Interference Mitigation in Radio Altimeter

Abstract

Ever since its advent in the late 19th century, wireless technology has evolved substantially. Towards the end of 20th century, wireless system was being considered as a replacement for wired connections between digital avionic systems in an aircraft. Although it seemed to be a possible breakthrough in aviation, it came with its own set of challenges which included interference avoidance with aircraft electronics, dedicated reserved frequency band and many more. Hence, the existing wireless solutions could not be used directly and there is a need to develop specialized solutions. The primary objective of this research is to devise a technique to manage the interference, arising due to the Wireless Avionics Intra-Communication (WAIC) System, in the radio altimeter present in an aircraft. The altimeter along with the in-flight environment has been simulated in MATLAB. Its performance has been evaluated for the scenario when the interference due to WAIC system is introduced. Also, various techniques which utilize vacant bandwidth of the altimeter to aid the avionics intra-communication, thus managing the interference for the altimeter, have been analyzed.