Fundamental issues in systematic design of airborne networks for aviation

Airborne networks are special types of ad hoc wireless networks that can be used to enhance situational awareness, flight coordination, and flight efficiency in civil aviation. A unique challenge to the proper design of airborne networks for these applications is the dynamic coupling between airborne networks and flight vehicles. This coupling directly affects the operations and performances of both the networks and the vehicles. Accordingly, an appropriate method of airborne network design must consider its interactions with vehicle flight maneuvers and vice versa. In this paper, fundamental issues in the systematic design of airborne networks for civil aviation are addressed. We particularly focus on the issues that cover various aspects of the design such as establishing the airborne network, maintaining the network, and evaluating the performances of the network.