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Boeing’s latest ecoDemonstrator Explorer, a United Airlines-owned 737-8, successfully conducted flight tests in Europe and the U.S. to demonstrate that an advanced digital communications system designed to enable safer and more efficient operations is almost ready for deployment.
The test campaign, which included nine flights in the U.S., the UK and northwest Europe in October and early November, formed the latest evaluation of the Internet Protocol Suite (IPS), an internet-based, multilink communications system.
IPS is seen as the enabling technology for the eventual implementation of trajectory-based operations (TBO), an advanced air traffic management concept in which flight path management is data-driven and controlled in space, time and altitude. TBO will manage flights from end-to-end rather than—as currently handled—by segments and forms a key part of the FAA’s NextGen and European SESAR air traffic modernization plans.
Optimized traffic flows made possible by TBO have the potential to increase airspace capacity while reducing fuel use and emissions by up to 10%, Boeing CTO Todd Citron says.
“IPS is a set of protocols that really augment and support trajectory-based operations through providing improved security, as well as the ability to use multiple links simultaneously to alleviate congestion and digital traffic to the cockpit,” Citron tells Aviation Week. “So, it’s an important aspect of deploying trajectory-based operations with those incumbent benefits.”
“In this test, we were able to demonstrate it not only in the U.S., but in Europe. It also gave us the ability to test multilink capability and pull in satellite communication links as well, to show that aspect of the IPS. That was one of the steps that’s needed to mature usage of IPS as we want to make that operational,” Citron says.
Boeing says flight test data will be used by the “standards committees to enact changes for a technical framework and for future implementation.” IPS was previously tested on earlier ecoDemonstrator campaigns in 2019 and 2021 and in 2022 was recommended by a joint Airbus, Boeing, European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and U.S. FAA task force as the proposed network solution for harmonizing aviation data communications by 2035.
Providing a new, higher capacity network alternative to legacy over-stretched protocols, tests of IPS mark a key step toward the future global rollout of communication data link systems such as Iris—a satcom-based, global air traffic management system developed by satellite provider Inmarsat in partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA).
ESA, together with Satcom provider Viasat, participated in the ecoDemonstrator campaign along with Collins Aerospace and Honeywell, both of which provided avionics software. Other contributors included Thales, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, NASA and SITA.
“We aimed to demonstrate the technical feasibility [of the system] to see if there were any peculiarities that we didn’t anticipate,” Citron says. “It was very successful in that case, especially, for example, the ability to switch from VHF links to Satcom links and back and forth. It gave us the opportunity to try a few different configurations of software and so forth,” he adds. “It was valuable learning.”
For the campaign, the 737’s baseline communications management unit was replaced with a unit loaded with the latest full [Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6)] IPS connectivity software. IPv6, with 128-bit addresses, is the next-generation IP designed to replace the 32-bit-long IPv4 addresses.
Designed to be media-independent, IPS will form part of the future connectivity infrastructure which will include legacy systems like VHF voice and VHF data link Mode 2 as well as new digital data links based on IPS. These will include systems such as L-band Digital Aeronautical Communications System (LDACS) for continental use and SATCOM for oceanic coverage.
“There’s still work to be done,” toward deployment, Citron says. “This includes software updates for aircraft, depending on the aircraft model and whether it wants to use just the terrestrial links or Satcom links. There’s also software in the navigation service providers for the ground part of the link to support the use of IPs,” he adds. “There are products coming online to be able to do that, but there are some steps that would have to be taken before we could truly certify it and make it operational.”
Future test campaigns, yet to be defined, will be focused on demonstrating TBO-type operations, Citron says.
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