TECH TALK
THE INTERNET OF THINGS (IOT) AND BIG DATA CHALLENGE THE AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE SECTOR
BY JOHN PAWLICKI | OPM RESEARCH
One of the most hyped technological developments in recent years has been the Internet of Things (IoT) and its promise to link together connected devices embedded in everyday objects, enabling them to send and receive data. Within the aviation market, the term has been tossed around freely as vendors began adding more sensors to aircraft components and systems, airports, maintenance facilities and just about anything possible. IoT goes hand in hand with another recent buzzword, Big Data, and these two are strongly interconnected. This increased data that is generated by such ‘smart’ devices leads to an avalanche of information, which requires mechanisms to store, sort and analyze it, and then to do something useful with it, along with the need to secure all of this information. As with any new technology, this one holds great promise to reduce costs across the aviation industry, and more specifi cally the aviation maintenance sector once we move past a long teething period. Many long-standing processes will need to change and new types of specialists will need to be hired to deal with all of this data properly. We are in the early stages of this step change to the industry, and the true eff ect will not happen until we have more e-Enabled aircraft and engines in service, greater capacity in wireless communications and improved cyber security. Organizations will also
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need to learn how to deal with the terabytes of data generated.
THE HYPE There have been many wild forecasts by various organizations, which have not quite materialized. The market estimates for the number of IoT devices in operation (as of mid- 2016) is anywhere between Gartner’s estimate of 6.4 billion (which does not include computers/tablets or smartphones) and IHS’s estimate of 17.6 billion (with all such devices included). These are serious numbers, and the market for connected devices is growing at impressive rates. We were unable to identify how many such devices are being used in the air transport (aviation, travel, cargo, airports, etc.) market, but it can be safe to say that IoT usage is expanding quickly.
All of this has become possible due to the e-Enabled (or connected) aircraft — essentially a fl ying data center that carries goods and/ or passengers. The airborne IoT holds great promise to streamline all aspects of aviation, although engine monitoring preceded the IoT by many years — it can be argued that our industry was ahead on the curve on this.
HOW IT WORKS According to Wikipedia, “the Internet of Things is the internetworking of physical devices, buildings, and other items — embedded with electronics,
software, sensors, actuators and network connectivity that enable these objects to collect and exchange data. The IoT allows objects to be sensed and/or controlled remotely across existing network infrastructure, creating opportunities for more direct integration of the physical world into computer-based systems, and resulting in improved effi ciency, accuracy and economic benefi t in addition to reduced human intervention. When IoT is augmented with sensors and actuators, the technology becomes an instance of the more general class of cyber-physical systems.” In the aviation market, it becomes
more complicated than in the consumer or other industrial sectors from an information or control perspective, mainly due to safety and reliability concerns. Another reason for this is that there are many diff ering owners of the data which is transmitted to/from aircraft (either in fl ight or while they are being serviced), not to mention various types of passenger and business data transmitted from airports, travel locations and related areas. Examples of this are as follows.
Air navigation service providers (ANSPs) are typically operated by government organizations such as the FAA or EuroControl, or privatized organizations such NavCanada, and these provide fl ight operations control over geographic areas. Aircraft communications addressing and reporting system (ACARS) datalink
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