We have invented a way to make radio frequency communication reliable and low-latency to the point where it is good enough to replace hard-wiring in industrial and other control systems.
Hard-wiring has become a major obstacle to advances in automating both transport and industry. There are 550 kilometres of wires in an Airbus A380 plane: almost 7.5 tonnes of cabling which add to the plane’s fuel consumption each time it flies, cost airlines millions of euros in maintenance time, and complicates the aircraft retrofitting industry. Progress in factory automation is meanwhile hampered by the need to hard-wire control systems for assembly line robots and autonomous vehicles.
Until now, radio has not been reliable enough to use for aircraft controls or robotics, because signals can be blocked or interfered with. Wireless works fine for domestic WiFi but not for a safety-critical control system. Bluetooth, Zigbee etc are not fast or reliable enough to be used for such systems.
R3 is solving this issue. We have developed software which runs on commercial wireless chips and enables them to co-operate with each other, repeating each others’ transmissions. The result is a proprietary data transmission solution – “cooperative diversity” – that is 1,000x more reliable than anything achieved by our competitors. This solution, branded EchoRing, is already in commercial operation. But EchoRing has limits: when large numbers of transmitters are involved, its efficiency drops. We therefore propose an EIC Accelerator to take a second transmitter diversity architecture, codenamed RACOON – RAdio-COntrolled ONboard Systems for Avionics from TRL6 to TRL8. RACOON also uses diversity, but the architecture is fundamentally new –massively quicker, and more efficient.
RACOON, when developed, will be the only radio frequency control system in the world reliable enough to use in the €61bn avionics sector. Replacing wiring in planes will save millions of tonnes of emissions per year, and millions of euros in reduced fuel and maintenance costs. Our strategic focus is to build a software solution for a European aircraft manufacturing giant, which has commissioned a Proof-of-Concept from us for use in wireless control of the complex cabin lighting systems for future low-emissions aircraft; and simultaneously to extend such control systems to other aviation businesses who seek wireless alternatives to hard-wiring today. These other customers will buy both pre-configured hardware and software from R3 and potentially its hardware partners; and include cabin-fitting suppliers, avionics equipment manufacturers, and players in the booming retro-fitting and maintenance sector.
The results of this project will then be applied to the much larger industrial automation sector, “unwiring” control systems from robots to cranes, from human-machine interfaces to fully automated assembly lines. Here we already have software license relationships with robotic companies, car and control systems makers; and have software supply deals with wireless solutions provider WebTech, electronic components distributor Arrow, and IoT experts Olympus Sky.
