Measurements of ultra-wideband propagation within a small aircraft for replacing wire harnesses

In this paper, wideband and ultra wideband (UWB) radio propagation within a small aircraft was measured and statistically analyzed. Wideband including UWB wireless technology has been considered for replacing wire harnesses used in aircrafts, spacecraft, and other closed-or semi-closed spaces because of its anti-multipath capabilities and possible low power consumption. Adaptation of wireless technologies in such spaces could contribute to reduce the weight of wire harness and the cost of design, manufacture, and test. Spatial distributions of propagation gains against the frequency bandwidth and delay spreads were derived from the measured data. The delay spreads were found less than 14 ns, which is well tolerable by commercially off-the-shelf UWB devices.