DAYANANDA SAGAR COLLEGE OF ENGG.

,
Kumaraswamy Layout, Bangalore-560078

Department of Aeronautical Engineering

SEMINAR SYNOPSIS ON
Topic: - UMTS and W-LAN in Aircraft Cabins
Presented By
Name: - DIGVIJAY SINGH

USN: - 1DS11AE013

Semester: 8
Subject Code: 10AE86
For the academic year 2014-2015
Under the Guidance of
Asst. Prof. Manjunath I.B.
Department of Aeronautical Engineering
Dayananda Sagar College of Engineering, Kumarswamy Layout, Blore - 560078

ABSTRACT
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. Specifically it focuses on wireless services such as UMTS and W-LAN in
aircraft cabins that connect the passenger via satellite to terrestrial infrastructure. 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 became indispensable, and

together with ever increasing data rate requirements of applications, aeronautical satellite
communication meets an expensive market. Certain features of UMTS and W-LAN that
helps to provide these services are also explained.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I express my sincere thanks to Prof. A Arokkiaswamy (Head of the

Department, Aeronautical Engineering, DSCE), Asst. Prof. N Srinivasan (Seminar
Coordinator) for their kind cooperation for presenting the seminar.
I also extend my sincere thanks to all other members of the faculty of
Aeronautical Engineering Department and my friends for their co-operation and
encouragement.

CONTENTS
Abbreviations
List of Tables
List of Figures
1.

INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................1

2.

CABIN ARCHITECTURE.....................................................................................2

3.

SATELLITE CONNECTION.................................................................................4

4.

TECHNICAL OVERVIEW....................................................................................6

5.

SERVICE INTEGRATOR......................................................................................9

6.

SERVICE DIMENSIONING................................................................................11

7.

CABIN PROPAGATION.......................................................................................12

8.

INTERFERENCE..................................................................................................14

9.

COLLECTIVELY MOBILE
HETEROGENEOUS NETWORK.......................................................................15

10. CONCLUSION.......................................................................................................17
11. REFERENCE.........................................................................................................18

Abbreviations
UMTS

Universal Mobile Telecommunications System

IST

Indian Standard Time

W-LAN

Wireless Local Area Network

IEEE

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

IP

Internet Protocol

LAN

Local area network

UTRAN

UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network

CDMA

Code division multiple access

TDMA

Time division multiple access

CMHN

Collectively Mobile Heterogeneous Network

List of Tables
Table

Description

Page

4.1

General Parameters Comparison.8

List of Figures
Figures

Description

Page

2.1

Wireless Cabin Architecture.........2

3.1

Inmarsat-3(L-Band) satellite constellation.......4

3.2

Satellite Connection Scenario ...5

4.1

UMTS Structure........6

4.2

IP support through Bluetooth access.........7

4.3

IP support through fixed cabling or W-LAN...7

5.1

Service Integrator.9

7.1

Cabin Propagation13

9.1

CMHN system architecture.15

9.2

Cabin CMHN system architecture..16

1. INTRODUCTION
During the last years, In-flight Entertainment (IFE) has become one of the
hot topics in the communications world. This is mainly due to the fact that aircraft seem
to be one of the last remaining islands where personal communications, Internet access,
and in general, up-dated information and real-time communication are not available, as
pointed out in [1].
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 802.11b and Bluetooth 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.

2. 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[2],
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, Bluetooth, 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.
The Wireless Cabin architecture and its components are conceptually depicted
in figure 1.

Fi
gure 2.1 Wireless Cabin Architecture

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[3], 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.

3. SATELLITE CONNECTION
Connection to telecom networks is considered to be achieved by satellites
with large coverage areas especially over oceanic regions during long-haul flights. The
service concept needs to take into account today's peculiarities of satellite
communications, thus it must cope with the available or in near future available satellite
technology, and interworking must be performed at aircraft interface level with the
satellite segment,

Only restricted satellite data rates will be available in the near future; thus the
bandwidth that is requested by standard interfaces of the wireless standards needs to
be adapted to the available bandwidth (typically: 432 kb/s in down- link, 144 kb/s
up-link (Inmarsat B- GANTM)[4], or 5 Mb/s in down-link, 1.5 Mb/s in up-link
(Connexion by Boeing)[5]. Furthermore, dynamic bandwidth management is needed
to allocate higher bit rates from temporarily unused services to other service-

Figure 3.1 Inmarsat-3(L-Band) satellite constellation

Currently, few geostationary satellites such as the Inmarsat fleet are available for
two-way communications, that cover the land masses and the oceans. Ku-band may
be used on a secondary allocation basis for aeronautical mobile satellite services
(AMSS) but bandwidth is scarce and coverage is mostly provided over continents.
K/Ku-band satellites will be launched in the near future, again here continental
coverage is mainly intended. The scenario must thus consider

the use of different satellite systems, which will probably force the support of
different service bearers, and

Handover between satellite systems.

