FBW09 | CANEUS Fly-by-Wireless Workshop 2009
June 8-12, 2009 | Montreal, Quebec

Background

In March 2007, NASA and CANEUS teamed together to hold the first CANEUS/NASA “Fly-by-Wireless” Workshop in conjunction with the RFID World 2007 Conference. The U.S. and participating international organizations have taken steps to continue development of their wireless programs and some teaming has resulted. Many have committed to participation in future Fly-by-Wireless (FBW) workshops, working groups, and projects, including EADS, ESA, Canada, Brazil, NASA IPP, and Aviation Safety Program.

CANEUS-NASA 2007 “Fly-by-Wireless” Workshop

"As a result of this meeting we were able to discuss possible alliances with several companies and establish relationships with potential OEM customers."
- Harvey Blair, Securaplane Technologies, Inc.

At the NASA-CANEUS “Fly-by-Wireless” Workshop in March 2007, the right group of international end-users met and with the practical progress made since then, agencies and organizations from the USA, Canada, Europe, Brazil and elsewhere would like CANEUS and NASA to lead a series of these workshops in hopes of generating mutually beneficial projects.

Objectives

This workshop is expected to help formulate international strategy and plan for investigating technologies with the potential to reduce vehicle wire weight and improve vehicle reliability and performance. By leveraging international partnerships, Consortium members can focus on unique aspects of these technologies. It takes advantage of on-going working groups and projects as well as previously gathered contacts and information. The effort will help develop a coordinated recommendation for a forward plan and strategy for subsequent efforts. A joint project with NASA and other partners will be initiated to demonstrate the value of partnerships in reducing the cost of applying fly-by-wireless technologies and architecture principles. State of the art wireless data acquisition systems and wireless sensors will be applied to an aircraft and spacecraft hardware monitoring configuration in a way that demonstrates the principles and added value of this approach. A joint life-cycle cost study, will be generated to provide better data for future investigations and applications. The intention is to develop and share vision where appropriate and facilitate progress through cooperation and partnerships across NASA and outside the agency.

International Consortia Rationale

With the availability of "less wire" and wireless alternatives, Aircraft and spacecraft industry can begin to address some of these issues: the cost of basic installation, wiring and connector reliability and performance, cost due to a lack of flexibility and modularity, cost of data not obtained, and difficulty in increasing system redundancy. Even with numerous improvements, wiring and connector problems continue to be key failure points, causing many hours of troubleshooting and replacement. Costly delays have been precipitated by the need to troubleshoot cables and connections. Wiring continues to be too expensive to remove once it is installed, even with the weight penalties. Miles of test instrumentation and flight sensor wires still plague the aerospace industry. New technology options for data connectivity, processing, and micro- and nano- manufacturing are making it possible to retrofit existing vehicles, as evidenced with the Space Shuttle. New air and space vehicles can now develop architectures that provide for, and take advantage of, alternatives to wired connectivity more efficiently. This project assures that each consortium partner fully leverages external advancements in identified key areas, and focuses its resources on remaining challenges, which may be member-unique.

Goals

The 2nd CANEUS Fly-by-Wireless (FBW) Workshop program builds on: (a) the vision, mission and goal defined at the 1st CANEUS/NASA Fly-by-Wireless Workshop held in March 2007 and (b)focus projects that were proposed and formulated at the Fly-By-Wireless Sector Consortium sessions held at CANEUS 2009 workshop at NASA Ames on March 1-6, 2009. The goal of the CANEUS 2009 Workshops was to significantly advance each of the CANEUS Sector Consortia by creating their roadmaps and articulating well-defined projects for the aerospace industry.

The core premise of this 2nd CANEUS Fly-by-Wireless is that complementary skill sets from across several organizations and countries are needed to rapidly and cost-effectively transform emerging FBW concepts into practical Aerospace systems. The workshop will culminate in measurable deliverables, namely a set of project "blueprints", for developing the most promising concepts to system-level prototypes.

Therefore, the 2nd Fly-by-Wireless workshop aims: (a) to refine the focus projects and pertinent details, identify specific development needs, outline teaming and funding schemes, plan project oversight and execution, and establish milestones from which to gauge success of the projects, and (b) stimulate formation of project teams comprised of technology providers and application/end users and project proposals from each team that have significant mutual benefit and high potential of funding from internal or external organizations.

For example, one of the projects that was defined at the NASA Ames Workshop deals with wireless implementation for structural health monitoring of the Aircraft main fuselage. By focusing on an application that is comprised of a complete system solution with a well defined scope and that is supported by all the stake holders i.e. customer, end user, systems integrator and technology provider, participants have the opportunity to build on the past technology planning and development efforts of the Aerospace community. In this way, the activities of the workshop will build on the current technology roadmaps (such as DPHM Canada and from international agencies) and the existing portfolio of technology developments, thus allowing the participants to concentrate their efforts on the technology gaps that need to be filled in order to realize a commercially viable system solution.

Expected Outcomes

  • Improvement to Aerospace Industry's overall technical capability and architectures at lower cost.
  • Development of analysis/testing beneficial to multiple missions, programs, projects
  • Opportunities to advance tool/technique capability (efficiency, accuracy, reliability)
  • Identification of technical deficiencies and solution paths
  • Technology and Application contacts, needs and capabilities, partnerships
  • An International Vision, Strategy and proposed Commitments to Lead "Fly-by-Wireless" efforts worldwide
  • At least one demonstration(s) of effective use of fly-by-wireless architecture