Article: ANTI HIJACKING TOOL - by ANOJ

Research Proposal by Anoj Sharma poudyal September 11 will not be repeated again Why this research proposal title We all know that on September 11 two of the passenger aircraft (A/C) was forced to crash in W.T.C by terrorists. As the families of the victims of this attack were busy for the funeral, Osama bin laden was busy chatting with his friends about the devastating result they could bring to the American economy. Although this attack was carried out in American soil, this was a real blow to the whole civilized world. Most people thought it as a successful attempt by the terrorist and failure of American foreign policy towards middle-east. 

But what I have concluded is that it was a historical failure of the technology. I have chosen this topic for research because we can not let this history to repeat again and for this reason we all know different governments are spending billions of dollar for home land security , airport and airspace security. I do not at all accept that this spending of huge amount of money will bring safety to our sky or land, in my view this will just encourage terrorist for more challenging attack. My background for choosing this subject I graduated as a Radio electronics engineer and worked as an Avionic engineer. Presently doing internetworking. 

Redioelectronics has helped me to understand the radio communication system and working as an avionic engineer has helped me to understand the avionic and A/C control system. Actually the concept of forming a virtual private network in internet has helped me to think about my research proposal. And the only thing Iam trying to suggest is that the possibility and principal of routing an aeroplane in the space may be similar like routing of Packets in the internet .I am explaining about this in my actual proposal. 

So, what we know about the September 11 attack Before jumping on about my concept on the proposal, I want to remind you on how could September 11 attack happen? We all know that A/C was forced to crash in the W.T.C by either … 

a) The pilot or the captain was in gun point to do it 

b) Or highjack shot the pilot to death and took control of the A/C So from above points, we have a challenge to face about how to prevent this from happening again??? Photo 1: The above photo shows result of the aircraft being forced to W.T.C [Source: CSICOP Tracks Misinformation and Hoaxes in the Wake of the Terrorist Attacks http://www.csicop.org/hoaxwatch/ What were different proposals???? 

• Introduction of High –tech X-ray machine 

• Permitting captain to lock the door 

• Changing the conventional cockpit door into a bullet proof door 

• Adding more security personnel 

• Some people even suggested of changing the foreign policy No, matter with what so many people have proposed, I don’t agree with them at all because what if pilot or the captain himself turn out to be the one of the highjacker??? In my opinion none of the above proposal will be able to make our city safe in critical cases. Outline of my research proposal Like in the huge internet we form a secure tunnel by creating a virtual private network for any two networks to talk to each other. Similarly, What I am proposing is to compare the internet with the sky and the virtual tunnel as a course or the prescribed secure path of an A/C. We all know that a perfect map and coordinate of the geographical region can be drawn with an aid of satellite and different system now. We know most of the airports are located mostly in the remote area, so what I suggest to do is to assign demilitarized zone for the area that we don’t want any aircraft to fly below certain heights. 

This to make sure that we secure our land and sky below certain heights. And also for the reason to let the A/C fly above certain height because A/C even if it is highjacked but is flying above certain height will not risk the life at the ground at least. I will be able to explain this better by the diagram as suggested below. Photo 2: new York City at night. A/C is permitted to fly above certain heights. Just by proposing a protocol mandating to fly not below certain height in civil aviation rule book is not going to prevent the September 11 from happening again. And moreover highjackers are tempted not only to break the rule but they wish to die for their demands. So through out this research my aim is to design a system which will force an A/C to take its only prescribe coarse even if it is forced not to do so. Lets say a highjack tries to hit the pentagon or white house, So the system that I will be developing will not at all take the path or coarse that the highjacker wish to take but the A/C will always maintain itself to be in the prescribe safe zone with the aid of auto pilot system or if necessary Air traffic controller who is based on the ground and can be an international flight monitoring system. A force full attempt by any person will lead to a jamming of steering or the control system automatically. I think developing this system is possible at this moment with the aid of Aviation control system, Auto pilot System, Navigation system and a computer system. So, how my present aircraft Anti hijacking system works The system which I am explaining below is just based on my fantasy and looks very vague. I do understand that the real system may be entirely different. My model of this system will certainly change after undergoing through research on different systems and their operating principal. Figure below shows how my Anti hijacking system may look like. Figure 3: Shows a block diagram of AntiHajacking System Let me now try to explain by taking the three different cases on how the above block diagram should work. Although my research will be focused on third case in which Iam interested on, let me too explain the all three cases. 

