Richard Z. Robinson

Impact of Public Key Enabled Applications on the Operation and Maintenance of Commercial Airplanes

Making airplanes network-enabled can significantly increase the efficiency of aircraft manufacturing, operation and maintenance processes. Yet these benefits cannot be realized without addressing the potential for network-induced security threats. This paper addresses challenges that emerge for network-enabled airplanes that use public key cryptography-based applications. In particular, we focus on the electronic distribution of airplane software and data. We present both an ad hoc approach, without trust chains between certificates, and a structured approach employing a PKI. Both approaches facilitate public key-enabled applications, and both levy operational requirements on airlines. We describe the integration of these requirements into existing airline ground infrastructure and processes, to minimize operating overhead. The presented work is based on ongoing collaborative efforts among Boeing, FAA and EASA, to identify needs of the airlines for operating and maintaining network-enabled airplanes.

Positive semidefinite rank

Let

Worst-case results for positive semidefinite rank

M \in \mathbb {R}^{p \times q}

Four-dimensional polytopes of minimum positive semidefinite rank

M∈Rp×q be a nonnegative matrix. The positive semidefinite rank (psd rank) of M is the smallest integer k for which there exist positive semidefinite matrices

Positive semidefinite rank and nested spectrahedra

A_i, B_j

Programming agents with visual rules

Ai,Bj of size