Easy Jet To Use Infra Red Cameras To Avoid Ash

[ukdean]

Easy Jet are to use Infra Red cameras to help avoid ash clouds. Thry are saying it will monitor the movement of ash clouds upto 100km therfore, avoiding the ash.

Sounds very "Easy".

[hapzim]

Just have to follow an Easy Jet as they carve their way through the skies.;)

[ukdean]

Follow the leader.......

[Whiskey Papa]

Will not the dust particles be at ambient air temperature, thus invisible to IR? These minute particles have no internal heat source and no heat storage capacity do they? Or is sunlight reflected off them? In which case will it work at night?

[brooksjg]

This story got coverage on UK BBC TV News this morning, featuring the CEO of Easyjet. However, Easyjet itself evidently considers this more PR than 'news' - there's absolutely nothing about it on the EJ website 'news' page!

He described an 'infra-red camera' to be fitted to aircraft which would give visualisation of 'tiny' amounts of VA up to '100s' of miles away. Easyjet to spend '£1m' fitting out 'a dozen' aircraft. He also said that the system fitted to '100s' of aircraft would give real-time data about location of VA.

OK so far.

But this cannot be new technology so why nothing much about this concept before?

Fitting 100s of systems and providing real-time data collection (via existing aircraft telemetry? another data channel? you tell me!) would cost a LOT more than £1m!!!

He was asked whether this was 'new technology' but only said it was 'exciting'. Later, he also said that IR had advanced a lot in recent years. But it does sound like nothing much really new is involved. So I'm a little sceptical, along with other posts already here, about what technical gain existing IR can give.

And as posts in the VA main thread have already pointed out, even if you get real-time warning of VA (say) 20 miles ahead, 'what you gonna do about it'?! NATS et al might get a teeny bit tetchy and flustered if aircraft all over the sky suddenly started requesting ad hoc route / height changes. :):):)

[donthaveone]

This system has been around for years. It is called GROPE

[rp122]

"The equipment, which is known as 'AVOID', has been developed by NILU senior scientist Fred Prata" (http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2010/06/04/342772/airbus-to-test-ash-detector-for-easyjet-on-a340.html)

He's been working on this since at least 2006. (http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2006/02/10/1139542406240.html)

http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2006/02/11/n_prata_wideweb__470x305,0.jpg

[rp122]

Senior scientist Fred Prata has developed the ground-breaking volcanic ash detector that allows the aircraft to see the microscopic ash particles and avoid it. (http://www.nilu.no/index.cfm?ac=topics&text_id=33544&folder_id=4316&view=text&crit=AVOID)The specially developed camera will be able to give five minute warnings both day and night about ash ahead. Even better detection through the models is being developed at NILU at this very moment, ensuring that such crisis can be avoided in the future. (http://www.nilu.no/index.cfm?ac=topics&text_id=33544&folder_id=4316&view=text&crit=AVOID)
“Using the infrared camera, satellite data and algorithms that convert data from satellites, aircrafts will be able to get the necessary notifications every time they approach a volcanic ash cloud. The aircraft will then be able to steer clear of clouds and continue the journey instead of being put on the ground for an indefinite amount of time, as they do today," Prata says. (http://www.nilu.no/index.cfm?ac=topics&text_id=33544&folder_id=4316&view=text&crit=AVOID)


The technology has been patented and spun out to a commercial company, Nicarnica (http://www.nicarnica.com/Home/tabid/2758/Default.aspx).

They have three products on that site, but no further details about AVOID is posted there.

The company was founded in 2009 (http://www.nicarnica.com/About/tabid/2895/Default.aspx), with one of the founders being Dr Prata.
This article from 2003 (http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/process_engineering/report-23167.html) indicates that the development of this technology dates back to the 1990's (by Dr Prata).

“An early prototype was taken to Sakurajima in Japan in 1991-1993…. Then we stopped development for lack of interest." (http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2010/0420/Available-now-a-volcanic-ash-detector-for-aircraft)

This could be the AVOID system, photo is credited to Prata.

http://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/images/0419-int-volcanic-ash-detector/7755577-1-eng-US/0419-int-volcanic-ash-detector_full_380.jpg

Source (http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2010/0420/Available-now-a-volcanic-ash-detector-for-aircraft)

[Luc Lion]

This technology uses infrared cameras with good spectral resolution and feeding their signal to a computer performing spectral analysis and differential spectral analysis. Although the measurement tools are quite different, it shares the same intellectual approach to analysing the chemical composition of distant stars through spectroscopes.

The use of IR range is related to getting good and predictable illumination of the analysed volume.

You can find here http://www.geo.mtu.edu/~raman/papers2/PrataNatHaz08.pdf
a scientific paper cosigned by Mr Prata and explaining different detection techniques of volcanic clouds.
(read particularly pages 4 to 9)


If you want to know more about spectral analysis, googling on "Fourier transform spectroscopy" gathers useful results.


