ASTRONICS JOINS THE SMART AIRCRAFT REVOLUTION Jon Neal, President of Astronic’s Ballard Technology, reveals how the Astronics Smart Aircraft System enhances passenger comfort and shares his insight into the future of the connected cabin

ASTRONICS JOINS THE SMART AIRCRAFT REVOLUTION

by MARY JANE PITTILLA Jon Neal, President of Astronic’s Ballard Technology, reveals how the Astronics Smart Aircraft System enhances passenger comfort and shares his insight into the future of the connected cabin

The Astronics Intelligent Bin Solution uses IoT connection technologies to detect and report in real-time remaining bin space available and environmental status

The Astronics Smart Aircraft System server collects data from hundreds of sensors simultaneously to deliver actionable information to the crew

Jon Neal, President, Astronics Ballard Technology

While airline cabins seem like complex and intelligent wonders today, there are plans ahead to make them even more intuitive to meet passenger needs in the future. Up and down the industry, passenger experience has been taking center stage in discussions, research and development. Astronics, has been showing potential customers a range of products designed to enhance that experience. In this PAX Tech Industry Q and A, Jon Neal, President of one of the company’s divisions, talks about the Smart Aircraft System.

PAX TECH: What’s the background to the Astronics Smart Aircraft System? Why and when did you begin this initiative? JON NEAL: Astronics has a history of developing products that provide operational value to commercial airline partners, such as our industry-leading in-seat power systems. We began working on the Astronics Smart Aircraft initiative several years ago with the application of sensors and wireless IoT networks, along with the development of a new generation of wireless Aircraft Interface Devices (AIDs). The goals of the systems are to provide an easy retrofit option on existing aircraft and to serve as a cost-effective, high-performance backbone to enable the autonomous collection of data from hundreds to thousands of sensors. Airlines can then use this data to increase operational efficiency and safety. Astronics has been granted several patents on the innovative technology with other patents pending.

PAX: Please give an overview of the system. What is the technology behind it and how will it benefit airlines? NEAL: The Astronics Smart Aircraft System combines specially designed sensors, a scalable and reliable Internet of Things (IoT) network, an open-architecture wireless communications server, and flexible software to detect and report in real-time on the wide variety of data received from the sensors. Using the Astronics Intelligent Bin Solution as an example, special strip sensors are easily installed in the overhead bins of commercial aircraft. These sensors collect and transmit two types of data through the system for immediate use by the airline:

• Bin volume status – The system provides information on the remaining space available in overhead stowage bins, which can speed aircraft boarding processes and reduce passenger stress.

• Bin environment status – The system reports the temperature, humidity, pressure and air quality within the bin, which can help to detect outgassing events, such as those that precede a lithium-ion battery fire, to increase safety and avoid costly aircraft diversions. This system puts useful and actionable digital information regarding bin status directly into the hands of the flight and gate crews, resulting in increased airline efficiency, improved passenger satisfaction, and higher cabin safety. But it doesn’t stop there; this information can be transferred off aircraft and combined with other relevant data for fleet-wide insights into potential inefficiencies, issues and improvements.

PAX: What are the USPs of the bin sensing solution? NEAL: Astronics designed the Intelligent Bin Sensing Solution as a simple, safe and secure retrofit solution. The plug-and-play nature of the Smart Aircraft System means it is easy to install, easy to program and easy to operate. And, when needed, it’s easy to expand. Here are some specific benefits for both the passenger and operator:

Passenger benefits include reducing stress and smoothing the boarding process. The system provides data to the crew to enable:

• Reduced boarding time – crew can quickly direct passengers to available bin locations;

• Reduced passenger frustration – aids in efficiently using all remaining bin space, alerting gate crew exactly when it is necessary to start checking bags;

• Increased safety – senses lithium-ion battery outgassing, increasing the chance of preventative fire containment;

• Reduced lost items – alerts crew about very small items left behind in a bin, such as a Kindle or an iPad, to allow return to passengers before they leave the gate area. Operator benefits include increasing airline efficiency, which translates directly to cost savings, as follows:

• Higher gate and cabin crew efficiency, as real-time data eliminates guessing and use of crew time to check closed bins;

• Optimizing the boarding process – historic data collected by the system allows airline to profile different boarding techniques and measure effectiveness;

• Reducing emergency diversions – bin air quality detection allows early containment of potential battery fire events, possibly avoiding expensive aircraft diversions;

• Easy-to-install, retrofit solutions – peel ‘n stick installation requires no wiring or long aircraft down times; • Easy integration with existing systems – data from the system can be incorporated into existing crew applications;

• Secure operation – its separate network is secure from the passenger network;

• Expandable – Astronics Smart Aircraft System is easily expanded with other IoT sensing solutions, such as lavatory and seat occupancy detection and RFID/asset detection.

PAX: How will the initiative enhance the passenger experience? NEAL: In general, the Astronics Smart Aircraft System enhances the passenger experience by increasing overall satisfaction with the airline and the trip experience. Like the benefits of the Astronics Intelligent Bin Solution, the system improves efficiency so that passengers can board the plane quicker, the plane can be readied for takeoff faster and aircraft health data is monitored inflight. This results in fewer delayed flights and inflight diversions that can lead to missed connections and late arrivals.

PAX: How important is the connected cabin becoming to airlines? NEAL: Historically, airlines have used the connected cabin to provide passengers with internet connectivity and entertainment. More and more, from our discussions with airlines, we believe they are seeing the potential to leverage the cabin connectivity system to provide operational benefits for themselves. The Astronics Smart Aircraft System integrates with existing cabin connectivity hardware to provide a cost-effective way to help our airline customers realize these operational benefits.

PAX: How do you see the future of the connected cabin? NEAL: We envision the future connected cabin to include virtually all systems in the cabin environment actively reporting their own health and other relevant information for use on and off the aircraft. Within this scenario, we believe that the experience of passengers and crew will be greatly enhanced by data being used and combined to anticipate their needs. In addition, airline operations will be immediately notified of any cabin maintenance issues that occur for quick service upon arrival. As a result, air travel becomes cohesive and consistent with the expectations that we have become accustomed to in a modern digital age.

PAX: What is in the pipeline for Astronics? Are you working on any other smart cabin initiatives? NEAL: While we at Astronics are continually working on new products in our Smart Aircraft initiative, we are not able to share any news about future cabin products at this time. However, we are also working on initiatives outside of the cabin. One in particular that I can talk about involves our recent acquisition of the Inflight Warning Systems (IWS) product line. The IWS Predictive Vibration Monitor Units are used to predict fan and other rotating-component failures on commercial aircraft, eliminating costly flight disruptions. This acquisition will enhance our ability to develop the next generation of predictive monitoring solutions as part of the Astronics Smart Aircraft initiative.