High Reliability Air-to-Ground Communication System based on Aggregation of Terrestrial Networks

Providing connectivity to helicopters and drones is a challenging issue both from a technical as well as financial perspective. One possible cost efficient solution to the problem is for the aircraft to connect directly to the already deployed terrestrial public networks and aggregate their combined capacity and coverage at the Internet Protocol (IP) level. In this study we equipped an Airbus helicopter H135 with external antennas from VITES GmbH, two Icomera “X5/X6” multi-SIM routers, including Icomera’s autonomous test and monitoring system “Surveyor”, and conducted multiple test flights over a rural area in southern Germany. The results showed that using Icomera’s patented technology it is possible to connect a helicopter or a drone, flying at an altitude of 10.000 ft (3048 m), to multiple terrestrial public cellular networks. Thus, obtaining high capacity, large coverage and high reliability connections to the helicopter.