Challenges to the Air Transport Industry for Implementing Fiber Optics

Abstract

As the air transport industry progresses through the 21st century, the need to make airplanes lighter, more efficient and possess more capabilities is continually increasing. One of the technologies that can help meet these goals is used widely on ground-based systems but has not been used frequently on air transport airplanes. Fiber optics is this technology. Implementation of fiber optics can provide a significant increase in bandwidth, reduce latency for data, and provide significant weight savings. Numerous reasons have been given for delaying general use of fiber optics for the data communications infrastructure for avionics. Individuals, not familiar with the air transport industry operations, may question the delay of using fiber optics in view of the performance and weight benefits that may be achieved. However, individuals that are involved with the air transport are familiar with the many challenges associated with the design and construction of new airplanes. Those challenges become even more difficult when a new technology is implemented for flight critical systems. The challenges also exist for those systems that are not critical for flight