If we’d used the cloud, we might know where MH370 is now

Grazed from TheConversation. Author:Yijun Yu.

As the biggest ever hunt for a missing plane continues, many are beginning to wonder if we will ever know what happened to Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. If the plane has crashed, it has been suggested that it could take up to two years to find its wreckage. But if MH370 had been fitted with technology that made use of the cloud it may never have been lost in the first place.

The cloud is a cluster of computers that provides reliable computing and storage as a service to large numbers of requests from computers with limited capabilities, such as those on board a plane or inside a mobile phone. Instead of relying on the combination of GPS, primary and secondary radar, and aircraft communications addressing and reporting systems (ACARS) to keep track of planes, we should be making sure they send regular flight information to the data centres in the cloud…

Planes would then send information such as aviation signals and pilot conversations as a compressed digital stream efficiently through satellite networks. We still don’t know if MH370 disappeared because of a technical failure or a malicious security breach. It has been mooted that the pilot or a member of in-flight staff turned off the communication channels and used unusual flying manoeuvres to avoid being detected by the primary radars on ground and the secondary radars on board nearby planes. There are ways of responding to this scenario too…

Read more from the source @ http://theconversation.com/if-wed-used-the-cloud-we-might-know-where-mh370-is-now-24542

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