Emission Analysis of a Large Number of Various Passenger Electronic Devices in Aircraft

Abstract

The ever increasing use of portable electronic devices (PED) has put pressure on the aircraft industry as well as operators and administrations to reevaluate established restrictions in PED-use on airplanes in the last years. Any electronic device could cause electromagnetic interference to the electronics of the airplane, especially interference at receiving antennas of sensitive wireless navigation and communication (NavCom) systems. This paper presents a measurement campaign in an Airbus A320. 69 test passengers were asked to actively use a mixture of about 150 electronic devices including many attached cables, preferentially with a high data load on their buses, to provoke maximal emissions. The latter were analyzed within the cabin as well as at the inputs of aircraft receiving antennas on the fuselage outside. The transmission of the electronic devices as well as the background noise is time-variant, so just comparing only one reference and one transmission measurement is not sufficient. Repeated measurements of both cases lead to a more reliable first analysis. Additional measurements of the absolute received power at the antennas of the airplane allow a good estimation of the real interference potential to aircraft NavCom-systems. Although there were many measured emissions in the cabin there were no disturbance signals detectable at the aircraft antennas.