cheap collision avoidance

[flyguy]

The discussion of the 406 MHz ELT reminded me of this incident.

I worked on one of the first two TCAS systems (aircraft collision avoidance) that were in parallel development for the FAA.

Later while working on wireless systems for another company we made these small units about 5 X 4 X 1 inch thick for use by Southern Pacific, I believe for monitoring of switchyard rail traffic. Consisted of RF board (xmit/receive) and a computer board. Small, Smart, Slick.

Turn on 2 units and they would talk to each other within a few seconds. Same with 25 or 50 units. Automatically make a network as each one would tell any unit that contacted it about the other units it had contact with. Entire network comes up in about 30 seconds. I put together a system on paper to use the RS232 outputs of altitude encoder and GPS unit so with the right software each unit would tell everyone else their location and altitude. Idea was to put it in general aviation aircraft. Estimated range per my Chief engineer, as built, 20 miles.

You fly into an area and the first guy your unit contacts gives his location and "by the way, here is the location of all the other guys you want to check in with."
We were building this box for less than $200. Probably could have built in the GPS for less than another $100.

My VP really liked it and took it to our parent company up north and the first low-level hotshot he talks to a is private pilot. "We don't need any more crap in our airplanes." he says, and stomps on it. Never gets anywhere near the big guys. That was Paul Allen's outfit (of Space Plane sponsor fame.) Estimates of of what they blew on our wireless company, before it went belly up, start at a low figure of $500 million.
So much for innovation and clever use of existing technology/hardware.
Darryl

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: cheap collision avoidance

The idea in AGATE (at least at our level) was simple, inexpensive, effective. The higher-ups sometimes just couldn't get it. Their idea of inexpensive was $50K!!!! Mine was to be able to SEND your position for under $200. Note for that YOU don't know where the other guy is, but he knows where YOU are. Add a little more money to your system and you get a little digital readout of your Lat-Long. Not great, but really nice to find your location on a sectional when you are lost or to make that "AW S**T, I'M GOING DOWN" call with your location included. Next step up was an interface to a PDA or Laptop to drive a moving map, costs a little more, but with this you can see the locations of all the other planes in the area. The idea was great, but for a TCAS the basic requirement was that ALL small planes have the basic GPS chip and a transmitter. To make that palatable, the cost had to stay below a couple of hundred Dollars, which was VERY possible. We figured a refresh rate of every few seconds to a minute would work fine for GA. Of course the "heavies" said it should be hundreds of times a second and added so much redundancy to it the cost went through the roof. Then they said, "Too expensive and not an economical solution". Well OF COURSE NOT after YOU were through with it!
AGATE ended with us never having a chance to push for a new try for the system. Still a great idea.
Hank

[flyguy]

Re: cheap collision avoidance

If I heard about AGATE I don't remember it now. Been a while.

The TCAS prototypes that we ran in the FAA and Piedmont 727's were BIG boxes with like 10 boards in the digital section alone. I have lost track (and interest?) in what has been going on with the mode S and later stuff that they must be using now, but the last I heard they were tacking on data interchange channels and other complications.

That little box and it's system function was the sweetest running electronics of that type that I have ever seen. Really disappointing to see it wasted.
DC

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: cheap collision avoidance

Take a look at

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/factsheets/AGATE.html

I hadn't been on the site for quite a while (years actually) and it is interesting that it has been updated, but is still written as if it was posted right at the end of the project. It has been "selectively edited" and the AGATE Homepage now comes up as a blank screen.
There are still some pieces of the project out there if you search on AGATE NASA and/or my last name.
After I retired the SATS (Small Aircraft Transportation System) project was implemented at NASA. It seems one of the principal goals of SATS was to bury all records of the existence of AGATE. AGATE was a technology based project and SATS was supposed to be the implementation of the technologies. I always thought we should have an AGATE II to complete development of the technologies and the FAA should be the implementors. NASA is a TECHNOLOGY organization, it isn't supposed to be a political organization (but it is). The FAA has always been pretty much a political organization and was well suited to implement the technologies (if they didn't screw it up, which NASA did for them).
We did some really interesting things in AGATE to try and bring GA back to life. It could have been so great.
The heck with it. I work Space stuff now and I need to get back to work.
Hank

