradigm. Telescript mobile agents are migrating processes capable of being executed on any Telescript service host. Currently, Telescript incorporates safety and security features sufficient for deploying the first generation of mobile agent applications, subject to certain operating restrictions. The ultimate goal is the safe hosting of arbitrary, previously unseen programs, or "programming the network." 1.0 Introduction Telescript is an interpreted, object-oriented language for writing mobile agents [1, 2, 3]. In common with other object-oriented languages, a Telescript program is basically a collection of hierarchically organized classes, with subclassing and multiple inheritance. However, Telescript also includes built-in classes that support pre-emptively multitasked, priority scheduled process objects. A single Telescript engine can simultaneously host processes on behalf of multipl...
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Flight Data Recorder " for Enabling Fullsystem Multiprocessor Deterministic Replay Simulating a $2M Commercial Server on a $2K PC
  • Jan 1992
  • 44-5650
  • Min Xu
  • Rastislav Bodik
  • Mark D Hilli
  • A R Alameldeen
  • M M K Martin
  • C J Mauer
  • K E Moore
  • M Xu
  • D J Sorin
  • M D Hill
  • D A Wood
Min Xu, Rastislav Bodik,Mark D. HillI, " A " Flight Data Recorder " for Enabling Fullsystem Multiprocessor Deterministic Replay " in International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA-30) San Diego, CA, June 9-11, 2003,pp 44-56. [4] A. R. Alameldeen, M. M. K. Martin, C. J. Mauer, K. E.,Moore, M. Xu, D. J. Sorin, M. D. Hill, and D. A. Wood., " Simulating a $2M Commercial Server on a $2K PC ". IEEE Computer, 36(2):50–57, Feb. 2003.. [5] K.M. Kavi (Editor) IEEE CS Tutorial on Real-Time Systems: " Abstractions, Languages and Design.Methodologies, " IEEE Computer Society Press, Nov. 1992, pp89-109. [6]
Proceeding of COMPCON Spring -96 [7] Information on Flight data recorders can be obtained from the following website8] Aeronautical Telecommunications Network
  • Jan 1996
  • 58-63
  • Joseph Tardo
  • Luis Valente
Joseph Tardo and Luis Valente. " Mobile Agent Security and Telescript. In Proceeding of COMPCON Spring -96, " pages 58-63. IEEE, 1996. [7] Information on Flight data recorders can be obtained from the following website. http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/aero_02/s/s01/story.html [8] Aeronautical Telecommunications Network. Web Site: http://www.atnsi.com/ [9] Huaiqing Wang, and Chen Wang, Intelligent Agents in the Nuclear Industry, IEEE Computer, v30, n11, 1997
  • Jan 1997
  • Huaiqing Wang
  • Chen Wang
Huaiqing Wang, and Chen Wang, Intelligent Agents in the Nuclear Industry, IEEE Computer, v30, n11, 1997