Better Data Communications Make Greener Airlines. Several contributions

Better Data Communications Make Greener Airlines

Radio-Electronics Magazine, November 2008, Radio cellular and wireless.

Rainer J Koll, Owner of Rainer J Koll Consulting and expert in Aviation Telecommunications looks at the way in which better data links and communications will result in greener airlines.

Aviation has understood the message to become more efficient and cleaner loud and clear.  Much can be done by improving engine emissions and fuel efficiency. The latest Pratt & Whitney 10,000lb thrust aircraft engine is forecasted to cut fuel consumption by around 12% at its service entry in 2013. It will release much less nitrogen oxide & carbon monoxide and will be significantly quieter. Other manufacturers such as Rolls-Royce are set to achieve similar margins with their newest developments.

Several contributions

Although reducing emissions is an important part of the solution, no single measure will suffice to reach the required targets.  Equally important are aims to enhancing aircraft operational efficiency so that any given amount of fuel goes a much longer way - and electronics will have to play a significant role in facilitating those efficiency gains. Aircraft electronics (Avionics) and aeronautical communication networks (Connectivity) tell pilots and ground crew about the state of the aircraft and improve situational awareness, leading to higher capacity and efficiency, providing a safe service with less disruption and reduced travel time. But technology alone, whether airborne or ground-based cannot create the necessary step changes. Air Traffic Management (ATM) infrastructures will need to be unleashed from their current procedural shackles that are often driven by outdated national soverenity interests, particularly in the crowed skies of Europe. A typical one-hour flight from London Heathrow to Cologne takes the aircraft through four different national airspaces, each endowed with a Flight Information Region (FIR) and its associated Air Traffic Control Centre.

747 Cockpit

All this is about to change since EURONTROL has lent its support to the Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) programme. SESAR is the European Air Traffic Management modernisation programme. It combines technological, economic and regulatory aspects and will use the Single European Sky (SES) legislation to implement the programme. The SESAR Consortium comprises of 29 companies with 21 associated partners:

• Airspace Users
• Air Navigation Service Providers
• Airports
• Supply Industry
• Safety Regulators
• EUROCONTROL

Taking a multi-pronged approach, it addresses technological, environmental and economic aspects of aircraft operations for 2020 and beyond. Efficient satellite and VHF-based data communication links combined with advanced avionics lie at the heart of the enabling solutions, realising collaborative planning, demand/capacity balancing of networked operations and 4D trajectory flight routing where basic airspace boundary management prevailed before. Satellite based air-ground data links will compliment existing VHF communications for new high capacity & high availability ATM messages services. Airline operations will see benefits through fuel efficient routes & flight profiles. New carbon efficient engine technologies together with remote engine diagnostics ensure that engines are kept at peak performance and any deterioration can be detected from the onset in flight and corrected at the next arrival. The emerging data link and messaging make use of:

• Environmental Data distribution, air-ground exchange of flight information
• Introduction of a sub-regional Air-Ground data link management sub-system
• Downlink of the aircraft flight path trajectory via satellite links and VHF
• Protected band “WiMAX” IEEE 802.16 for secure airport surface data link operations;
• Seamless network protocol to interconnect all nodes (e.g. IP).

The other driver comes from the knowledge that with the anticipated increase in air-ground air traffic management communications and the emerging market demand for passenger communication services, current systems and technologies are expected to become saturated by 2020. The majority of Pilot to Controller communications today is voice based. To make better use of scarce capacity, SESAR compliant communications will rely more and more on data links. Nevertheless, current cockpit data protocols still conform to the X.25 ITU-T standard network layer protocol for packet switched data and the Air Transport industry faces a complex IP based network architecture evolution. IP-based networking solutions for air/ground communication will need to be deployed for cost savings, high reliability and an optimal alignment with the evolution of communication and security technologies.

Current and future aircraft communications

Civil aircraft today are fitted with two or three VHF radios for Air Traffic Control (ATC) and Airline Operational Control (AOC) in controlled airspace, two HF radio systems for oceanic and remote operations. Long haul, wide body aircraft such as the Boeing 747 and the Airbus A-340 are increasingly equipped with one or two Satellite Communication systems for oceanic and remote operational use and passenger communications, supported by one Gatelink radio system for short range data links at airports. Future regulation and market demand will add two L-band radios called L-band Digital Aeronautical Communications System (L-DACS) to augment the VHF systems, two new ATC Satcoms for Oceanic Air Traffic Management, replacing HF and WiMAX based radio systems for enhanced short range data links at airports (replacement for Gatelink). New Air to ground high bandwidth Ku-band passenger links are taking care of cabin connectivity requirements. - All are stand-alone systems with dedicated flight crew management panels or screens with little automated operation. Not surprisingly, pilot workload is a concern and higher levels of integration will become indispensable. Aeronautical standardisation and engineering committees are making good headway towards defining an onboard communications network that meets the need for integrated aircraft avionics architectures and that supports the future aeronautical air-ground data link communication requirements: At the beginning of 2008, the “Integrated Communications, Navigation and Surveillance Conference” assessed suitable system architectures and recommend system definition and avionics standardisation activities on the basis of the architecture shown in the diagram below. Insert