Investigation on electromagnetic environment of radio-over-fiber-based broadband wireless access scheme in aircraft cabin

Broadband wireless access services inside aircraft cabin are highly desired, but they may bring severe electromagnetic interference (EMI) threats to the avionic system and the flight safety. A radio-over-fiber (ROF)-based distributed scheme is proposed to provide onboard wireless access services. Due to the low emission power of the ROF-based distributed antennas and the electromagnetic radiation-free fiber links, the proposed scheme can effectively reduce the EMI threats from the in-flight wireless access. To evaluate the electromagnetic environment of the ROF-based distributed access scheme, the coupling electric field inside the cabin is calculated by using EMPIRE-XCcel (electromagnetic simulation software). Taking the aircraft-Advanced Regional Jet for the twenty-first century (ARJ21) for example, the results show that inside the cabin, a reduction of 4–8 dB in the coupling electric field strength is achieved using the ROF-based access scheme, compared with that in conventional centralized system. Meanwhile, a higher energy efficiency is ensured as well. Likewise, lower coupling electric field strength can also be provided for other large-size aircrafts of Airbus and Boeing, by using the ROF-based distributed scheme.