Luc

[Thad Jarvis]

not a lot of use if Nats has the airspace shut anyway.

[brooksjg]

hmmmm....

There were previous references to Mr (Dr?) Prata here around 16th May.

If it's true (as suggested in a reference above) that Mr Prata was all set to Rock & Roll with development of a VA detection system in 2006, and was then sacked / made redundant / moved on from CSIRO, due to no support for the work - that's quite ironic.

Note that the other primary reference to previous Prata work relates only to a system to analyze satellite data. The AVOID concept of putting (a) camera(s) on aircraft and analyzing forward-look IR data from these is hardly documented or advertised at all, as far as I can see. No peer-reviewed reports, with actual results, that I could find.

I'm still having huge problems envisaging how a mass of real-time FLIR data from aircraft cameras is going to get integrated and then used to revise routeing and height instructions from NATS, etc. to aircraft in flight..... Putting a camera on a single aircraft, processing the data on-board, presenting it to the pilot (somehow), and then allowing him/her to make (independent?) decisions about what to do next seems highly suspect to me! And that assumes that the processed data has enough precision about the range, height, density of any VA cloud(s) detected to be useful in minute-to-minute decision-making.

OTOH, TWO sideways-looking cameras collecting data about what VA might be approaching a route or retreating from it, and updating a central database available to dispatchers, cres and ATC - maybe that's another, better idea.

[Stampe]

PR stunt from a desperate airline.Easyjet snakeoil cure all.This system has been looked at before and not found favour with the authorities and other airlnes.Easyjet are desperate given their recent cancellation record to find a magic bullet that might encourage the travelling public to start booking with them again.

[Pugilistic Animus]

Will not the dust particles be at ambient air temperature, thus invisible to IR? These minute particles have no internal heat source and no heat storage capacity do they? Or is sunlight reflected off them? In which case will it work at night?


as said above they probably rely on the IR spectral fingerprint...the Cameras might even be Raman, which is like IR...I don't know though:)

[skianyn vannin]

If easyjet want to reduce the number of cancellations, they should consider recruiting more pilots and cabin crew rather than this load of BS.

[dusk2dawn]

This device will be certified to what specification?

[Jetjock330]

How do you operate this when the airspace is closed and the aircraft are grounded and no one is allowed in that area???? This seems to be a long the same lines as having your aircraft towed to the runway to save money. Bit of a prank for free advertising.

[green granite]

How do you operate this when the airspace is closed and the aircraft are grounded and no one is allowed in that area????

Perhaps, assuming the device does what it says on the tin, the area would be open to aircraft equipped with it.

[Pace]

I find it sad to read the negativity and complete lack of operational knowledge churned out in this thread.

It is almost a glee to want to see airlines fail!!! and a jumping in at any suggestion which might help improve things rather than a positive encouragement.

As to a few posters who question how ATC will ever manage aircraft requesting level changes or direction changes to avoid with only 50 odd miles warning!

Please come up with me over the London area with a decent active cold front and you will be amazed at the amount of level changes and heading change requests you will hear called for and approved. :ugh: :ugh: :ugh:

Pace

[brooksjg]

There's a bit of a difference between a request for a height / heading change (at least partly) for the comfort of pax and a 'must have' change because the current heading / height is not going to be 'safe' after another n minutes (where n is less than 5).

My scepticism was not primarily on account of ATC consequences anyway. I'm much more concerned that systems on board aircraft on scheduled routes would actually add value in practice. Potentially, a lot of cost and extra weight that could not be recovered / removed when there is no ash risk, combined with little real benefit when it does get used.

[Mad (Flt) Scientist]

How do you operate this when the airspace is closed and the aircraft are grounded and no one is allowed in that area???? This seems to be a long the same lines as having your aircraft towed to the runway to save money. Bit of a prank for free advertising.

One of the requirements which was placed on airlines operating in "marginal" VA concentrations was to have a "safety case" to allow such operation. Although at variance with the view that "airlines know best and everyone else should get out of their way" - odd that I've never heard that sentiment expressed on so many other topics here on PPrune, FTL to pick one random example springs to mind - the safety case could easily include a need to be aware of when the "marginal" VA is actually encountered - because there may be other actions required for say maintenance - and also to identify when the a/c has still inadvertnetly encountered a prohibited concentration, because further actions may be required as a result.

It could even be a reactive tool rather than a preventative one (much like a hard landing detector doesn't prevent hard landings, but does allow them to be properly addressed appropriately.