It is assumed that each satellite segment is connected via terrestrial wide area networks or
via the IP backbone to the aircom service provider.

Asymmetrical data rates in satellite up- and down-links, that may also be caused to
operate in conjunction with different satellites systems for up- and down-link. The
service portfolio in the cabin and the service integration needs to cope with this
possibility.
Figure 3.2 Satellite Connection

Scenario

4. TECHNICAL OVERVIEW
4.1 UMTS
The Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) is the third
generation mobile communications system being developed within the IMT -2000
framework. UMTS will build on and extend the capability of today's mobile technologies
(like digital cellular and cordless) by providing increased capacity, data capability and a
far greater range of services.
In January 1998, ETSI reached an agreement concerning the radio access
technique to be used for UMTS. This air interface, named UTRAN(UMTS Terrestrial
Radio Access)[6] is applicable in the two existent duplexing schemes for UMTS: UMTSFDD and UMTS- TTD. UMTS-FDD relies on wideband-CDMA (W-CDMA) access
technique, while UMTS- TTD uses the TD-CDMA access technique, a combination of
CDMA and TDMA technologies.

Figure 4.1 UMTS Structure

4.2 BLUETOOTH
Bluetooth operates in the unlicensed 2.4--GHz ISM (industrial, scientific and
medical) band and uses a frequency- hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) technique to
minimise interference. A Bluetooth unit has a nominal range of approximately 10 meters
(in the Class 3 defined in the standard, but which can be enlarged by amplifying the
transmit power in Class 2 and Class 1 up to 100 m.). Two or more Bluetooth units sharing
the same channel form a piconet. Each piconet consists of a master unit and up to seven
active slave units. Furthermore, two or more piconets can be interconnected to form a

scattemet. To be a part of more than one piconet a unit called inter-piconet unit (gateway)
is required.

Figure 4.2 IP support through Bluetooth access

4.3 IEEE 802.11b

Wireless local area networking (WLAN) radio technology provides superior
bandwidth compared to any cellular technology. The IEEE 802.11b[7] standard offers a
maximum throughput of II Mbps (typical 6.5 Mbps) working in the same 2.4-GHz ISM
band as Bluetooth by the use of direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS). WLANs were
originally intended to allow local area network (LAN) connections where premises wiring
systems were inadequate to support conventional wired LANs, but they were later
identified with mobility.
A WLAN cell is formed by an AP and an undefined number of users in a range
from approximately 20 to more than 300 m ( 100 m. in indoor environments) that access
the AP through network adapters(NAs ), which are available as a PC card that is installed
in a mobile computer.

Figure 4.3 IP support through fixed cabling or W-LAN

Table 1 summarizes the main parameters of each standard, where only Class 3 of the
Bluetooth standard has been considered, as long as the Bluetooth version 1.0 specification
focuses primarily on the 10- meter ranger standard radio. Notice that the coverage range
in the UMTS case is capacity dependent and it can vary from 200 m. up to 1.4 Km., a
phenomena known as "cell breathing".

Bit rates

Max

Bw.
(MHz)

Typ

UMTS 2Mbps 144Kbp 5,10,20

s

Bluetoot 1Mbps 728

1
h
Kbps
IEEE
11Mbp 6,5Mbps26
802.11b s

Band(GHz Coverag Duplexin Tx.P. Modulatio

)
e
g
(dBm n
Range Scheme )
(m.)
FDD:
1.921.90(ul)
2.112.17(dl)
TDD:
1.90-1.92
2.01-2.025
2.4-2.4835

Depends FDD/TD 20
on
D
capacity

QPSK(dL)
BPSK (uL)

10

2.4-2.4835 20-100

TDD

GFSK

TDD

20

Depends on
bit rate

Table 4.1 General Parameters Comparison

5. SERVICE INTEGRATOR
The different wireless access services of UMTS, W-LAN and Bluetooth
require an integration of the services over the satellite. The central part of the service
portfolio provisioning is the service integrator(SI)[8], Figure 7. The service integrator will
provide the interfaces for the wireless and wired service access points in the cabin, as well
as the interface to the terrestrial networks at aircom provider site. All services will be
bundled and transported between a pair of Service Integrators. It performs the
encapsulation of the services and the adaptation of the protocols.
Figure 5.1 Service Integrator

The
SI multiplexer is envisaged to assign variable capacities to the streams, controlled by a
bandwidth manager that monitors also the QoS requirements of the different service

connections. Changes in capacity assignment must be signaled to the SI at the other

communication end. The heterogeneous traffic stream is then sent to streaming
splitter/combiner. This unit is envisaged to support several satellite segments and to
perform handover between them. Asymmetrical data rates in inbound and outbound
directions can be managed here. Adaptation to the supported satellite segments are done
by medium access controllers (MAC) in a modular manner.

