Boeing Tests In-Flight WiFi Signal Strength by Substituting Humans with Potatoes

By: Ali Raza  |   December 26th, 2012   |   News

To test the wireless signal strength during a flight Boeing has introduced some unconventional means. The multinational company used a decommissioned flight and filled it with 20,000 pounds of packed potatoes to create the environment of an airplane that is crammed with passengers, so they can measure, chart and test the strength of the wireless signals in-flight.

 

This testing actually required human beings, as salt and water in their body affects electronic signals, but since “it became clear very early in the planning stage that testing the effects humans might have on WiFi in the cabin would be very difficult using real humans because it would require the people to be sitting still in their seats for hours or days on end,” says Boeing’s cabin systems research and development engineer, Ken Kirchoff.

 

Therefore, engineers used potatoes as substitute for real humans, which is called Synthetic Personnel Using Dielectric Substitution or SPUDS in short. As a result of this they were also able to wrap up the testing in just 10 hours, which may have taken several weeks time with human beings.

 

However, this was not the only reason why engineers of Boeing had decided to test with potatoes. The other reason was that potatoes are quite alike to humans “because they interact with signals like WiFi signals very similarly to the way the human body does,” says Boeing spokesperson Adam Tischler.

 

Engineers of Boeing discovered this method after consulting scientific research, as they knew that it is not possible to use human beings for this test.

 

“A substitute for humans was sought that would mimic the way they can effect wireless signals in the airplane cabin,” said Kirchoff. “Potatoes function as a stand-in for humans and mimic the effects they have on the propagation of wireless signals in the airplane cabin. Potatoes have almost the same dielectric constant as humans — which means the electromagnetic waves of a WiFi signal interact with potatoes in nearly the same way as they interact with humans.”

 

This was an important achievement that engineers of Boeing have made, as people from inside and outside the airline business are taking notes from this feat.

 

Source: TechNewsWorld