Aircraft Systems Research Articles

Comparison of Indonesian and Malaysian Media in Reporting the QZ8501 Plane Crash Crisis

The tragic loss of Flight QZ8501 captured widespread attention in 2014. The incident resulted in numerous fatalities with various forms of reporting and affecting AirAsia's negative image, such as pilot and staff incompetence, aircraft system weaknesses, management shortcomings, and safety issues are often associated when such unfortunate events befall an airline. This study attempts to examine the types of news reporting by local Indonesian media (Kompas.com and Detik.com) and Malaysian media (Berita Harian and Astro Awani) related to the QZ8501 incident, which ultimately shapes the image of AirAsia. The study found similarities between both Indonesian and Malaysian local media in reporting news related to the QZ8501 crash, emphasizing important information, using a positive tone to respect the families of the victims, and avoiding sensationalism in accordance with journalistic ethics and the theory of social responsibility. This study highlights the promptness of AirAsia Malaysia and AirAsia Indonesia's management in handling the crisis by providing information and interacting with the media and victims' families from day one, as reflected in the media coverage. Indirectly, such reporting can positively influence the airline's image in crisis management as recognized through the Priority Integration Award at the 2015 ASEAN Business Awards. and may serve as a valuable guideline for future crisis handling.

Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UASs): Current State, Emerging Technologies, and Future Trends

Unmanned aircraft, commonly referred to as drones, represent a valuable alternative for various operational tasks due to their versatility, flexibility, cost-effectiveness, and reusability. These features make them particularly advantageous in environments that are hazardous or inaccessible to humans. Recent developments have highlighted a significant increase in the use of unmanned aircraft within metropolitan areas. This growth has necessitated the implementation of new regulations and guidelines to ensure the safe integration of UAS into urban environments. Consequently, the concept of UAM has emerged. UAM refers to an innovative air transportation paradigm designed for both passengers and cargo within urban settings, leveraging the capabilities of drones. This review manuscript explores the latest advancements for UAS, focusing on updated regulations, definitions, enabling technologies, and airspace classifications relevant to UAM operations. Additionally, it provides a comprehensive overview of unmanned aircraft systems, including their classifications, key features, and primary applications.

The Development of a Regional, High-Resolution OSSE Framework to Study the Impact of Observations from Uncrewed Aircraft Systems on Numerical Weather Prediction

Abstract Using Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (UAS) for routine weather observations is becoming increasingly feasible, but two open questions are the impact UAS observations will have on operational NWP and the optimal configuration of a UAS observing network. Deploying hundreds to thousands of UAS across the US to answer these questions is not feasible, so we propose using an Observing System Simulation Experiment (OSSE) instead. This article describes the development and validation of an OSSE framework for examining the impact of UAS observations on regional, convection-allowing NWP. The OSSE includes two week-long Nature Runs (NRs) over CONUS with 1-km grid spacing, simulated conventional observations, a 3-km forecast system similar to the prototype Rapid-Refresh Forecast System (RRFS), and verification workflows. Comparisons between the NR and various observations show that the NR generally mirrors reality, though the NR tends to produce too many reflectivity objects that are too large and larger coverage of intense precipitation rates compared to reality. Comparing real-data and OSSE RRFS runs indicates that, for the majority of the variables examined, forecast errors are not systematically smaller in the OSSE, suggesting that there is no identical twin issue. Data-denial experiments using either real or simulated conventional observations indicate that the OSSE has a similar ordering of most to least impactful observations, though the impact of aircraft observations tend to be larger in the OSSE. Altogether, these results suggest the OSSE framework can be used to glean meaningful information about UAS observation impacts on regional NWP.

Comparison of Field and Virtual Vegetation Surveys Conducted Using Uncrewed Aircraft System (UAS) Imagery at Two Coastal Marsh Restoration Projects

Comparison of Field and Virtual Vegetation Surveys Conducted Using Uncrewed Aircraft System (UAS) Imagery at Two Coastal Marsh Restoration Projects

Potential of a Remotely Piloted Aircraft System with Multispectral and Thermal Sensors to Monitor Vineyard Characteristics for Precision Viticulture.

Grapevines are subjected to many physiological and environmental stresses that influence their vegetative and reproductive growth. Water stress, cold damage, and pathogen attacks are highly relevant stresses in many grape-growing regions. Precision viticulture can be used to determine and manage the spatial variation in grapevine health within a single vineyard block. Newer technologies such as remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPASs) with remote sensing capabilities can enhance the application of precision viticulture. The use of remote sensing for vineyard variation detection has been extensively investigated; however, there is still a dearth of literature regarding its potential for detecting key stresses such as winter hardiness, water status, and virus infection. The main objective of this research is to examine the performance of modern remote sensing technologies to determine if their application can enhance vineyard management by providing evidence-based stress detection. To accomplish the objective, remotely sensed data such as the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and thermal imaging from RPAS flights were measured from six commercial vineyards in Niagara, ON, along with the manual measurement of key viticultural data including vine water stress, cold stress, vine size, and virus titre. This study verified that the NDVI could be a useful metric to detect variation across vineyards for agriculturally important variables including vine size and soil moisture. The red-edge and near-infrared regions of the electromagnetic reflectance spectra could also have a potential application in detecting virus infection in vineyards.

Detection of airborne Coccidioides spores using lightweight portable air samplers affixed to uncrewed aircraft systems in California's Central Valley.