Towards the terminal side, the interfaces of the wireless access standards
need to interwork with the transport streaming of the SI by specific adaptation layers
(AL). These ALs have to be designed according to the analysis of the impact of delay,
jitter and restricted / variable bandwidth on the protocol stack. Buffering (to compensate
delay jumps at handover) and jitter compensation for real-time services (e.g., voice) must
be also provided here.

6. SERVICE DIMENSIONING
This section provides an overview of key issues and steps for the systematic
system dimensioning of Wireless Cabin aircom satellite communications system.

We

will tackle the satellite constellations as potential candidates for aircom services as well
as the gross traffic calculation and assignment process.
Different market entry options and reference business cases must be taken
into account in an initial stage of a system design.

The evolutionary path leads from

existing L-band systems such as Inmarsat GAN or B-Gan in few years up to C/Ku band
and existing GEO transponders, whereas the revolutionary path may target from the
beginning at advanced K/Ku band technology and the design of a tailor-made, potentially
non-GEO system.
The system dimensioning process can be structured in several steps:

Determination of gross traffic per aircraft using the multi-service model

Determination of the timely and locally varying traffic, depending on the flight path
and flight schedule, assuming also a service rool-out scenario for different airlines
and aircraft types.

Identification of potential serving satellites and their coverage areas.

Mapping and traffic allocation of the aircom traffic to the satellite systems.
Two key observations concerning the geographic market are 1) the pronounced

asymmetry of market opportunities between northern and southern hemisphere (partly just a
result of our earths continental layout), and the fact that a significant share of the
addressable market is at higher (northern) latitudes, especially with the important long-haul
intercontinental flight routes between the European, North American and East Asian regions.
Although its view is Europe-centric; the underlying flight route investigations have been
performed within the European ACTS project ABATE and have been used for design and
dimensioning studies of an aeronautical subsystem of the EuroSkyWay satellite
communications system[9].

7. CABIN PROPAGATION
Indoor radio propagation is subject to multipath, increased shadowing
(propagation path is rarely direct) and excess losses. General indoor channel models like
the ones of the Joint Technical Committee on PCS (JTC)[10] and planning studies to
cover indoor areas, are mainly done for office environment, so they may not be applied in
the particular scenario of an aircraft cabin due to its special characteristics.
While in an office environment one of the highest limitations
besides multipath is the attenuation of walls, this problem disappears in a cabin, where
there is a single cavity. Otherwise its higher obstacles density increases dramatically the
path losses. The elongated structure of a cabin causes smaller losses than expected in
other type of room shapes, because the cabin cavity acts in a similar way as a waveguide
does; anyway the power addition of local signal paths can lead to fading of the signal in
particular points and small movements of the receiver can have a substantial effect on
reception. So the cell size is hard to determine.
Hence, to face the difficulties of designing a wireless network in an aircraft
where up to now there is no valid channel model available, the Wireless Cabin project
plans to do a measurement campaign in an A340-600 and in an A380 mock-up.
A wide variety of operational scenarios have to be planned for this
campaign due to the big amount of critical parameters that may vary the received power
in a single location. These parameters are discussed in the following lines. To start,
different user terminals for a same access segment have to be taken into account, because
of the different antenna patterns of each one. Moreover, their shapes modify the near field
and therefore they determine the interference exposed to nearby users (remember the
small distance between passengers in an aircraft). Not only the link budget between AP
and different seats has to be calculated, but also several positions within a same seat, due
to the very different shadowing conditions: under the seat (simulating a device in a
handbag), on the seat (device in a pocket), at ears height of a seated passenger (user
speaking on a telephone), on the backseat-table, and in the stowage bins.
Of course, different AP locations have to be checked to determine the
optimal one in terms of best coverage and minimum interference into avionics systems.
Some foreseen possibilities are: (i) on the walls over the windows, where the best direct
path can be achieved for the nearest users (good option if only coverage in a reduced

number of rows is desires, like for instance in first class); (ii) under the seats (to increase
the losses and reduce in this way the undesired interference); (iii) on the roof along the
corridor; or (iv) on the roof over the seats. The above mentioned variables in the scenario
description have to be considered for the three access methods.

