The Airborne Wireless Network (ABWN) has successfully created an airborne wireless network for the first time, using two Boeing 767s and a mobile system to establish proof of concept for the heretofore theoretical project.
“The purpose of this test was to determine the feasibility of an air-to-air and air-to-ground network,” Jason de Mos, ABWN’s vice president of business development and aviation compliance, said. “With the feasibility now confirmed, we are moving forward in development.”
The groundbreaking effort was accomplished back on May 31, but ABWN just recently released a report of the flight tests. Those tests consisted of two modified Boeing jetliners being flown over Roswell, New Mexico. While what accompanied them could certainly be considered a UFO, it had no aliens therein. The temporary mobile mast system allowed the two planes to send high-speed data from aircraft to aircraft, to the ground and back again, essentially emulating similar ground-based stations.
The Airborne Radio Link Testing Report stated the test confirmed the potential of an Air-to-Air Network—a broadband, commercial aircraft to aircraft system. Marius de Mos, vice president of technical affairs and development for ABWN and one of the mind’s behind the modern in-cabin airborne radio system, says the network would operate as a fully meshed series of nodes, whereby each aircraft represents a node and each node would contribute data to the whole.
“ABWN’s business case is to utilize its own custom earth-stations to access the terrestrial fiberoptic network, as well as its redundant control and management sites,” de Mos said. “Though not a network requirement, if practical, the company would consider possible cooperation with existing satellite operators.”
To that end, the report notes, hardware and software must still be improved. The company hopes to significantly increase data transfer speeds to increase viability of the program. At present, the company plans a global rollout of the program by the second quarter of 2019. A good deal of work remains to be done between now and then, however.
For one thing, ABWN has proposed a network of up to 35,000 satellites peppering the atmosphere.
“ABWN’s proposed network is what many would consider to be the Next Generation of satellite networks; it would be a ‘low orbiting constellation’ with up to 35,000 satellites crossing the global skies between 8,000 and 50,000 feet,” Marius de Mos said.
Those satellites would utilize a free-space laser overlay to create a web transferring Terabits per second all over the world. The test in May proved the success of airplanes linking through such high-speed lasers, and now, ABWN hopes to do two things: service unserved areas through a radio only mesh and augment or replace portions of the global and aircraft serving infrastructure with broad two-way data capabilities.
The next test is planned for the latter half of 2018, when ABWN will conduct an assessment with 20 jetliners operating in tandem. If things go well there, they hope to have a new aerodynamic antenna ready for production in 2019. All of this is, of course, subject to a number of factors—not the least of which are the intricacies of manufacturing delays and continued access to funds—but if success continues, it could mean serious changes for global communication capabilities.