Definition The demand for making air traveling more 'pleasant, secure and productive
for passengers is one of the winning factors for airlines and aircraft industry.
Current trends are towards high data rate communication services, in particular
Internet applications. In an aeronautical scenario global coverage is essential
for providing continuous service. Therefore satellite communication becomes indispensable,
and together with the ever increasing data rate requirements of applications,
aeronautical satellite communication meets an expansive market.
Wireless
Cabin (IST -2001-37466) is looking into those radio access technologies to be
transported via satellite to terrestrial backbones . The project will provide
UMTS services, W-LAN IEEE 802.11 b and Blue tooth to the cabin passengers. With
the advent of new services a detailed investigation of the expected traffic is
necessary in order to plan the needed capacities to fulfill the QoS demands. This
paper will thus describe a methodology for the planning of such system.
In
the future, airliners will provide a variety of entertainment and communications
equipment to the passenger. Since people are becoming more and more used to their
own communications equipment, such as mobile phones and laptops with Internet
connection, either through a network interface card or dial-in access through
modems, business travelers will soon be demanding wireless access to communication
services.
Wireless
Cabin Architecture
So far, GSM telephony is prohibited in commercial aircraft due to the uncertain
certification situation and the expected high interference levels of the TDMA
technology. With the advent of spread spectrum systems such as UMTS and W-LAN,
and low power pico-cell access such as Blue tooth this situation is likely to
change, especially if new aircraft avionics technologies are considered, or if
the communications technologies are in line with aircraft development as today
.
When
wireless access technologies in aircraft cabins are envisaged for passenger service,
the most important standards for future use are considered to be: UMTS with UTRAN
air interface, Blue tooth, and W-LAN IEEE 802.11 b. Of course, these access technologies
will co-exist with each other, beside conventional IP fixed wired networks. The
wireless access solution is compatible with other kinds of IFE, such as live TV
on board or provision of Internet access with dedicated installed hardware in
the cabin seats. Hence, it should not be seen as an alternative to wired architecture
in an aircraft, but as a complementary service for the passengers.
Several
wireless access segments in the aircraft cabin, namely a wireless LAN according
to IEEE 802.11 b standard for IP services, an UMTS pico-cell for personal and
data communications, and Bluetooth1.1, as well as a standard wired IP LAN.
A satellite segment for interconnection
of the cabin with the terrestrial telecom networks. The different cabin services
must be integrated and interconnected using a service integrator, that allows
the separation and transportation of the services over a single or several satellite
bearers. Peculiarities, such as limited bandwidth, asymmetric data rates on satellite
up- and down-link, and dynamic traffic demand between the different services and
handover between satellite bearers need to be addressed. In order to minimize
the cost (satellite resources) for a given QoS efficient interworking between
the service integrator and the satellite segment will be required. An aircom
service provider segment supporting the integrated cabin services. The aircom
provider segment provides the interconnection to the terrestrial personal and
data networks as well as the Internet backbone. For the UMTS cabin service, a
subset of the UMTS core network must be available.
The
provision of such a heterogeneous access network with collectively mobile users
requires the development of new protocol concepts to support · The
integrated services with dynamic bandwidth sharing among the services and asymmetrical
data rate; · IP mobility and virtual private networks (VPN) for the
individual passengers in the mobile network; authentication, admission and accounting
(AAA) in the mobile network, especially taking into account the necessity to support
different pricing concepts for each passenger in the mobile network and the interaction
of airline, satellite provider, aircom service provider and terrestrial service
providers.
