Recently, NASA has announced various projects in development that could well serve the benefit of commercial aviation; within these projects, there is a new system to detect turbulence from miles away. The benefit that can be expected from this technological contribution will be for the safety of the crew and passengers of the different airlines, minimizing mishaps, and increasing confidence for the pilot and users.
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A benefit for airlines
Of the various situations that can affect an apparently smooth flight, turbulence is possibly the most annoying. Although it is not highly dangerous, it can cause minor injuries to passengers and crew. However, despite the minor danger involved, most commercial flights try to avoid them as much as possible, having to deviate slightly from the expected flight course, but, to deviate from this path, it is necessary to consume more fuel than expected, sometimes, large amounts that lead to an economic loss for the airlines, therefore, the development by NASA; that can detect turbulence for miles can revolutionize flight planning, reducing fuel costs involved in avoiding turbulence, benefiting the air transport industry. If you want to know another of the natural difficulties that a pilot faces, you may be interested: Coriolis effect, how it is corrected in airplanes.
How does this technology work?
The technology proposed by NASA researchers works by detecting the vibrations of sound waves, everything within the atmosphere can emit sound, this, like light, is composed of various frequencies, within these frequencies is the infrasound which are tones between 0.001 and 20 hertz, this is too low to be audible to the human ear.
Sudden turbulence experienced in ordinary flights is called clear air because there are no visible clouds or atmospheric “symptoms” to warn pilots and flight operators of turbulence; Turbulence can appear out of nowhere, invisible, and wreak havoc on a flight, however, even if not visible, turbulence generates an infrasonic footprint. To read another danger for airplanes, visit: Why are birds dangerous for commercial airplanes?
NASA Hampton, Virginia researchers Qamar Shams and Allan Zuckerwar devised a system that allows pilots and operators, through the use of microphones, to listen for the formation of these invisible turbulences from miles away, which would allow enough time to avoid them on an efficient alternate route.
Special microphones for listening to turbulence
To carry out the development of the system, special microphones were needed that were capable of detecting infrasound without the frequencies of greater volume interfering in their task. Therefore, one of the first problems was the clipping of the microphones from the clipping of louder sounds; NASA researchers had to develop their own microphones.
The microphones developed by Qamar Shams and Allan Zuckerwar use a moving diaphragm to pick up audio combined with a wide-radius low-voltage diaphragm, along with a large rear air chamber to allow ultra-low sound waves to be heard; the device was finally put to the test in Pennsylvania, being able to detect the “sound” of turbulence more than 450 kilometers away.
What do you think of this topic? Do you know of any other recent technology to detect turbulence?
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