Wireless Ground Communication in Support of Aircraft Maintenance and Flight Operations 951387

The wireless Spread Spectrum Ground Communication (SSGC) system will contribute to the enhancement of aircraft maintenance, flight, dispatch, and cargo operations efficiency. A concept layout of the wireless SSGC system implementation in an airport environment is illustrated in Figure 1.

The SSGC system will provide both text/graphics data transmission and voice communication for flight crew, maintenance, and dispatch personnel in the airport gate environment. This system will link ground information system and onboard avionics systems, and provide access by ground crew to an information database through portable graphics terminals. The objective is to integrate both airborne avionics, ground crew, and ground based resources into a seamless operating system. The benefits include significant cost savings through increased aircraft availability, reduced maintenance man-hours, flight delays, inventory costs, and maintenance training time, thus providing a much greater degree of operational readiness.