IEEE - Aerospace and Electronic Systems - May 2021 - 6

Feature Article:

DOI. No. 10.1109/MAES.2021.3053119

Massive Data Transfer From and to Aircraft on
Ground: Feasibility and Challenges
Sandra Hofmann , TU Dresden, 01062 Dresden, Germany
Svetoslav Duhovnikov , Dominic Schupke , Airbus, 81663 Munich, Germany

INTRODUCTION
On board an aircraft, a large number of sensors monitor the status of the aircraft structure and aircraft systems. Currently, only a subset of these data is
collected and analyzed. The data analysis provides the
opportunity to optimize aircraft operations and maintenance. Failures can be predicted before a component
breaks and procedures can be optimized. For analysis,
these data needs to be transferred from the aircraft to
the ground network. In general, the data can be transferred during the flight or after the flight. In our previous work, we studied the performance of direct air-toground (DA2G) and satellite links between aircraft and
ground. We conduct a general study on 4G and 5G
DA2G and satellite performance in [1]. We complement this theoretic study by measurements in [2]. In
both studies, we show that the DA2G link can provide
a few hundred megabits per second, depending on the
setup. Taking into account that this link needs to be
jointly used by different applications, including passenger connectivity, a few hundred megabits per second
are insufficient. Therefore, it is favorable to transfer
delay-tolerant and high-volume data while the aircraft
is on the ground, where connectivity is less limited.
Most of the sensor data are delay tolerant; therefore, a
transmission after the flight is feasible. Hence, the generated data during the flight is accumulated. However,
the aircraft turnaround time on ground is limited. The

Authors' current addresses: Sandra Hofmann, Deutsche
Telekom Chair of Communication Networks, TU
Dresden, 01062 Dresden, Germany (e-mail: sandra.hofmann2@mailbox.tu-dresden.de). Svetoslav Duhovnikov,
Dominic Schupke, Airbus, Central Research and Technology, 81663 Munich, Germany (e-mails: svetoslav.
duhovnikov@airbus.com; dominic.schupke@airbus.com).
Manuscript received June 10, 2020, revised October 18,
2020; accepted December 17, 2020, and ready for
publication January 18, 2021.
Review handled by Mauro De Sanctis.
0885-8985/21/$26.00 ß 2021 IEEE
6

aggregation of data over many flight hours results in a
massive amount of data, which needs to be transferred
in a short amount of time. Therefore, a high-speed
connection at the airport is required. Moreover, multiple aircraft need to be served simultaneously. Different
options for high-speed connectivity exist, including
wired and wireless solutions. It is important that the
connectivity solution can be connected automatically.
Extra actions for the personnel, such as plugging in a
cabled connection, should be avoided, due to the additional effort and the susceptibility to errors. Therefore,
a wireless solution is pursued to ensure automatic
connectivity. Consequently, the challenge is to transfer
a massive amount of aggregated data from multiple
aircraft at the airport within a limited time. Besides
transfer of data from the aircraft, a high-speed
connection also enables the transfer of data to the aircraft, for instance updates for the in-flight entertainment system.
Related work within the area of aircraft connectivity
mainly focuses on two areas, in-cabin networks and networking from aircraft to the ground, including the airport
perspective. An overview on on-board and off-board aircraft communications is given in [3]. According to the
authors, a large amount of data is generated on board
the aircraft, with the option to send data during or after the
flight. They conclude that low-cost and high-bandwidth
connectivity is needed to transfer data during turnaround
time. Connectivity from the airport's perspective is analyzed in [4]. While many different technologies provide
connectivity at the airport for different purposes, using
only one technology for all purposes would be beneficial.
They propose 4G as a candidate solution and describe a
possible architecture as well as respective business models. The airport network is also studied in [5]. The authors
investigate optimal energy consumption for 5G and Wi-Fi
networks at airports. They evaluate the performance with
respect to energy consumption; however, they do not
study the achievable data rate.
Several studies have been conducted for in-cabin networks. Properly dimensioned in-cabin networks enable the
data collection within the aircraft. In our previous work [6],

IEEE A&E SYSTEMS MAGAZINE

MAY 2021

https://www.orcid.org/0000-0003-3420-0839 https://www.orcid.org/0000-0001-6997-3220 https://www.orcid.org/0000-0001-6562-7363

IEEE - Aerospace and Electronic Systems - May 2021

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