NobileSoft Norway: Avoiding Air Collisions

Collisions between light aircraft and helicopters and high voltage cables, wind turbines, high-rise buildings, oil platforms and telephony masts are all too frequent. 

Credit: Øyvind Nordsahl Næss.

A Norwegian satellite-based system aims to ensure that helicopters and light aircraft are prevented from colliding with power lines and other obstacles.

Collisions between light aircraft and helicopters and high voltage cables, wind turbines, high-rise buildings, oil platforms and telephony masts are all too frequent.

A small company from Snåsa called NobileSoft is aiming to solve this problem.

Founder and helicopter pilot Jan Ivar Sandnes put together the company's first prototype as early as in 2009 in collaboration with the utility company Nord-Trøndelag Elektrisitetsverk (NTE).

Sandnes has always believed that a GPS-based system was needed to do the job. He has now joined forces with SINTEF and other partners such as Statnett, and Energy Norway, and the NTE has made sure that work on the project is accelerated.

Unsatisfactory
Collisions with overhead power lines alone account for 10 per cent of aviation accidents in Norway. As well as the loss of human life, such accidents have cost the Norwegian Air Force more than NOK 500 million during a 15-year period.

To date, the most important warnings pilots receive as they approach a hazardous obstacle have been orange balloons or lights.

Many have argued that existing warnings are unsatisfactory, and many accidents involve collisions with obstacles not covered by statutory regulations.

In conditions of poor visibility or blinding by intense light, a pilot may fail to see an obstacle before it's too late.

Conflicts over OCAS
The idea of warning light aircraft and helicopters using a GPS-based system represents an alternative technology to an earlier collision avoidance system (OCAS) which has been used in many locations in Norway, the USA and Canada.

OCAS is based on a mast equipped with radar technology located close to the obstacle, and which transmits a warning signal to the pilot on a given radio frequency.

OCAS got the thumbs down following a proposal for new statutory regulations put forward by the Norwegian Civil Aviation Authority in 2009.

The owners of various overhead power grids would have been compelled to purchase the system, and this triggered a mass of protests due to its high cost.

The fact that the two founders were former fighter pilots and the Norwegian Armed Forces were sponsoring the system only made things worse.

Consultation statements, media coverage and the surrounding hype forced the Aviation Authority to withdraw the proposal.

The founders have since withdrawn from OCAS and new owners have arrived on the scene. Today, OCAS installations have problems maintaining operation due to a lack of spare parts.

Simple and inexpensive
Jan Ivar Sandnes at NobileSoft tells Gemini that the aim of his company now is to develop a commercial version of the new system.

Since the project continues to face technical and research-related challenges, a public sector research and development contract (OFU) has been entered into with Innovation Norway.

"There is great interest in this project from overseas, and now that we have research expertise and experience backing it up, it would be very interesting to establish a multinational consortium to promote the system in the global market," says Sandnes.

Entire value chain
Business developer Trond Bakken at SINTEF ICT tells us that the challenges have changed since the system's launch in 2009.

"Technological and market developments have combined to resolve many of the challenges linked to the project, and we can now focus on the core issue of data quality," says Bakken.

"The challenge lies in the acquisition, quality assurance and distribution of all the data now in the possession of the various 'grid owners' distributed across Norway", he adds.

"These data, relating to geographical position, cables and their heights, are both inaccurate and available in a variety of formats," says Bakken.

NASA: Avoiding Planetary Asteroid Hits Is A Big Job

Avoiding Planetary Hits Is A Big Job

The Scope of the Hazard
Near-Earth objects are asteroids and comets that orbit the Sun and approach or cross Earth's orbit. An asteroid or comet about 10 kilometers in diameter struck the Yucatan peninsula 65 million years ago and caused global devastation, probably wiping out large numbers of plant and animal species including the dinosaurs. Objects as large as this one strike Earth only about once every 100 million years on average, the report notes.

NASA has been highly successful at detecting and tracking objects 1 kilometer in diameter or larger, and continues to search for these large objects. Objects down to sizes of about 140 meters in diameter - which NASA has been mandated to survey for - would cause regional damage; such impacts happen on average every 30,000 years, the report says.

While impacts by large NEOs are rare, a single impact could inflict extreme damage, raising the classic problem of how to confront a possibility that is both very rare and very important. Far more likely are those impacts that cause only moderate damage and few fatalities.

Conducting surveys for NEOs and detailed studies of ways to mitigate collisions is best viewed as a form of insurance, the report says. How much to spend on these insurance premiums is a decision that must be made by the nation's policymakers.