Fly by Light Eurocopter
Nick
At the moment it seems that the advantages of FBL are not so great over FBW technology. With this massive bandwidth that FBL offers, do you think we are heading towards a more lofty goal such as active flight control surfaces (for lack of a more techo term)? Is that what the proposed high speed VTOL aircraft will use (I forget the name of it)?
@ What-ho Squiffy!
Different ways exits to minimize the influence of HIRF/EMR. But a complete protection is at the moment impossible. We are on the jump to a new helicopter generation, recognicable by a massive use of new generation technologies. The older generation shared the older electrics with barometric instruments. Now we have the new equipment from GSM Phone or special transmitting links as the worst, obstacle warning systems, up to some small or embedded computers in your GPS or displaying unit. They all have their spectrum of radiation with different frequencies and different transmitting power. They all need their data or power links to and from sensors, antennas, displays... And they are have HIRF/EMR problems. That means miles of wires (EC 135 German Border Guard, small Twin but >10 NM wires), massive problems with shielding and detecting HIRF/EMR inducted problems or an ordinary short-circuit, a lot of weight and costs. That's a big disadvantage for the whole aviation industry. "Fly by light" seems at the moment to be the best way to reduce the problem (not to solve utterly). Theoretically could ONE fibre with 235µm core diameter replace the whole stuff of linking wires with little losses (Please, no fail-safe discussion)and 80%-90% of the mechanical linking parts of the control system. Without any HIRF/EMR problem! Two of several available methods:
TDM - Time Division Multiplexing - a method of incorporating many signals into one. Many slower speed signals are sampled onto one high speed signal.
DWDM - Dense Wavelength Division Multiplex
Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing is a method of expanding the bandwidth of fibre. Many high speed signals are multiplexed together using different wavelength (or colours) for transmission over one fibre.
With that bandwith of transmission, gathering, computing and storing possibilities it would be no problem to develop and to handle the new "crafts" new technologies like smart actuators, active and individual blade control, new FADEC and HUMS systems.
Different ways exits to minimize the influence of HIRF/EMR. But a complete protection is at the moment impossible. We are on the jump to a new helicopter generation, recognicable by a massive use of new generation technologies. The older generation shared the older electrics with barometric instruments. Now we have the new equipment from GSM Phone or special transmitting links as the worst, obstacle warning systems, up to some small or embedded computers in your GPS or displaying unit. They all have their spectrum of radiation with different frequencies and different transmitting power. They all need their data or power links to and from sensors, antennas, displays... And they are have HIRF/EMR problems. That means miles of wires (EC 135 German Border Guard, small Twin but >10 NM wires), massive problems with shielding and detecting HIRF/EMR inducted problems or an ordinary short-circuit, a lot of weight and costs. That's a big disadvantage for the whole aviation industry. "Fly by light" seems at the moment to be the best way to reduce the problem (not to solve utterly). Theoretically could ONE fibre with 235µm core diameter replace the whole stuff of linking wires with little losses (Please, no fail-safe discussion)and 80%-90% of the mechanical linking parts of the control system. Without any HIRF/EMR problem! Two of several available methods:
TDM - Time Division Multiplexing - a method of incorporating many signals into one. Many slower speed signals are sampled onto one high speed signal.
DWDM - Dense Wavelength Division Multiplex
Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing is a method of expanding the bandwidth of fibre. Many high speed signals are multiplexed together using different wavelength (or colours) for transmission over one fibre.
With that bandwith of transmission, gathering, computing and storing possibilities it would be no problem to develop and to handle the new "crafts" new technologies like smart actuators, active and individual blade control, new FADEC and HUMS systems.
Last edited by tecpilot; 19th Jul 2002 at 16:20.