Case 1: Initiation of Flight As the Aircraft initiates a flight it takes all required parameters and information required for its flight including flight path or course from the information database, which is shown in the figure above. Information on Information database depends upon the air traffic control database, weather detector, air traffic detector and other resources too. After taking the advice from different detectors and database, Information database finalizes about its course or path dynamically and informs the Auto pilot system with its flight plan. 

So the Aircraft takes off smoothly towards the destination. From the information provided from information database, Aircraft can be controlled manually too. But in any case a deviation detecting system which is shown in the figure above will be monitoring the status of the flight. It gives the feedback to Information database about the things happening. 

Case 2: What when normal but sudden weather change In the case of sudden weather change which is not an abnormal case, weather detector detects this change and informs the information database. So, with this information, Information database quickly and dynamically calculates the next best path and informs Autopilot system with a new flight plan. So Autopilot follows it. In the figure I have divided Autopilot system into 2 functions. Normal Auto pilot systems acts only with the information coming from the information database which uses all other resources. In this case too the course can be changed using Manual control system strictly following the information provided by information database. But deviation detector will always be there to monitor our actions. If anyone undermines the information provided by information database and tries to take control of the aircraft entirely on their own, then the case number 3 applies. 

Case 3: Abnormal situation or a high jacked condition This is the case where I will be concentrating on mostly through out my research. After the aircraft is highjacked the first thing happens is the sudden change of course. As long as the aircraft is flying in an Autopilot mode, the aircraft will follow very strictly the path which is being assigned dynamically with an aid of different systems. So, as long as the A/C is flying in an Autopilot mode the A/C system becomes unaware of any highjacking attempts. Moreover during the Autopilot mode the control system is locked so as the aircraft still follows its prescribed secure path ,so there is no threat So any attempt to highjack an A/C will be in the Manual control system only. So, highjacker has to switch the A/C into Manual control system before attempting to override the prescribed flight plan. But in case the highjacker attempts to force the A/C to follow different path other then the path directed from the Information database, then in my Anti High jacking system I have a system called deviation detector. This detector detects any sudden change in flight course or path. Deviation detector is a device which is attached to the flight control system. 

As the highjacker tries to force fully turn the path, deviation detector informs the information database. So as the deviation does not match with the information which was already dynamically assigned, information database takes it as an abnormal case and so orders the switch to go back to Auto pilot system and orders the aircraft to follow its original path . So what I mean to say is any information detected by deviation detector might not be the normal one unless it is matched with the information in a information data base which is also a flight plan and which has the information about the maximum value of deviation that can be carried out. 

So, a switch can be a relay which gets activated and deactivated through information database, based on the situation. The relay or a switch which I have here is a bit of intelligent device. Whenever the Aircraft is in Auto pilot mode, it basically does nothing other then completing the circuit. But when ever it is in manual mode, it always listens to the information database for any action to be taken. After detecting the abnormality, Information system carries out the following function: 

• Informs the switch to get back into Auto pilot system at once 

• Informs the ground via airborne air traffic database about the abnormality in the flight. 

• Informs the value of deviation 

• Locks the flight control system and try to maintain the original path 

• Request the Air traffic controller in the ground which can be a computer , for any other suitable path to follow.(This is necessary because , after the aircraft is detected high jacked , then air traffic control may not wants the Aircraft to even follow its original coarse. So this means that the air traffic controller can override the decision made by the information system to align towards the original path) So in case of abnormality Air traffic controller has the following function: 

• Monitors the high jacked aircraft for its abnormality 

• Monitors if the Aircraft is following the dynamically assigned path. 

• If necessary, overrides the dynamically assigned path with a new value. Challenges that I have to overcome during my research 

• How to assign different tunnel or path for each A/C dynamically 

• Role of A/C control system , Auto pilot system , Navigation system and Computer system 

• How to maintain an understanding about taking control of the A/C in case of emergency between cockpit and A/C monitoring and control office. 

• How to make the different system work together Advantage of using my proposal 

• The above proposal will be just a little amendment on the present Autopilot , computer and control system of an A/C 

• My proposal will be effective and will even work if pilot himself turns out to be a hijacker 

• My system will be able to detect any hijacking attempt made dynamically 

• No expenses will be added to the airliner for staff training or any other thing 

• Highjacker will be least encouraged to carry out any further attack. 

• More of the features added will be in the software system Summery Although my research proposal seems very vague at this stage, I am sure that I can contribute at least something for the development of this system, if I get an opportunity to do some more research on Auto pilot system, Navigation system, A/C computer system and A/C control system.