In-Flight Entertainment Datalink Analysis and Simulation

In-Flight Entertainment (IFE) datalink is one of the airport connectivity areas, where efforts are being made by different stakeholders to improve and update the entertainment services offered to the passengers. An important objective of IFE datalink is to increase the flight operation efficiency by managing IFE data transfer within turnaround time which is about 45 minutes. With the rapid advancements and innovation in multimedia applications and services, the IFE data size in the future will turn into terabytes, therefore, this transfer requires a multi-Gbps datalink in order to be completed within expected turnaround time. This paper focuses on simulation of IFE datalink communication scenario at an airport surface using Wi-Fi (802.11ac) technology, provides rules and guidelines on suitability of wireless datalinks for IFE update at the airports, studies QoS requirements, and performs optimization. Several aspects of the IFE datalink selection and deployment have been considered, such as airport operational areas, airport layouts, radio frequency, and data congestion before conducting a capacity and coverage analysis.