Figure 7.1 Cabin

Propagation

8. INTERFERENCE
Once the above described measurements finish. four types of interferences
within the CMHN have to be studied: the co-channel interference among the terminals of
the same wireless access segment, the inter- segment interference between terminals of

different wireless networks, the cumulative interference of all simultaneous active

terminals with the aircraft avionics equipment and the interference of the CMHN into
terrestrial networks.
From the co-channel interference analysis the re-use distance and the re-use
frequency factor for in-cabin topology planning will be derived. For this reason it is
important to consider different AP locations during the measurements.
It is not expected to have major problems due to interference from UMTS
towards WLAN and Bluetooth, thanks to the different working frequency. On the other
hand, particular interest has to be paid in the interference between Bluetooth and
WLAN .Due to the market acceptance of Bluetooth and WLAN, there is a special interest
of designers and portable data devices manufacturers to improve the coexistence of the
two standards. There are many studies showing the robustness and the reliability of
Bluetooth in presence of WLAN and vice versa.
A description of the electromagnetic behavior of conventional aircraft
equipment is necessary to analyze the interference and the EMC of the new wireless
network with the avionics systems. 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 WLAN, and low power Pico cell access such as Bluetooth TM, this
situation is likely to change. With small business jets such as Bombardier Learjets,
Gulfstream, etc., individual equipment certification is already established.

9. COLLECTIVELY MOBILE
HETEROGENEOUS NETWORK
The concept of having several users, which are collectively on the move
forming a group with different access standards into this group, is called Collectively
Mobile Heterogeneous Network (CMHN)[11]. In such a scenario one can find two types
of mobility and two types of heterogeneity: the mobile group itself and the user mobility
inside the group from one side, and heterogeneous access segments and heterogeneous

user access standards from the other side. The aircraft cabin represents a CMHN (see Fig.
9.1) supporting three types of wireless (user mobility) access standards (heterogeneous
user access) inside an aircraft (the mobile group) using one or more satellite access
segments. The CMHN may cross coverage areas and then inter-/ intra- satellite handover
will be required.
Figure 9.1 CMHN system architecture
The communication infrastructure to support the cabin CMHN is depicted in
Fig 2. The architecture consists of (i) several wireless access segments in the aircraft
cabin which can coexist with the standard wired IP LAN, (ii) a satellite segment for
interconnection of the cabin with the terrestrial telecom

networks, and (iii) an

aircom service provider

segment
supporting

the
cabin services.

Figure 9.2 Cabin CMHN system architecture

integrated

10. CONCLUSION
Go meet the increasing and ever changing needs of the most demanding
passengers a solution in which passengers, both business and economy, could use their
own wireless equipment must be developed. This approach has many advantages. From
the users point of view, their service acceptance will be increased by the following facts:
they can be reached under their usual telephone number, they may have available
telephone numbers or other data stored in their cell phones or PDAs, their laptops have
the software they are used to, the documents they need and with their personalized
configuration (starting web site, bookmarks, address book). In addition, since users in an
aircraft are passengers, the electronic devices they carry with them is wireless, like
laptops with WLAN interface. From the airlines point of view there is a huge saving of
the investment that would suppose the installation of terminals (screens, stations, wired
telephones), the consequent software licenses (in case of PCs) and the further investment
due to hardware updating to offer always last technology to their customers. Currently,
one of the major IFE costs is due to film copies and delivery expenses of new movies.
This could be reduced if other broadband services were offered to passengers via satellite.
Anyway, the wireless access solution is not replacing other kinds of IFE, such as 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 a wired architecture in aircraft, but as an
added service for passengers.

11. REFERENCE
[1] Kun-De Lin, Jin-Fu Chang, Communications and entertainment onboard a highspeed public transport System, IEEE Wireless Communications, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 84-89,
Feb. 2002
[2] Ekram Hossain, Heterogeneous Wireless Access Networks: Architectures and
Protocols
Wireless Communications, March 2008
[3] Specifications of the Bluetooth System - Core vol.1 v1.1, www.bluetooth.com
[4] Inmarsat, www.inmarsat.com/swift64
[5] ConnexionTM by Boeing, www.connexionbyboeing.com
[6] 3GPP TS 23.401, General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) enhancements for
Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN) access (Release 8).
[7] Kevin Roebuck, IEEE 802.11ac: High-impact Technology - What You Need to
Know, Year 2012.
[8] P. Dini, Raouf Boutaba, L. Logrippo, Feature Interactions in Telecommunications
Networks IV Year 1997.
[9] S.L Kota, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Technical Information
Service, United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Institute of the
Aerospace Sciences. Technical Information Service Year 1999.
[10] JTC Technical Report on RF Channel Characterization and Deployment Modeling,
Air Interface Standards, September 1994.
[11] Joydeep Acharya, Long Gao, Sudhanshu Gau, Heterogeneous Networks in LTEAdvanced, Year 2014