[brooksjg]

Assuming the camera system gives an edge-on view of a VA cloud ahead of the aircraft, there's an immediate problem with ranging (ie. distance to the near and far edges of the cloud). Even if it's possible to determine these points and therefore the total depth of the field being observed, it still seems unlikely that an accurate ash-density number could be calculated per cubic metre. Once the near edge of the cloud is close to the aircraft (and therefore flying through it or not comes into question), it seems very unlikely that an InfraRed imaging system would give accurate (or indeed, any) data that could be used to calculate actual exposure.

This thought already led me to comment that a vertical shot through a cloud will be a much richer data-source. VA clouds tend to cover large areas in relatively thin layer(s), which will be much more easily measured and analysed from above or below (although such layers are much easier to see edge-on, as a dark line, using the Mk 1 Eyeball, this is not the same thing at all).

For these reasons, I cannot see how the proposed passive IR system could provide consistent or accurate data about VA actually flown through.

[Pace]

There's a bit of a difference between a request for a height / heading change (at least partly) for the comfort of pax and a 'must have' change because the current heading / height is not going to be 'safe' after another n minutes (where n is less than 5).

BrookSJG

Yes there is a hell of a difference between flying into a CB which does have a record of killing you and Ash which doesnt.

The must have are active CBs and I have never heard of ATC forcing a pilot into a CB against his wishes. Deviations are ALWAYS given even over busy London.

The London controllers really earn their Keep on such days a few ash deviations really wouldnt be a problem! Kids play in comparison :rolleyes:

really where do some of you people get your assumptions because they dont match reality?

For these reasons, I cannot see how the proposed passive IR system could provide consistent or accurate data about VA actually flown through.

We have the same old problem from the Ash thread of differentiating between dense ash and light Ash. The dense ash will show up from satellite screening, on board sensing as well as the MK1 Eyeball. The light stuff wont show to anyone with accuracy and thats the problem! Thank God to date the light stuff doesnt appear to be a problem.


Pace

[brooksjg]

problem from the Ash thread of differentiating between dense ash and light AshExactly. 'Light' in your categories means 'not visible' and unfortunately probably not visualised by the IR system discussed. But where do the current limits (2000 and 4000 microgrammes per cu metre) fit in? It's my understanding that even at the 4000 level, the cloud would still neither be easily visible nor detectable by IR. Presumably under optimum viewing conditions (eg. daylight, sun behind aircraft and shining towards VA cloud, good visibility, perhaps even contrasting cloud beyond the VA, plus a fairly thick layer of VA and/or viewing from slightly above / below) a cloud at 4000 microgrammes might be visible as a darker line or area. But once conditions become less optimal, a low-density cloud will not be visible by eye. Whether the Easyjet IR system can get useful data under poor viewing conditions is another matter. As far as has been publicly revealed so far, it's never been tested using a horizontal view of a VA cloud at low densities - only relatively close to erupting volcanoes where the ash density would be order(s) of magnitude greater.

[ozaub]

I posted about this back at beginning of the VA debacle. "Sadly nobody was interested when Australian scientists developed a volcanic ash detector ten years ago. See http://www.csiro.au/files/mediaRelease/mr2001/Prvolcanoash.htm (http://www.csiro.au/files/mediaRelease/mr2001/Prvolcanoash.htm) "
The link is still worth a read.

[brooksjg]

I posted about this back at beginning of the VA debacle.

So you did! There it is on page 43!
What goes around comes around but don't sell yourself short: it'sentirely possible that someone at Easyjet picked up on your posting (when, it appears, no-one else did! :uhoh:) and the rest may become history.

BUT CSIRO decided in 2004 (?) that VA was not going to be a viable investment (despite having had two goes at it with Dr Prata - satellite and aircraft based) and ditched it. Why? Who knows, unless they tell us. But my guess would be that someone concluded that VA problems were too infrequent, depite already having cost airlines $250m in 'damage due to undetected ash', and the deployment cost too high for a system that would hardly ever be needed. Given the 7 -9 year gap before airlines got badly hit again, CSIRO possibly made the right judgement. More so, if in practice the system cannot detect down to at least the 4000 microgramme level - no-one has yet said much yet about current and potential sensitivity of this system.

The Devil is in the Detail: seems to me that the current modelling system is probably accurate enough to predict where ash will get to for several days after it leaves the volcano, and at what average density over quite a large height range, given good data about how much was discharged in the eruption hour by hour. (Note the height ranges of the VAAC advisories) But the erupted volume is not accurately known and if the cloud height-range is too great, this is not so useful! The model might accurately predict an average of <4000 microgrammes over a layer 10000 feet deep when the VA has not spread that far vertically and is in fact still concentrated into a thinner layer only 2000 feet deep. :uhoh: Direct observation of the cloud appears to be the only practical answer but I have yet to see any real evidence whether the Prata system is capable of doing this and at what cost.