The classic black box is composed of three parts: a cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder, and the flight data acquisition unit (FDAU), which feed them information. A black box called a DFIRS (deployable flight incident recorder set) is designed to eject from a crashing plane and flutter to earth on its own. The unit lands near the wreckage, floating if the crash was over water, and emits a strong radio locator signal for rescue crews to track. DRS Flight Safety and Communications Corp. is making a new generation of its DFIRS for U.S. Air Force electronic surveillance aircraft. This new model is designed with the price and safety regulations for commercial planes. The DFIRS is made of a three-layered shell. The entire package must have minimal metal because of interferences with the sensitive antennas of the emergence location transmitter (ELT). Also, new regulations require a great increase in the amount of data stored, plus a combined voice and data recorder, instead of the current system of separate boxes. DRS designers now use 128 Mbit Intel-chips allowing them to radically shrink the size of the electronics package. Another way to achieve the list of demands is by having the boxes draw data directly from the central data bus instead of filtering the data through an FDAU. Other engineering challenges are the sensors, so the units are triggered to eject from the plane at the right time. Necessary is as well an aerodynamic design and a powerful modeling software to predict the airflow around a crashing plane.


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    Title :

    Better black boxes


    Contributors:
    Ames, B.B. (author)

    Published in:

    Global Design News ; 5 , 2 ; 63-68


    Publication date :

    2001


    Size :

    4 Seiten, 4 Bilder, 2 Tabellen


    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Print


    Language :

    English




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