Feasibility of broadband power line communication aboard an aircraft

The broadband power line communication (BPLC) technology is proposed aboard an aircraft for the use of mobile communication and Internet access systems during the flight. The possibility of re-using the power distribution network to transmit digital signals in the frequency range between 1 MHz and 30 MHz is investigated. The analysis is performed considering the real installation configuration of the carrier channel on a power line of the C-27J transport aircraft of Alenia Aeronautica. The accurate simulation of the wire-to-wire communication channel, which includes apparatus and bulkhead connectors, allows computing the transfer function between the sending and receiving devices. The crosstalk coupling with a victim power line is also predicted. The multicarrier modulation technique is applied for the computation of the optimal bit loading of the power line carrier channel by modelling the power spectral density of the channel noise and considering the constraint represented by the maximum power available of the sending device. The preliminary results of the study prove the feasibility of the BPLC technology aboard the C-27J transport aircraft.