A TEAM OF ENGINEERS at Canada's National Research Council (NRC) has developed an information-management system capable of translating data from aircraft flight recorders into computer animations.
The team, based at the Flight Recorder Playback Centre, part of the NRC's Institute for Aerospace Research, developed the ADAAPS (Aircraft Data Acquisition, Analysis and Presentation System), to visually re-create accidents.
"With the ever-increasing amount of data available to investigators, information overload and information management have become important issues," says Elias Politis, head of the development team.
Once information from all available sources has been scrutinised following an accident, Politis and his team use the ADAAPS as the basis for a pioneering method of animating the data.
The aircraft's reconstructed flightpath and cockpit-voice recordings are synchronised and synthesised with a database of terrain models, aircraft models, instruments and instrument panels. This creates a dynamic, real-time enactment of what may have happened in accordance with the recorded information.
"ADAAPS makes the software user a virtual and perpetual witness to the scene of the accident," says Politis.
Source: Flight International
