The relationship of commercial aircraft fuselage size on rf coupling/path loss from rf sources to receiver based navigation and communication avionics systems

The number and type of consumer electronics available to the traveling public are increasing each day. Passengers are not only carrying Portable Electronic Devices (PEDs) with them on aircraft, but also expect to be able to use these devices at their leisure. Although certainly not comprehensive, some data is available about the emission characteristics of many PEDs (source) commonly used today. Although often not easily obtainable, data about the upset characteristics of aircraft avionics systems (target) also exists (although the data is often captured in a laboratory environment and may not accurately duplicate an installation setting environment on the airplane). One of the key data elements that have been missing is an understanding of the coupling or path loss between the source and target system. Having this data may afford the opportunity to more definitively and quantitatively determine the effect(s) or potential for effect(s) of particular PEDs on avionics systems. This paper reports on the methods used for making path loss measurements on some common commercial jetliners. The resulting data from the measurements does provide some valuable insight in the propagation phenomena and shows some weak correlation between airplane fuselage size and the amount of attenuation in the source to target coupling path.