UAS-based air sampling for bioaerosols, including pathogenic Coccidioides spp., opens new possibilities for characterizing the aerosolization and transport of fungal spores and other airborne pathogens.

Modeling method for simulating electrical load system of civil aircraft based on CPU-FPGA

Modeling method for simulating electrical load system of civil aircraft based on CPU-FPGA

Impedance modelling and analysis of the fuel cell-supercapacitor hybrid power supply system for electrical propulsion-based aircraft

Impedance modelling and analysis of the fuel cell-supercapacitor hybrid power supply system for electrical propulsion-based aircraft

Efficient, real-time autonomous navigation system for small unmanned aircraft

Efficient, real-time autonomous navigation system for small unmanned aircraft

Design of lithium battery management system in civil aircraft

Design of lithium battery management system in civil aircraft

Method of requirement analysis for automatic braking system of civil aircraft

Method of requirement analysis for automatic braking system of civil aircraft

Starter-generator system of a hydrogen-fueled aircraft

Starter-generator system of a hydrogen-fueled aircraft

Design of 5G ATG system for civil aircraft

Design of 5G ATG system for civil aircraft

Vibration suppression method for multi-valve parallel braking system for large aircraft

Vibration suppression method for multi-valve parallel braking system for large aircraft

Study on automatic takeoff thrust control system of civil aircraft

Study on automatic takeoff thrust control system of civil aircraft

Study on performance of phase change cooling system of aircraft based on low pressure flash

Study on performance of phase change cooling system of aircraft based on low pressure flash

Uncertainty analysis method for HIRF test of civil aircraft system

Uncertainty analysis method for HIRF test of civil aircraft system

Relating spatial turfgrass quality to actual evapotranspiration for precision golf course irrigation

AbstractGolf courses are increasingly affected by water scarcity and climate change. An understanding of spatial variability of actual evapotranspiration (ETa) and turfgrass quality (TQ) site‐specific management zones (SSMZ) is important for the implementation of precision turfgrass management. Therefore, the main objectives of this study were to quantify the relationship between remotely sensed TQ and ETa estimates and to evaluate the spatial variations of TQ and ETa at a golf course in Utah. Ground‐based normalized difference vegetation index was collected using a TCM‐500 sensor, and aerial multispectral and thermal imagery data were acquired from unpiloted aircraft systems (UAS) in 2021, 2022, and 2023. A remote sensing TQ‐random forest (RF) model was developed using six datasets of UAS spectral indices and the RF algorithm. The spatial data were analyzed to determine the correlation between TQ and ETa estimates. The TQ and ETa SSMZ were created and integrated with irrigation heads on the golf course using the Thiessen polygons tool. Results demonstrated that TQ‐RF model was accurate within a root mean square error of 0.05. The correlation between TQ‐RF and ETa was stronger for fairways (R2 = 0.74), tees (R2 = 0.66), and roughs (R2 = 0.75) as compared to greens (R2 = 0.25) and the driving range (R2 = 0.36) on July 20, 2022. Actual evapotranspiration SSMZ, in combination with TQ‐RF SSMZ, is useful for irrigation scheduling, addressing the question of how much and where to irrigate. This study demonstrates the ability of TQ‐RF and ETa SSMZ to identify spatial variation for the purpose of landscape irrigation management in semi‐arid areas.

Improving Health Operation of Flapping-Wing Robotic Aircraft Systems Using Event-triggered Vibration Control Technology

Improving Health Operation of Flapping-Wing Robotic Aircraft Systems Using Event-triggered Vibration Control Technology

Air Corridor Planning for Urban Drone Delivery: Complexity Analysis and Comparison via Multi-Commodity Network Flow and Graph Search

Urban drone delivery, a rapidly evolving sector, holds the potential to enhance accessibility, address last-mile delivery issues, and alleviate ground traffic congestion in cities. Effective Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management (UTM) is essential to scale drone delivery. A critical aspect of UTM involves planning a city-wide network with spatially-separated air corridors (air routes). Most existing works have focused on routing problems or air traffic management. Compared to these problems, the air corridor planning problem requires much higher spatial and temporal resolutions and presents computational challenges due to the scale, complexity, and density of urban airspace, along with the coupling issues of multi-path planning. Therefore, we conducted this research to understand the complexity and computational resources required to optimally solve the air corridor planning problem. In this paper, we use a minimum-cost Multi-Commodity Network Flow (MCNF) model, a mathematical model, to model the problem and demonstrate the complexity of air corridor planning through the complexity of MCNF. We then apply Gurobi’s and GLPK’s integer programming (IP) solvers to find optimal solutions. Additionally, we present two existing multi-path graph search algorithms, the Sequential Route Network Planning (SRP) algorithm and the Distributed Route Network Planning (DRP) algorithm, to address this corridor planning problem. Numerical experiments conducted at various scales and settings using IP solvers and graph search algorithms indicate that finding an optimal solution requires significant computational resources and yields only a slight improvement in optimality compared to graph search algorithms. Thus, air corridor planning is complex both theoretically and numerically, and graph search algorithms can provide a feasible solution with good enough optimality for corridor planning in real-world scenarios. Moreover, the multi-path graph search algorithms can easily incorporate side constraints that are known to be impossible to solve with polynomial algorithms, making it more practical for real-world applications. Finally, we demonstrate the application of SRP and DRP in real-world 3D urban scenarios.