Avionics
PHASED IMPLEMENTATION
Agreed and adopted into ICAO’s aircraft operating
standards and recommended practices in 2016, GADSS
has three main phases. The first phase requires aircraft
to carry beacons that work underwater. The second
requires aircraft to carry a device capable of reporting
their position every 15 minutes. Both of these rules were
introduced in 2018 and cover the existing aircraft fleet.
Autonomous distress tracking (ADT) is the final and
arguably the most crucial part of GADSS. From January
2021 ICAO regulations require that all aircraft
manufactured which weigh more than 27,000kg
(60,000 lbs) and are capable of carrying more than 19
passengers must be able to autonomously transmit their
position once a minute while flying in distress.
ICAO’s GADSS does not stipulate the technologies
airlines and aircraft makers have to use to meet its
tracking and emergency distress rules. This has led to a
variety of solutions being developed and tested to meet
the requirements.
SIMULATION AND VALIDATION
Blue Sky Network’s (BSN) Hawkeye ADT was developed
to meet the requirements of ICAO’s GADSS. The company
is focused primarily on the US aviation market. Hawkeye
is able to detect a crash before it happens using a
combination of sensors and an attitude heading reference
system that detects erratic movements. Hawkeye triggers
itself autonomously and independently without having to
rely on the aircraft’s systems.
Hawkeye ADT took three years for BSN’s engineers to
develop. Gregoire Demury, president and CEO at BSN
emphasizes that it is the only product that has been
developed “from the ground up” to meet the incoming
ICAO standards on distress. He says, “Some claim that an
emergency location transmitter can meet the standards,
but our system is the only one that meets all of the new
requirements.
“We use a technology called short burst data to
provide global tracking capabilities and two-way
communication, which is better suited to detect a
distress then GPS and ADS-B.
1 // Devices such as Blue
Sky Network’s Hawkeye
provide a distress tracking
solution for commercial
passenger aircraft
1
“ADS-B is not designed to
provide services to airlines
or to detect a distress”
“ADS-B is not designed to provide services to airlines
or to detect a distress. Our technology is.”
Hawkeye ADT was tested using computer simulations
and Demury has full confidence in its capabilities to
ensure that crashed aircraft will not be lost in the future.
“We’ve gone further than required to ensure that this is
the case,” he says. “We obtained data from the French
Aviation Safety Board about 63 different aircraft crashes
and simulated every incident with our technology.
“In every case Hawkeye worked as expected, allowing
us to answer that question with confidence.”
The Hawkeye ADT device has so far been certified
for use on the Boeing 737 and the team used a 737 for the
installation, systems testing and DO1060G testing for
vibration, shock, and lightning strikes. BSN is certifying
the device for the 767 next and then the Airbus A320.
“We will be first to market,” Demury says.
REDUNDANCY AND INDEPENDENCE
French company Orolia has been making emergency
location transmitters (ELT) since 1985 across several
sectors including aviation and maritime. It has
developed two devices specifically to meet ICAO’s
GADSS regulations, both are specifically focused on ELT.
2
38 MARCH \\ AEROSPACETESTINGINTERNATIONAL.COM
THE ICAO GLOBAL
AERONAUTICAL
DISTRESS AND
SAFETY SYSTEM
PHASE
This started January 2018
and requires an Underwater
Locating Device (ULD) on
frequency 37.5kHz to be
attached to the aircraft flight
recorder and a ULD on
frequency 8.8kHz attached to
the aircraft frame.
PHASE
Commenced November 8
2018. It makes it necessary
for aircraft to have a tracking
function that automatically
reports its position every
15 minutes.
PHASE
After January 2021 all new
aircraft over 27,000kg must
be fitted with an autonomous
distress tracking (ADT)
function capable of reporting
its position at least once
every minute.
2 // Air France Flight 447’s
vertical stabilizer after its
recovery from the ocean
3 // An Air France
A330-200, the aircraft that
was destroyed in 2009’s
Flight 447, landing at Paris-
Charles de Gaulle Airport 3
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