Onboard avionic system for communication between an aircraft and the ground and method for managing a radio channel of such a system

• US 9,480,010 B2
• Filed: 02/17/2016
• Issued: 10/25/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 02/27/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Airbus Operations SAS (Airbus SE)
• Original Assignee: Airbus Operations SAS (Airbus SE)
• Inventors: Kaba, Mohamed
• Primary Examiner(s): Trinh, Tan H
• Application Number:
  US15/045,819
• Publication Number:
  US 20160255572A1
• Time in Patent Office: 251 Days
• Field of Search: 455/515, 455/66, 455/431, 455/90.2, 455/129, 455/68, 455/456.1, 455/525, 455/509, 455/562.1, 455/63.4, 701/3, 701/14, 709/227, 709/249, 709/228, 725/23, 725/77, 725/105, 725/37, 725/76, 725/30, 340/963, 340/945, 348/143
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/18506 Communications with or from aircraft, i.e. aeronautical mobile service
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/025 using location based information parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/16 Discovering, processing access restriction or access information

Abstract

An onboard avionic system for communication between an aircraft and the ground comprising a service unit connected to various aircraft equipment and a radio communications unit providing communication between the avionic system and a communications system on the ground via a radio channel. The system comprises a configuration unit having a control unit, a geolocation unit and a database in which are recorded, data relative to the use of the radio channels which are available in a flight zone, as well as data relative to the radio conditions for the available radio channels. The configuration unit, on the basis of the aircraft geolocation data supplied by the geolocation unit, of radio condition data of the current channel, and of database data, determines if the current channel should be changed or not and, if so, determines the new channel to be used and commands the change to the new channel.

Claims

1. An onboard avionic system for communication between an aircraft and the ground comprising:

a service unit to which are connected various equipment of said aircraft,

at least one radio communications unit for providing communication between said avionic system and a communications system on the ground via a radio channel,

a configuration unit provided with a control unit,

a geolocation unit provided for supplying the control unit with data related to the present position of said aircraft and

a database in which are recorded, for each flight zone that the aircraft has flown over during previous flights, data relative to the use of the radio channels which are available in said flight zone in question as well as data relative to the radio conditions for said available radio channels,

said configuration unit being interfaced with said radio communications unit such that said radio communications unit supplies said configuration unit with data relative to the radio conditions of the channel currently in use,

said configuration unit, on the basis of the geolocation data of the aircraft which are supplied to the configuration unit by the geolocation unit, of data on the radio conditions of the channel currently in use supplied by the radio communications unit and of data coming from the database, being configured to determine if the channel currently used by the radio communications unit should be changed or not and, if such is the case, being configured to determine the new channel to be used and being configured to command the change to the new channel to be used.

2. The avionic system as claimed in claim 1, wherein said configuration unit is also configured to store in the database the data relative to the use of the channel which has just been left, as well as data relative to the radio conditions existing at the time of this storage.

3. The avionic system as claimed in claim 1, wherein said configuration unit is used by an algorithm having BDI architecture, the beliefs being formed from data stored in said database, the desire or desires being constituted by criteria which are used for classifying the different radio channels to be used by the radio communications units and the intentions being the actions carried out by the control unit in order to command the change of radio channel.

4. A method for managing the radio channel to be used by a radio communications unit of an avionic communication system of an aircraft, comprising:

a service unit to which are connected various equipment of said aircraft,

at least one radio communications unit for providing communication between said avionic system and a communications system on the ground via a radio channel,

a configuration unit provided with a control unit,

a geolocation unit provided for supplying the control unit with data related to the present position of said aircraft and

a database in which are recorded, for each flight zone that the aircraft has flown over during previous flights, data relative to the use of the radio channels which are available in said flight zone in question as well as data relative to the radio conditions for said available radio channels,

said configuration unit being interfaced with said radio communications unit such that said radio communications unit supplies said configuration unit with data relative to the radio conditions of the channel currently in use,

said configuration unit, on the basis of the geolocation data of the aircraft which are supplied to the configuration unit by the geolocation unit, of data on the radio conditions of the channel currently in use supplied by the radio communications unit and of data coming from the database, being configured to determine if the channel currently used by the radio communications unit should be changed or not and, if such is the case, being configured to determine the new channel to be used and being configured to command the change to the new channel to be used,

wherein said method comprises;

detecting, with said configuration unit, change in radio conditions for determining, on the basis of geolocation data of the aircraft which are supplied to it by a geolocation unit, data on radio conditions of the channel currently being used provided by the radio communications unit and of data relative to the use of the radio channels which are available in said flight zone in question, as well as data relative to the radio conditions for said radio channels, coming from the database, if the channel currently in use by the radio communications unit should be changed or not,

filtering, with said configuration unit, available radio channels in said flight zone for determining the new channel to be used and

controlling, with said configuration unit, the radio communications unit by commanding a change to said new channel to be used by said radio communications unit.

5. The management method as claimed in claim 4, further comprising a step of updating the database by storing in the database the data relative to the use of the channel which has just been left as well as data relative to the radio conditions existing at the time of the storage.

6. The management method as claimed in claim 4, wherein said method is implemented with the configuration unit by an algorithm having BDI architecture, the beliefs being formed by data stored in said database, the desire or desires being constituted by criteria which are used for classifying the different radio channels to be used by the radio communications units and the intentions being the actions carried out by the control unit in order to command the change of channel radio.

7. The management method as claimed in claim 4, wherein said change decision process triggers a change of channel when the value of at least one of the radio conditions parameters is greater or less, according to the case, than a predetermined threshold value.

8. The management method as claimed in claim 4, further comprising an updating process initiated when the change decision process has decided on a channel change, said updating process comprising the following steps:

calculating the values taken by the radio conditions parameter or parameters for the available channels other than the channel which is currently in use and which will be left,

comparing these values with those which are stored in the database for the flight zone given by the geolocation unit and

updating the database for the current flight zone when the present values are different from those which are contained in the database.

9. The management method as claimed in claim 4, further comprising a process of generating options which comprises the following steps:

determining the available channels conforming with the desire or desires, if at least one of them exists,

classifying, in the case of at least one conforming available channel, the conforming channel or channels as a function of their current occupation rates, according to a first option, and as a function of their respective frequencies of use for all of the previous flights for the flight zone in question, according to a second option, and

classifying, when no channel conforms with the desire, the available channel or channels as a function of their current occupation rates, according to a first option, and as a function of their respective frequencies of use for all of the previous flights for the flight zone in question, according to a second option.