While talking of advancement in the air flight, there are two areas where the concentration of airline companies have been focused in the past decade.
- Speed of the Aircraft
- Overall Experience of Passenger
With flight manufacturers exploring the limits of their capabilities in achieving higher speed; the attention is diverted towards delivering end to end experience to the passenger, right from booking to their checkout from the airport.
The advancement in commercial electronics space and networking habituated to high speed internet connectivity and seamless interfaces through smartphones. One of the survey by Hudson Crossing suggest that by the end of 2018, 91% of the US travellers are expected to own smart phones and 89% will own a tablet.
The flight services are never far behind the technology and are trying their best to maximize the options for an on-board passenger. A passenger can leverage the in-flight system to check emails, attend conference calls, work on presentations, shopping, or engage in entertainment activities through video on demand.
The movement in this field can be clearly seen on two way development in the In-flight entertainment space.
- The Integration of Airplane Information Management System (AIM) with IFE system: The AIM service provides the ability to automatically, wirelessly and securely transfer information to and from an airplane. The AIM Service consists of two systems, AIM Ground System and the Information Management Server (IMS) on the aircraft. The AIM ground service provides a web based interface for user to upload content and to view content received from the aircraft. The IMS pulls data from AIM Ground System and makes it available for end systems over standard Ethernet. Together they act as a complete system to provide seamless internet service to the passenger on board.
- Standard wired Ethernet services have been replaced by wireless connectivity, which helps in reducing the weight of the flight to a larger extent. The complete aircraft wiring accounts for about 50% of the weight for Boeing 767. The installation of wireless network at Airbus A 321 would reduce the overall weight of the aircraft by 300 kg and would save 54 metric tons of fuel per aircraft in a year. Together these system will just not support the smart device already with the passenger in terms of mail and other application but also provide complete entertainment package with video on demand on the go and would complete the Bring your own device concept started couple of years ago; not just making a person not feel different in air but also provide complete entertainment services.
eInfochips is working on the next generation systems in the IFE domain. We are working on integration of AIM ground system with IMS system to provide seamless wireless connectivity services on top on entertainment services.In past we have provided IFE solution for top aerospace companies for Digital TV, Passenger Media Unit, Seat Display Unit, Digital Media Servers etc. by bringing together different off-the-shelf components from hardware and software vendors and developed the rest of the components required, in-house. We work in compliance with DO-178B/C as well as DO-254 to provide complete solution to our customer. To check in detail about our aerospace services, please join us at NBAA event from 21st October to 23rd October at Orlando, Florida.
