Design and Evaluation of a Wireless Sensor Network Based Aircraft Strength Testing System

The verification of aerospace structures, including full-scale fatigue and static test programs, is essential for structure strength design and evaluation. However, the current overall ground strength testing systems employ a large number of wires for communication among sensors and data acquisition facilities. The centralized data processing makes test programs lack efficiency and intelligence. Wireless sensor network (WSN) technology might be expected to address the limitations of cable-based aeronautical ground testing systems. This paper presents a wireless sensor network based aircraft strength testing (AST) system design and its evaluation on a real aircraft specimen. In this paper, a miniature, high-precision, and shock-proof wireless sensor node is designed for multi-channel strain gauge signal conditioning and monitoring. A cluster-star network topology protocol and application layer interface are designed in detail. To verify the functionality of the designed wireless sensor network for strength testing capability, a multi-point WSN based AST system is developed for static testing of a real aircraft undercarriage. Based on the designed wireless sensor nodes, the wireless sensor network is deployed to gather, process, and transmit strain gauge signals and monitor results under different static test loads. This paper shows the efficiency of the wireless sensor network based AST system, compared to a conventional AST system

Wireless diagnostic methods in an aerospace application

Katedra měřen

LocaRDS: A Localization Reference Data Set

The use of wireless signals for the purposes of localization enables a host of applications relating to the determination and verification of the positions of network participants ranging from radar to satellite navigation. Consequently, this has been a longstanding interest of theoretical and practical research in mobile networks and many solutions have been proposed in the scientific literature. However, it is hard to assess the performance of these in the real world and, more importantly, to compare their advantages and disadvantages in a controlled scientific manner. With this work, we attempt to improve the current state of art methodology in localization research and to place it on a solid scientific grounding for future investigations. Concretely, we developed LocaRDS, an open reference data set of real-world crowdsourced flight data featuring more than 222 million measurements from over 50 million transmissions recorded by 323 sensors. We demonstrate how we can verify the quality of LocaRDS measurements so that it can be used to test, analyze and directly compare different localization methods. Finally, we provide an example implementation for the aircraft localization problem and a discussion of possible metrics for use with LocaRDS

Airborne Wireless Sensor Networks for Airplane Monitoring System

In traditional airplane monitoring system (AMS), data sensed from strain, vibration, ultrasound of structures or temperature, and humidity in cabin environment are transmitted to central data repository via wires. However, drawbacks still exist in wired AMS such as expensive installation and maintenance, and complicated wired connections. In recent years, accumulating interest has been drawn to performing AMS via airborne wireless sensor network (AWSN) system with the advantages of flexibility, low cost, and easy deployment. In this review, we present an overview of AMS and AWSN and demonstrate the requirements of AWSN for AMS particularly. Furthermore, existing wireless hardware prototypes and network communication schemes of AWSN are investigated according to these requirements. This paper will improve the understanding of how the AWSN design under AMS acquires sensor data accurately and carries out network communication efficiently, providing insights into prognostics and health management (PHM) for AMS in future

A Literature Review on the Application of Acoustic Emission to Machine Condition Monitoring

Acoustic emission (AE) is a common physical phenomenon, in which the strain energy is released in the form of elastic wave when a material is deformed or cracked during the stress process. The condition monitoring based on AE is a relatively new method that aims to use noise/vibration anomalies to detect machine failures. However, some challenges lie ahead of its application. This thesis aims to analyze the literature in the field of AE applications to machine condition monitoring. The principles of AE technology, relevant instruments, machine monitoring and AE signal analysis, and practical examples of AE monitoring applications will be presented. More specifically, challenges, solutions and future direction in solving signal noise and attenuation challenges will be discussed. Through the example of rotating machinery, the characteristics of AE will be explained in detail. This thesis lays the foundation for the actual use of AE to monitor and analyze the state of machinery and provides guideline for future data collection and analysis of AE signals

Challenges of Implementing Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast in the Nextgen Air Traffic Management System

The Federal Aviation Administration is in the process of replacing the current Air Traffic Management (ATM) system with a new system known as NextGen. Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) is the aircraft surveillance protocol currently being introduced as a part of the NextGen system deployment. The evolution of ADS-B spans more than two decades, with development focused primarily on increasing the capacity of the Air Traffic Control (ATC) system and reducing operational costs. Security of the ADS-B communications network has not been a high priority, and the inherent lack of security measures in the ADS-B protocol has come under increasing scrutiny as the NextGen ADS-B implementation deadline draws near. The research conducted in this thesis summarizes the ADS-B security vulnerabilities that have been under recent study. Thereafter, we survey both the theoretical and practical efforts which have been conducted concerning these issues, and review possible security solutions. We create a classification of the ADS-B security solutions considered and provide a ranking of the potential solutions. Finally, we discuss the most compatible approaches available, given the constraints of the current ADS-B communications system and protocol

Phase Space Dissimilarity Measures for Structural Health Monitoring

A novel method for structural health monitoring (SHM), known as the Phase Space Dissimilarity Measures (PSDM) approach, is proposed and developed. The patented PSDM approach has already been developed and demonstrated for a variety of equipment and biomedical applications. Here, we investigate SHM of bridges via analysis of time serial accelerometer measurements. This work has four aspects. The first is algorithm scalability, which was found to scale linearly from one processing core to four cores. Second, the same data are analyzed to determine how the use of the PSDM approach affects sensor placement. We found that a relatively low-density placement sufficiently captures the dynamics of the structure. Third, the same data are analyzed by unique combinations of accelerometer axes (vertical, longitudinal, and lateral with respect to the bridge) to determine how the choice of axes affects the analysis. The vertical axis is found to provide satisfactory SHM data. Fourth, statistical methods were investigated to validate the PSDM approach for this application, yielding statistically significant results