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Optimised airborne platforms for wireless-in-the-sky applications
Andy Mason and Eric Tarter, Kontron (formerly AP Avionx), provide an overview of the opportunities, challenges and solutions for deploying web access, multicast inflight entertainment and other Wi-Fi services on-board commercial aircraft
01. Kontron Cab-n-Connect™ and s ACE Flight™ General Purpose Airborne servers provide an optimised platform for implementing wireless-in-the-sky
A recent Airline Business/SITA study indicated that some 68 percent of airlines plan to invest in IP broadband connectivity both to and from aircraft over the next three years. The scope of potential services has also broadened: from an initial focus on Web browsing and email access, to now also encompassing multicast wireless video entertainment and wireless delivery of on-demand video/audio content throughout the passenger cabin. This expanded set of services holds great opportunity for airlines to both differentiate their offerings and to generate additional revenue streams. However, it also presents significant challenges with regard to deploying robust hardware/software platforms that can handle the bandwidth and mix-of-services requirements. The market for wireless-in-the-sky is rapidly evolving as a highly-desired feature for frequent flyer airline passengers – especially business travellers and a number of large scale implementation efforts by major airlines are already underway. One of the issues in deploying Internet connectivity for commercial airline passengers, though, is deciding on how to connect the “backhaul pipeline” from the aircraft to the Internet. Basically, there are two fundamental approaches. The first uses terrestrial radio towers with transponders that hand-off the connection to the aircraft as it travels, much as cell-towers hand-off mobile phone connections for people on the move. The second approach uses satellite-based radio connections to the aircraft. Both of these approaches have proven merits and are being used in the deployments by airlines.
As these deployments move forward, with a growing number of airlines offering inflight Wi-Fi services and large numbers of passengers taking advantage of them, some of the most important factors for market success will be reliability, performance, cost, maintainability, scalability and SWaP (Size, Weight and Power). Airlines cannot afford to be faced with conducting forklift change-out of platforms and/or sub-standard performance levels, if passenger usage patterns and bandwidth demands exceed expectations. Having to replace inadequate systems would unnecessarily drive up costs or nagging service problems could do irreparable harm to the airline’s reputation, which is a very difficult thing to recover in such a highly
competitive market.
The following sections address the key implementation issues for selecting both the wireless connectivity standard and the underlying hardware platforms, in order to deploy an on-board Wi-Fi capability that can deliver the required performance from the outset, as well as the sustainability and scalability to grow with escalating usage patterns and to support new bandwidth-hungry applications.
Designing the Optimal Rugged Platform Creating an optimised platform for implementing wireless-in- the-sky is a multi-faceted challenge, which requires deep expertise in wireless networking, radio transmission, hardware design and ruggedization for airborne operations. Engineers from Kontron and Motorola have collaborated closely together in ruggedizing and adapting Motorola’s industry-leading 802.11n wireless solutions into an efficient, high-performance, scalable and highly-maintainable platform for wireless-in-the-sky. The Cab-n-Connect™
Cabin Wireless Access Point (CWAP)
supports flexible deployment of multiple Wi-Fi access points virtually anywhere within the commercial aircraft. Depending on the size and configuration of the particular airframe, and the specific types of applications being supported, there could be from two to eight CWAP modules distributed at various locations throughout the plane. Using a robust 3x3 MIMO radio configuration, the CWAP supports dual-band (TX/RX) communications with any type of Wi-Fi device in the on-board network mesh, using either 2.4GHz (11b/g/n) or 5.0GHZ (11a/n). A third radio connection can be dedicated to network management and communications with the on-board wireless server. The individual CWAP units throughout the passenger cabin communicate with centralised airborne server units via Gigabit Ethernet. Depending on the specific requirements, one or more server units provide network management, load- balancing, media server functions and handling of the backhaul communications (via satellite or air-to-ground). Robust security layers ensure integrity and privacy of all communications over the local wireless network and the backhaul communication links.
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