[flyguy]

Re: cheap collision avoidance

Thanks for the link.
I only had to read about 20% to know who killed AGATE.
DC

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: cheap collision avoidance

Yea, it was a real shame and contrary to the out of date info on the bodged up NASA page we had over 130 members when we finished. The next big step was to eliminate the Government 50% of the funding. We had demonstrated to the industry members that it was to their financial benefit to fund the whole thing themselves and get the government out of their way. Unfortunately, the way the Government pulled the plug took away the framework that the consortium was based on.
Industry cooperation and communication fell apart and they couldn't keep it going. On several occasions I heard the GAPO (General Aviation Program Manager) state that "AGATE must die if SATS is going to live". He didn't ever understand that AGATE was technologies and SATS was implementation. Now we don't have either one and the NASA web page ignores the majority of the great technologies that were developed straight from our research like Ballistic Parachutes (BRS was a SBIR Development), Crash Worthy Structures, Certified Glass Primary and Secondary Flight Displays, Composite structures certification (Cirrus and Lancair were members), Friction Stir Welding (Eclipse), Certified Single Lever Power Controls, Highway In the Sky, Decoupled Flight Controls (which made Highway In the Sky's unnecessary)DATA BUS, low noise props and on and on.
Lots of good stuff made it to the marketplace, but not in the integrated form we wanted.
Hank

[Len Petterson]

Re: cheap collision avoidance

So if a $ 500 would give us collision avoidance and some proffit an ELT sounld come out at the same price. Unless the layers get hold of it and liabilety insuranse takes it upward skyhigh.
Liabilety insurance should be used by widows then the exsisting ELT does not go off, just to get our moneys worth if nothing else.
Build me a working ELT for 500 buck and a by 2.
Len

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: cheap collision avoidance

That's funny, the way we got 10E-6 reliability WAS to use two independent systems! Reliability is a funny thing. If your requirement is for 1 failure in x hours and your current system will give you 1 failure in y hours you have two choices.
1) pay BIG bucks to increase the reliability of the current chips to raise them to 1 failure in y hours, or
2) Put 2 chips in (or even 3 with a "vote" circuit to detect a failure).

What we found was that the low reliability chip was SO much cheaper than the high reliability one you could afford to use several with a failure detection circuit and actually get HIGHER overall reliability.

We got 10E-6 reliability with "glass" systems where the current "steam gage" cockpits were only getting 10E-2. We went from 1 failure every 100 hours to 1 failure in every MILLION hours, and the new system COST LESS.

The proposed new ELT was really a whole new concept. It did NOT transmit when you crashed, it was transmitting all the time there was power and the satellite was recording each position in a buffer. If a signal stopped there was a check on whether the last signal was where an airplane "should" be. If it was on the ramp at an airport or at your hangar it purged the data for that flight. If the last position was 50' from a mountain side at 100mph there "might" have been a problem. Nice thing is they have a pretty close location even with a once every 5 second transmission. How hard is it to find a crashed plane if you knew where it was within 5 seconds of impact?

There were problems with pilots thinking the Feds would use the info to bust them for entering controlled airspace (of course you wouldn't enter the airspace if you had a GPS warning you it was there, which was a low cost upgrade to the system). There was also a problem if you had a Taylorcraft with floats and you landed on a lake somewhere (got to file and let them know you will be shutting down at a lake and where it is so they don't think you are on the bottom somewhere). We could actually tell you landed and were safe because we could see you taxi around on the water. Kind of obvious you didn't crash if there was 5 minutes of moving on the surface at 5mph.

It worked for collision avoidance for the FULLY EQUIPPED planes because they could "hear" the signals going to the satellites and the computer on the equipped plane could plot all the signals within whatever range ring you selected. By knowing a series of positions and the times your equipped plane could plot the planes course and speed. It already knew your own course and speed (from the same system) so it could "see" an impending crossing. The glass cockpit systems could actually plot all the planes withing the range ring you selected.
It really was a great system, but the top levels wouldn't look at it with their filters off to see it.
Hank