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Use of fly-by-wire technology for aircraft flight controls have resulted in an improved performance and reliability along with achieving reduction in control system weight. Implementation of full authority digital engine control has also resulted in more intelligent, reliable, light-weight aircraft engine control systems. Greater reduction in weight can be achieved by replacing the wire harness with a wireless communication network. The first step towards fly-by-wireless control systems is likely to be the introduction of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). WSNs are already finding a variety of applications for both safety-critical and nonsafety critical distributed systems. Some of the many potential benefits of using WSN for aircraft systems include weight reduction, ease of maintenance and an increased monitoring capability. This paper discusses the application of WSN for several aircraft systems such as distributed aircraft engine control, aircraft flight control, aircraft engine and structural health monitoring systems. A brief description of each system is presented along with a discussion on the technological challenges. Future research directions for application of WSN in aircraft systems are also discussed.

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The stability robustness of linear discrete-time systems in the time domain is addressed using the Lyapunov approach. Bounds on linear time-varying perturbations that maintain the stability of an asymptotically stable linear time-invariant discrete-time nominal system are obtained for both structured and unstructured independent perturbations. Bounds are also derived assuming that various elements of the system matrix are perturbed dependently. The result for the structured perturbation case is extended to the stability analysis of interval matrices.

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