Low-latency/low link margin airborne satellite internet system and method using COTS infrastructure

• US 7,280,498 B1
• Filed: 07/19/2004
• Issued: 10/09/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 07/19/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rockwell Collins, Inc. (Raytheon Technologies Corporation d/b/a RTX)
• Original Assignee: Rockwell Collins, Inc. (Raytheon Technologies Corporation d/b/a RTX)
• Inventors: Mitchell, James P.
• Primary Examiner(s): Trost; William
• Assistant Examiner(s): PEREZ, JULIO R
• Application Number:
  US10/894,139
• Time in Patent Office: 1,177 Days
• Field of Search: 370/316, 370/338, 455/12.1, 455/13.1, 455/13.2, 709/209, 709/223, 709/226, 709/227
• US Class Current: 370/316
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/18508 with satellite system used as relay, i.e. aeronautical mobile satellite service

Abstract

Low-latency satellite Internet service from a commercial off-the-shelf two-way satellite Internet system for aircraft under marginal communications link conditions is provided. One or more identical Internet requests each having a unique ID are sent in rapid succession from the aircraft. The one or more identical Internet requests are received at a satellite and sent to a network operations center (NOC) where they are forwarded over the Internet to an appropriate Web site. Identical Web pages are retrieved for the identical Internet requests by the NOC and transmitted to the satellite and then relayed to the aircraft. The requested Web page data is fused for the requested Web pages into a single Web page response in accordance with the unique IDs in the server for viewing by a client PC with low-latency when a failure in transmitting and receiving identical Internet requests and requested Web pages occurs.

Claims

1. A low-latency aircraft satellite Internet system comprising:

a client PC on board an aircraft for originating a client Internet request;

a server on board the aircraft for generating from the client Internet request more than one identical Internet request each having a unique ID;

a satellite transceiver on board the aircraft for transmitting the more than one identical Internet request in rapid succession;

a satellite for receiving one or more surviving identical Internet requests from the satellite transceiver on board the aircraft and sending the one or more surviving identical Internet requests in rapid succession;

a network operations center (NOC) for receiving the one or more surviving identical Internet request from the satellite, for forwarding each of the one or more surviving identical requests over the Internet to an appropriate Web site, retrieving requested Web page data for each of the one or more surviving identical Internet requests, and transmitting the requested Web page data for each of the one or more surviving Internet requests to the satellite;

wherein the satellite relays surviving requested Web page data for each of the one or more surviving identical Internet requests to the satellite transceiver for forwarding to the server; and

wherein the server receives the surviving requested Web page data for each of the one or more surviving identical Internet requests and fuses the surviving received Web page data for the surviving one or more requested Web pages into a single low-latency Web page in accordance with the unique IDs for viewing by the client PC.

2. The low-latency aircraft satellite Internet system of claim 1 wherein the satellite Internet system comprises a commercial off-the-shelf two-way satellite Internet service.

3. The low-latency aircraft satellite Internet system of claim 1 wherein a number of identical Internet requests is determined by communications link quality.

4. The low-latency aircraft satellite Internet system of claim 3 wherein an upper limit on the number of identical requests is determined by available system bandwidth.

5. The low-latency aircraft satellite Internet system of claim 3 wherein when the server on board the aircraft receives insufficient surviving requested Web page data for the one or more surviving identical Internet requests said server increases the number of identical Internet requests.

6. The low-latency aircraft satellite Internet system of claim 3 wherein when the server on board the aircraft receives sufficient surviving requested Web page data for the one or more surviving identical Internet requests said server decreases the number of identical Internet requests.

7. The low-latency aircraft satellite Internet system of claim 1 wherein temporal diversity of the more than one identical Internet request is determined by communications link quality.

8. The low-latency aircraft satellite Internet system of claim 1 wherein temporal diversity of the more than one identical Internet request is determined by aircraft dynamics.

