Evaluation of Cellular Technologies for High Data Rate WAIC Applications

Wireless Avionics Intra-Communications (WAIC) is an emerging standard to migrate regulatory and safety-related applications from wired networks to wireless means in next generation aircraft. Removing most of the cables from the fuselage will benefit to the overall efficiency of aircraft. On the other hand, it is a difficult task to achieve the Quality of Service (QoS) performance of wired networks by wireless technologies. Also, the Radio Altimeter (RA) interference in the same spectrum is another obstacle to overcome. Current Long Term Evolution (LTE) and emerging Fifth Generation (5G) technologies advertise promising specifications that can meet the requirements of WAIC networks. Therefore, the goal of this study is to evaluate the feasibility of supporting high data rate WAIC applications with LTE/5G by means of analytical and experimental studies. Measurements conducted in unoccupied mockup cabin and outside environment show that at least one cellular technology can meet the requirements of high data rate WAIC classes in the absence of RA interference. In coupling scenarios, robustness strategies should be considered to improve the network resilience. Finally, a network architecture based on the experimental results is presented to show an example usage scenario of a high data rate WAIC network.