System and method of transmitting data from an aircraft

• US 8,744,372 B2
• Filed: 09/05/2007
• Issued: 06/03/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/16/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Harris Corporation (L3Harris Technologies, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Harris Corporation (L3Harris Technologies, Inc.)
• Inventors: Ziarno, James J., Gallagher, Shawn
• Primary Examiner(s): AJIBADE AKONAI, OLUMIDE
• Application Number:
  US11/899,349
• Publication Number:
  US 20080039076A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,463 Days
• Field of Search: 455/41.1, 455/41.2, 455/91, 455/98, 455/427, 455/430, 455/431, 455/556.1, 455/558, 455/95, 455/97, 455/3.06, 455/66.1, 455/550.1, 701/3, 701/14, 701 29- 36, 340/945, 340/971, 340/973, 345/945, 345/964, 345/971, 345/973
• US Class Current: 455/98
• CPC Class Codes: H01Q 1/28 Adaptation for use in or on aircraft, missiles, satellites, or balloons
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/3822 specially adapted for use in vehicles H04B1/3827 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/18506 Communications with or from aircraft, i.e. aeronautical mobile service
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 40/18 Network protocols supporting networked applications, e.g. including control of end-device applications over a network

Abstract

A system and method of transmitting data from an aircraft includes a PC card that acquires aircraft data and transmits the aircraft data over a radio frequency communications signal into the skin of the aircraft, which radiates the radio frequency communications signal to a location remote from the aircraft.

Claims

1. A Personal Computer Memory Card International Association (PCMCIA) card for remotely communicating and interfacing with flight performance data on an aircraft, the PCMCIA card comprising:

a central processing unit (CPU) providing processing power and wireless transmission functionality, wherein the PCMCIA card is capable of being plugged into a Data Acquisition Unit having a card interface;

a wireless transceiver controlled by the CPU, the wireless transceiver connecting the CPU to a wireless network;

a memory coupled to the CPU through a communication bus, the memory storing flight performance data, wherein the wireless transceiver wirelessly transmits the flight performance data stored in the memory to a ground station through the wireless network; and

a logic circuit connected to the CPU and memory and connected to the card interface of the Data Acquisition Unit and configured to allow the Data Acquisition Unit to control data extraction from the Data Acquisition Unit into the memory and allow the CPU to forward data from the memory into the transceiver for transmission through the wireless network.

2. The PCMCIA card of claim 1, wherein the CPU determines whether there is a connection available between the PCMCIA card and the ground station.

3. The PCMCIA card of claim 1, wherein the memory is configured to store wireless network attributes for different airports.

4. The PCMCIA card of claim 3, wherein the wireless network attributes include one or more of network identification, basic transmission control protocol (TCP) information, power regulation, encryption data, and authentication data.

5. The PCMCIA card of claim 1, wherein the data extraction from the Data Acquisition Unit into memory is controlled by software embedded in the Data Acquisition Unit.

6. The PCMCIA card of claim 1, further comprising a PCMCIA bus coupled to the CPU, the PCMCIA bus connecting the CPU to the Data Acquisition Unit via the logic circuit.

7. The PCMCIA card of claim 1, wherein the CPU employs security measures to secure an access to the flight performance data.

8. The PCMCIA card of claim 7, wherein the security measures include encrypting the flight performance data during transmission.

9. The PCMCIA card of claim 7, wherein the security measures include employing wired equivalent privacy (WEP) during transmission.

10. The PCMCIA card of claim 7, wherein the security measures include employing wireless-fidelity protected access (WPA) during transmission.

11. The PCMCIA card of claim 7, wherein the security measures include employing extensible authentication protocol (EAP) during transmission.

12. The PCMCIA card of claim 1, wherein the wireless network is a wireless-fidelity (Wi-Fi) 802.11b network.

13. The PCMCIA card of claim 1, wherein the PCMCIA card enables remotely access to the Data Acquisition Unit and Data Acquisition Unit peripherals from the ground station.