Low-Latency Airborne Satellite Internet Using Duplicate Packet Transmission
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current airborne satellite Internet systems face high latency and poor link margin issues due to factors like antenna gain, satellite EIRP, and aircraft dynamics, which are costly to address with custom solutions and specialized designs, especially in regions with marginal RF coverage.
Innovation Solution
A low-latency aircraft satellite Internet system using commercial off-the-shelf two-way satellite services, where a server on board an aircraft generates multiple identical Internet requests with unique IDs, and the network operations center forwards and assembles the responses, dynamically adjusting the number of requests based on link quality to reduce latency and conserve bandwidth.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If custom hybrid protocol methods and specialized FEC are used to reduce latency and combat bit error rates, then reliability and latency are improved, but device complexity and system cost increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates multiple identical copies of each data packet and transmits them through different channels. These duplicate packets are then reassembled at the receiving end to reconstruct the original data, eliminating the need for complex error correction protocols while maintaining reliability in marginal RF coverage regions.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments data transmission into multiple identical packet copies that are transmitted separately. This segmentation allows the system to bypass complex hybrid protocols by simply sending redundant copies that can be reassembled, reducing system complexity while addressing bit error rate problems.
2Reliability
If custom hybrid protocol methods and specialized designs are implemented to address aircraft dynamics and marginal RF coverage, then reliability is improved, but system cost increases by orders of magnitude
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses duplicate packet transmission to achieve reliability in airborne applications without requiring expensive custom hardware or specialized protocols. By transmitting multiple identical copies of data packets, the system ensures delivery reliability while using standard COTS satellite Internet infrastructure, reducing costs by orders of magnitude compared to custom solutions.
3Loss of time
If multiple identical Internet requests are transmitted in rapid succession, then latency is reduced through parallel processing, but bandwidth consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple identical packet transmissions into a single reconstructed data set at the receiving end. By combining the results of parallel packet transmissions and eliminating duplicates, the system achieves low latency through parallel processing while conserving bandwidth through intelligent reassembly and filtering of redundant data.
4Loss of time
If TCP protocol acknowledgement spoofing methods are used to reduce effective latency, then latency is improved, but hardware complexity increases and link margin problems are not addressed
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses duplicate packet transmission with unique IDs instead of TCP acknowledgement spoofing. This approach reduces effective latency by allowing parallel processing of multiple packet copies while using only software modifications, avoiding the need for custom hardware interventions at both ends of the link that spoofing methods require.
Data Source
AI summary
Low-latency satellite Internet service from a commercial off-the-shelf two-way satellite Internet system for aircraft under marginal communications link conditions is provided. One or more identical Internet requests each having a unique ID are sent in rapid succession from the aircraft. The one or more identical Internet requests are received at a satellite and sent to a network operations center (NOC) where they are forwarded over the Internet to an appropriate Web site. Identical Web pages are retrieved for the identical Internet requests by the NOC and transmitted to the satellite and then relayed to the aircraft. The requested Web page data is fused for the requested Web pages into a single Web page response in accordance with the unique IDs in the server for viewing by a client PC with low-latency when a failure in transmitting and receiving identical Internet requests and requested Web pages occurs.