Aircraft intra-vehicular channel characterization in the 5 GHz band

Use of wireless communications is expected to extend into the within-aircraft domain in the near future. For effective and efficient communication, some knowledge of wireless channel's characteristics is required. This paper presents wideband channel characterization results for aircraft intra-vehicular wireless communication in the 5 GHz band. In order to obtain quantitative knowledge of such channels, we recently took channel measurements in four aircraft. These 50- MHz bandwidth measurements, in the 5 GHz band, enabled us to quantify delay dispersion and frequency coherence. For the four aircraft, which range from medium to small-sized planes, mean root-mean-square values of delay spread range from a few to approximately 45 ns, with corresponding correlation bandwidths of 13 MHz to 24 MHz. The power delay profiles we measured enabled us to develop statistical models for the within-aircraft channel, and we provide models for 50 MHz channel bandwidth. These models should be of use to designers of within-aircraft wireless systems.