Aerospace & Defence

Who wouldn’t want to see a world in which renewable jet fuel powers the planes we travel in? This dream is becoming a reality faster than you would think. Oslo airport became the world’s first airport where one can fuel any airplane taking off from its runways with renewable aviation fuel. Their environment sparing renewable fuel is produced by Neste, a producer of waste-based renewable fuels.

All around the world, airports and aviation buildings are some of the most protected public environments. To further strengthen airport access control systems for its personnel, Korea Airports Corporation (KAC) has been implementing a new solution based on the CIPURSE security standard. Infineon supplies the security chips for the electronic access control cards handed out to the staff.

Since Sputnik 1 was launched by the Russians in 1957, more than 50 countries have joined the race to launch satellites into orbit from low-earth to geosynchronous orbit (260 to 22,240 miles from earth). Of the more than 3,500 satellites in earth’s orbit, about 1/3 are active while the rest are no longer operating. The business of launching satellites is evolving, however, and the numbers of operational satellites are set to increase by thou...

Air Tahiti Nui and OpenAirlines signed a contract to implement the software, SkyBreathe Fuel Efficiency, in order to allow the airline to save 2 to 5% of fuel consumption. Taking in account that air transport is responsible for more than 2% of CO2 emissions worldwide (equivalent of Germany's CO2 emissions) as well as 30% of an airline costs, implementing SkyBreathe is a must.

Siemens researchers have developed a new type of electric motor that, with a weight of just 50kg, delivers a continuous output of about 260kW – five times more than comparable drive systems. This record-setting propulsion system successfully completed its first public flight on 4th July 2016 at Schwarze Heide Airport near Dinslaken, Germany, where it – almost silently – powered an Extra 330LE aerobatic airplane.

With a history of providing the aerospace and defence sector with HEMP and IEMI filters, MPE was well placed to introduce what the company claims to be the world’s first range of HEMP protection filters designed and developed specifically for the commercial marketplace - launched at the EuroEM 2016 event which ran at Imperial College, South Kensington, London SW7, from July 11th-14th. Image left shows a burnt out PCB following a HEMP attack...

LabVIEW and the PXI platform from National Instruments have been used to help develop earth observation cameras that can stream live footage from the International Space Station (ISS).

Jean-Louis Evans, Managing Director at TÜV SÜD Product Service, explains how those supplying airline manufacturers should approach qualification and compliance testing.

An accurate method for spacecraft navigation takes a leap forward today as the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and the University of Leicester publish a paper that reveals a spacecraft’s position in space in the direction of a particular pulsar can be calculated autonomously, using a small X-ray telescope on board the craft, to an accuracy of 2km.

The recent shootings in Dallas saw US police forces utilise a robot in a show of lethal force for the first time in history. Could this be a watershed moment in the development and deployment of autonomous policing? Electronic Specifier Editor Joe Bush investigates.