Interference Mitigation in WAIC Systems

Abstract

Advancements in the field of wireless communications in the last few decades have made it an indispensable part of how human made entities, and by extension, humans interact with each other. The inherent lack of the need for significant physical infrastructure brings with it great advantages in terms of mobility, operational and maintenance costs, and overall reliability and flexibility. The characteristics of wireless techniques make for an attractive proposition for enabling operational communications in aircrafts. However, wireless networks bring with them their own set of challenges in terms of range, dependability or susceptibility to interference and security. The main objective of this thesis is to evaluate different wireless communications techniques for their feasibility to be employed as Wireless Avionics Intra-Communications (WAIC) systems. The major hindrance in ensuring reliable communications in this regard comes from the operation of the existing Radio Altimeter systems in the allotted frequency band of 4.2 - 4.4 GHz. WAIC systems based on wireless techniques such as Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) and Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) have been simulated in MATLAB for the analysis. The performance of the WAIC systems in the presence of interference from Altimeter signals and Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) has been evaluated and studied.