HYPERION

The air transport industry has urgent requirements for high-bandwidth wireless communications technology to enable fast offloading of commercial aircraft data, such as security, system performance and health monitoring data, during approach and landing phases, for more efficient operation. Free space optical communications technology provides an attractive alternative to RF technologies , as it offers point to point datalinks, potentially at high datarates (e.g. Gbit/s). These are immune to interception or jamming, require no spectrum licensing and can be achieved with low-power and lightweight components. This project carried out in partnership with Oxford University will deliver a high-bandwidth optical data link demonstrator (eye-safe) with precision tracking, enabling the "on-the-fly" offload of operational data from commercial aircraft as well as mission data from UAV platforms.