Radio altimeter interference mitigation in wireless avionics intra-communication networks

Abstract

On-board commercial passenger aircraft Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are anticipated to be used for implementing machine-to-machine communication also referred to as Wireless Avionics Intra-Communications (WAIC). These systems enable safety-related wireless avionics and aim to reduce electrical wiring harness contributing by 5% of the total weight of an aircraft. The globally harmonized frequency band designated for WAIC usage is shared with aeronautical Radio Altimeters (RAs). Literature lacks consideration of the impact of on-board RAs on WAIC systems; thus, we close this gap by performing a detailed study and propose two mitigation techniques based on channel hopping. Our simulations show that harmful RA signals infer doubled to tripled delays as well as packet error rates up to 90% when WAIC systems use the frequency band without applying appropriate techniques for increasing communication robustness. With the developed mitigation techniques, we show delays can be kept at levels comparable to non-interfered performance while increasing the usable spectrum by 50% simultaneously. Our evaluations show that the presented mitigation techniques enable reliable usage of WAIC systems in commercial aircraft allowing increased spectrum usage.