Performance Comparison of Industrial Wireless Networks for Wireless Avionics Intra-Communications

Recently, the United Nations voted to grant a frequency band for wireless avionics intra-communications (WAICs) to replace the heavy and expensive cables used in aircraft with wireless systems. However, WAICs require extremely low failure probability for the flight certification of the safety-critical avionics applications. Existing industrial wireless networks are possible candidate technologies, since they are designed to meet the high reliability requirement of industrial automation within a harsh environment surrounded by metals. This letter provides a theoretical framework to compare the performance of representative industrial wireless networks against the system requirements of the flight certification. A mathematical model is proposed to evaluate the considered protocols in terms of the deadline missing probability per flight hour. Furthermore, the model is used to derive the maximum allowable packet loss probability while guaranteeing the flight certification.