9. A method of providing low-latency aircraft satellite Internet service from a commercial off-the-shelf two-way satellite Internet system comprising the steps of:

originating an Internet request with a client PC on board an aircraft;

generating from the client PC Internet request more than one identical Internet request each having a unique ID and each sent in rapid succession from a server on board the aircraft;

transmitting the more than one identical Internet request each in rapid succession from a satellite transceiver on board the aircraft;

receiving the more than one identical Internet request from the satellite transceiver in a satellite;

sending the more than one identical Internet request in rapid succession from the satellite;

receiving the more than one identical Internet request from the satellite in a network operations center (NOC);

forwarding from the NOC the more than one identical Internet request over the Internet to an appropriate Web site;

retrieving requested Web page data for the more than one identical Internet request in the NOC;

transmitting the requested Web page data for the more than one identical Internet request to the satellite from the NOC;

relaying the requested Web page data for the more than one identical Internet request to the satellite transceiver through the satellite;

forwarding the requested Web page data for the more than one identical Internet request to the server;

receiving the requested Web page data for the more than one identical Internet request in the server; and

fusing received Web page data for a requested Web page into a single low-latency Web page response in accordance with the unique IDs in the server for viewing by the client PC.

10. The method of providing low-latency aircraft satellite Internet service from a commercial off-the-shelf two-way satellite Internet system of claim 9 further comprising the step of viewing the requested Web page with low-latency with the client PC when a failure in transmitting and receiving identical Internet requests and requested Web pages between the satellite transceiver, the satellite, and the NOC occurs.

11. The method of providing low-latency aircraft satellite Internet service from a commercial off-the-shelf two-way satellite Internet system of claim 9 further comprising the step of determining a number of identical Internet requests by communications link quality.

12. The method of providing low-latency aircraft satellite Internet service from a commercial off-the-shelf two-way satellite Internet system of claim 9 further comprising the step of sending more requests to the NOC through the satellite when the server on board the aircraft receives few replies back for requests from the NOC.

13. The method of providing low-latency aircraft satellite Internet service from a commercial off-the-shelf two-way satellite Internet system of claim 9 further comprising the step of dropping back to one request from the server when the server on board the aircraft has most requests acknowledged.

14. A method of providing low-latency satellite Internet service from a commercial off-the-shelf two-way satellite Internet system for vehicles under marginal communications link conditions comprising the steps of:

originating an Internet request at a client PC on board the vehicle;

generating in a server from the client Internet request more than one identical Internet request each having a unique ID;

transmitting the more than one identical Internet request in rapid succession from a satellite transceiver in the vehicle;

receiving one or more surviving identical Internet requests from the vehicle at a satellite;

sending one or more surviving identical Internet requests from the satellite in rapid succession;

receiving one or more surviving identical Internet requests from the satellite in a network operations center (NOC);

forwarding from the NOC the surviving one or more identical Internet requests over the Internet to an appropriate Web site;

retrieving requested Web page data for the one or more surviving identical Internet requests from the Internet in the NOC;

transmitting the requested Web page data for the one or more surviving identical Internet requests to the satellite from the NOC;

relaying surviving requested Web page data for the surviving one or more identical Internet requests to the vehicle with the satellite; and

fusing the surviving requested Web page data for the surviving one or more identical Internet requests into a single low-latency Web page response in accordance with the unique IDs in the server for viewing by the client PC.

15. The method of providing low-latency aircraft satellite Internet service from a commercial off-the-shelf two-way satellite Internet system of claim 14 further comprising the step of determining a number of identical Internet requests by communications link quality.

16. The method of providing low-latency aircraft satellite Internet service from a commercial off-the-shelf two-way satellite Internet system of claim 15 further comprising the step of determining an upper limit on the number of identical Internet requests by available system bandwidth.

17. The method of providing low-latency aircraft satellite Internet service from a commercial off-the-shelf two-way satellite Internet system of claim 14 further comprising the step of increasing the number of identical Internet requests when the server on board the vehicle receives insufficient surviving Web page data for the one or more surviving identical Internet requests.

18. The method of providing low-latency aircraft satellite Internet service from a commercial off-the-shelf two-way satellite Internet system of claim 14 further comprising the step of decreasing the number of identical Internet requests when sufficient surviving requested Web page data for the one or more surviving identical Internet requests is received.

19. The method of providing low-latency aircraft satellite Internet service from a commercial off-the-shelf two-way satellite Internet system of claim 14 further comprising the step of determining temporal diversity of the one or more identical Internet requests by communications link quality.

20. The method of providing low-latency aircraft satellite Internet service from a commercial off-the-shelf two-way satellite Internet system of claim 14 further comprising the step of determining temporal diversity of the one or more identical Internet requests by vehicle dynamics.