A Novel Approach for Missing Combat Support Aircraft Search Acceleration using VTOL UAS

In this paper, an approach to accelerate search operations for a missing combat support aircraft using a portable waterproof autonomous vertical takeoff and landing unmanned aerial system called “flying locator beacon” is described. The latter is connected with both flight data and cockpit voice recorders with a parallel bus and may be deployed from the empennage during extreme emergency scenarios, which is detected when few flight parameters are overrun leading to an air crash stimulating behavior. Landing of the flying locator beacon strictly takes place on global latitude and longitude coordinates only of integer values enabling significant minimization of search time and cost

Do AUVs dream of electric eels?

Author Posting. © The Oceanography Society, 2017. This article is posted here by permission of The Oceanography Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Oceanography 30, no. 2 (2017): 169–171, doi:10.5670/oceanog.2017.239.Free-swimming autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) are distinct from tethered remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and human-occupied vehicles in the amount of data-driven feedback a human can provide during a mission. While free-space optical communications afford tether-equivalent data rates at relatively close ranges (Farr et al., 2010), most AUVs employ acoustic modems to maintain two-way communications with their operators while underway (Freitag et al., 2005). However, the low bandwidths and high latencies inherent in underwater acoustics prohibit the real-time transmission of data generated by imaging sensors such as cameras and side-scan sonars. This has profound implications with regard to the meaning of the data an AUV collects and the trust an operator has in the AUV’s autonomy to react to data in the absence of direct human oversight

Quantified Risk and Uncertainty Analysis

The legal requirement in the UK for the duty holder of a chemical process plant to demonstrate that risk is as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP) means that quantified risk assessments (QRAs) must be accurate and robust and that identified risks are adequately mitigated. Bayesian belief networks(BBN) is an emerging technique which can be used to determine the likelihood of an event in support of the QRA process. It is a statistical method involving estimating the probability distribution for a given hypothesis. The most interesting features which distinguish this QRA technique from all the others are: • it can analyse complex systems of any given number of variables and their dependability within a single analysis; • it can analyse parameters over a range of probability values for any given set of conditions, providing a better understanding in terms of sensitivity analysis; • it engages expert judgement and learning from previous events to update the probability distribution, thus improving QRA accuracy; and • it is not just restricted to fault analysis and can be used to support plant operational decision making using a quantified approac

Fluid Ontologies in the Search for MH370

This paper gives an account of the disappearance of Malaysian Airways Flight MH370 into the southern Indian Ocean in March 2014 and analyses the rare glimpses into remote ocean space this incident opened up. It follows the tenuous clues as to where the aeroplane might have come to rest after it disappeared from radar screens – seven satellite pings, hundreds of pieces of floating debris and six underwater sonic recordings – as ways of entering into and thinking about ocean space. The paper pays attention to and analyses this space on three registers – first, as a fluid, more-than-human materiality with particular properties and agencies; second, as a synthetic situation, a composite of informational bits and pieces scopically articulated and augmented; and third, as geopolitics, delineated by the protocols of international search and rescue. On all three registers – as matter, as data and as law – the ocean is shown to be ontologically fluid, a world defined by movement, flow and flux, posing intractable difficulties for human interactions with it

Flight Recorders - Alternative Concept for Commercial Aircraft

This paper deals with the issue of deployable flight data recorders. It gives an insight into pros and cons of this solution based on experience gained in military application. Advantages of such solution are at least worth considering as they may help reduce the number of accidents and save lives in the first place. And should the accident happen the location and extraction of evidence is much easier

Aviation Archaeology: History, Theory, Practice and Direction

Aviation archaeology as a field of study has struggled with competing academic, professional, and public definitions and priorities since its establishment. In some ways, this sub-discipline of historical or underwater archaeology mirrors the development of nautical archaeology. Like nautical archaeologists who overcame the barrier of the oceans and pioneered methodology to suit, the proponents of aviation archaeology have also used the discipline to overcome a barrier of historical perception and tradition. The practice of aviation archaeology, however, has been characterized by opposing viewpoints and stakeholders often exhibit a non-collaborative attitude towards other groups and sometimes their own colleagues. These stakeholder groups are each focused on their own priorities, be they theory, methodology, conservation, exhibition, or re-use, and each group is arguably attempting to shape the future of aviation archaeology through their projects or publications. This dissertation is a critical evaluation of the current state of aviation archaeology, including its history, stakeholders, literature, and defining projects. This leads to the identification of a series of best practices in aviation archaeology and a theory of interpretation and display of recovered aircraft