Boeing joins Indian academia, companies, to develop airplane technologies

15th March 2014
Boeing joins Indian academia, companies, to develop airplane technologies

Bangalore, March 16, 2014: Aerospace leader, Boeing  and its India  research partners Wipro, HCL Technologies and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc)  have  through their joint Aerospace Network Research Consortium (ANRC),  successfully  developed wireless and network technologies that can be applied to future airplane development
ANRC researchers developed wireless system antennas that can be etched onto an airplane’s interior panels and sensors that harvest energy from the airplane environment. These technologies have the potential to reduce wiring, batteries and weight, which would reduce fuel and power use. Other research led to the development of a wireless system called a “data mule,” which can collect messages from cell phones in rural Indian villages to transmit them to people in cities.
Says Prat Kumar, President of Boeing India: “We are very pleased to collaborate with Indian partners on this truly innovative work through the ANRC, which demonstrates the mutual benefit of partnership between Boeing and India."

Added  Mike Sinnett, Vice President of product development, Boeing Commercial Airplanes: "The collaboration at ANRC will make our future airplanes more competitive and support new engineering capabilities in India.”
 Since ANRC’s founding in 2007, researchers from the four partners have produced more than 100 papers for international scientific journals on technologies to improve cellular, internet and entertainment systems on aircraft and in airports, among other projects. The findings may also be applied to the energy, healthcare and communications sectors.
“ANRC is India’s successful consortium of academia and industry to focus on industry-relevant fundamental research,” said Prof. H.S. Jamadagni of IISc’s Department of Electronic Systems Engineering and ANRC executive board member.ANRC also laid the groundwork for extending projects to include other institutions by awarding grants to students at the National Institute of Technology Karnataka (NITK) and M S Ramaiah Institute of Technology (MS RIT) to explore energy-harvesting and personal-identification technologies and applications.
“The ANRC is delivering on its mission to conduct world-class research on networking technologies for aerospace,” said Narayan Shenoy, General Manager, Product Engineering Services, Wipro Ltd. “We are excited to see the results of proof-of-concepts and are keen to scale-up the application of research findings across multiple industries.
“By leveraging ANRC’s unique collaborative model and HCL’s  R&D experience in aerospace & defense with IPs in wireless networking and cognitive radio technology, HCL is contributing to the development of next generation aerospace systems and networks,” said GH Rao, President, Engineering and R&D Services, HCL Technologies.
Aerospace Network Research Consortium is a co-operative research entity formed by The Boeing Company, Wipro Technologies, HCL Technologies and one of India’s finest academic institutions, the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). ANRC was formed as a collaborative consortium for an initial period of 4 years from 2008 – 2011 and continued based on the mutual interests of Industry partners and academia. The consortium was conceptualized as a strategic R&D initiative at the time of its establishment and has since become a pioneer in developing Aerospace Networking technologies in India. ANRC works in various cutting edge areas that have potential to define the next generation aerospace network. The areas are categorized under Network architectures, Wired and wireless systems and networks, Virtualization and Simulations etc