When plane-maker Boeing Company showcases its flight marvels and technologies on the Boeing 757 ecoDemonstrator next year, some of its solutions related to safe communication and energy efficiency may put the spotlight on Bangalore.
A Boeing-led consortium, Aerospace Network Research Consortium (ANRC),that includes the host, Indian Institute of Science, and two information technology companies, has been working on a handful of wireless, intelligent technologies that can make our flights safe, smooth, soundless.
Battery-free sensor or switch that draws energy from around it and predicts a problem; an intelligent radio that can send secure messages without getting intercepted; a fingerprint tracking chip — these are only a sample of novel ideas coming out of ANRC which may get on board Boeing’s future planes, said senior company officials who were here at a related conference on Wednesday.
Some of these innovations will be made into prototypes and products in the next three to five years; they may be showcased in Boeing’s next technology demonstrator flight which will use the B757 next year, said Michael Sinnett, vice-president, product development, of the Seattle-based company. Mr. Sinnett, who was chief engineer of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, Pratyush Kumar, president, Boeing India, and Sudhakar Shetty, Seattle-based director of ANRC, and a few Boeing officials are here for a two-day ANRC meet.
Boeing has contributed half of the sum needed to run the projects, Wipro Technologies and HCL Technologies the other half while IISc has provided facilities on its campus through the Department for Electronic Systems Engineering and the Department of Electronics and Communications Engineering.
Mr. Sinnett said Boeing foresees a market for 35,000 planes over the next 30 years. It is trying to build planes that use less fuel, make less noise, cost less and can be maintained easily, using traditional composities, wing designs and propulsion methods.
“We are also thinking of systems on airplanes [that can] contribute to better operation and energy use in flight, situational awareness, predict problems, and those that allow planes to talk with other planes and the air traffic control, or make better use of the air space itself. The consortium is contributing to some of these needs, by creating more practical ways of monitoring things in flight and communicating to the central system.”
