In-flight Evaluation of an Amplified 802.1lb Network

Students at the United States Air Force Test Pilot School accomplished flight testing of an 802.11b air-to-ground wireless datalink between a C-12C and a ground station¹². A total of 17.6 hours were flown on seven flight test sorties from 10 April to 2 May 2006. The system under test consisted of S-band antennas on the aircraft and at the ground station, radio frequency signal amplifiers for the antennas, an electronic display unit for the pilots, a laptop PC connected to the aircraft station, a tablet PC connected to the ground station, and two Ciscoreg Aironet 1200 Wireless access points connected to the ground and aircraft amplifiers. This test program demonstrated the 802.11b wireless datalink reception range when transmitting at 4 Watts effective isotropic radiated power. The test program demonstrated the utility of transmitting high resolution imagery and streaming video across the datalink within specific signal-to-noise ranges. The test team also evaluated the utility of high resolution imagery and streaming video transmitted across the datalink. The test configuration identified deficiencies in operating system employment during high resolution imagery and streaming video transmissions. However, the system demonstrated the bandwidth and ground distance/altitude capabilities of the 802.11b wireless network. The 802.11b wireless air-to-ground datalink performance was satisfactory in its tested configuration for transmitting high resolution imagery. However, it was not adequate in its tested configuration to provide reliable time-critical targeting streaming video. The datalink reception envelope provided operationally useful data ranges, with low data rate connections established between the aircraft and ground station at ground distances greater than 15 nautical miles for the tested altitudes.