Feasibility study of airplane fiber optical communication network

This paper studies the feasibility of various optical fiber networks for the application in the in-flight entertainment (IFE) system of the aircraft infrastructure. Based on ARINC Specification 628 Part 4, four different optical multiplexing schemes, that is, time-division-multiple access (TDMA), sub-carrier multiple access (SCMA), wavelength/frequency-division multiple access (WDMA/FDMA), and code-division multiple access (CDMA), are proposed for the optical links between the cabin electronics compartment (CEC) and the area distribution box (ADB). The performance analysis has been demonstrated for each case, respectively. The results indicate the optical CDMA is not suitable for this application and the WDMA scheme can be combined with the SCMA or TDMA scheme in such a application to enhance the system capacity. Finally, from the viewpoint of the system capacity extension and design flexibility, we show that the SCMA scheme is superior to the TDMA scheme in terms of higher cost.