US 11,606,754 B2Granted

Aviation connectivity gateway module for for cellular connectivity

AssigneeAppareo Systems, LLC

InventorsMatt Dondoneau, Johan Wiig, Ross Eickhoff, Andy Stromme, Justin Koob

Life of this patent

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Abstract

An aviation connectivity gateway module for remote access to an aircraft's systems and remotely offloading its aircraft data. The module broadly comprises a CPU, a first set of communication elements, a second set of communication elements, a memory, a battery, an IMU, a GPS module, and a number of antennas. The module responds to remote prompts and offloads aircraft data when the aircraft is powered off. An aviation connectivity gateway module for complete BVLOS cellular network connectivity broadly comprises a CPU, a set of electronic connectors, a memory, an IMU, a GPS module, a first cellular connectivity element, a second cellular connectivity element, and a number of antennas. The module switches between the first cellular communication element and the second communication element based a status of the aircraft.

Claims11

Dependent claims

An aviation connectivity gateway module for aircraft cellular connectivity of an aircraft including a flight controller, the aviation connectivity gateway module comprising:

a processor including a flight control interface, a telemetry application, a binary large object (blob) data offload application, a mavlink proxy, a video streamer application, and an edge message broker, the processor being configured to:
determine a status of the aircraft;
receive flight data from the flight controller via the flight control interface;
collect instrumentation and aircraft performance data of the aircraft via the telemetry application;
manage a circular buffer of blob data files via the blob data offload application;
facilitate communication between a ground control station and the flight controller via the mavlink proxy;
transmit a video stream to a cloud service via the video streamer application;
a multi-band cellular modem connectable to a cellular network;
and
an Airborne LTE Operations (ALO) cellular modem connectable to the cellular network;
the processor being further configured to:
switch between the multi-band cellular modem and the ALO cellular modem based on the status of the aircraft;
periodically upload blob data files to the cloud service via the multi-band cellular modem when the multi-band cellular modem is in use;
facilitate communication between the aviation connectivity gateway module and the cloud service via the edge message broker when the ALO cellular modem is in use;
and
publish a real time streaming protocol (RTSP) video stream to the cloud service when the ALO cellular modem is in use.

13 more elements

A method of facilitating cellular connectivity via an aircraft including a flight controller, the method comprising the steps of:

determining a status of the aircraft via an aviation connectivity gateway module;
receiving flight data from the flight controller via a flight control interface;
collecting instrumentation and aircraft performance data of the aircraft via a telemetry application;
managing a circular buffer of binary large object (blob) data files via a blob data offload application;
facilitating communication between a ground control station and the flight controller via a mavlink proxy;
transmitting a video stream to a cloud service via a video streamer application;
switching between a multi-band cellular modem and an Airborne LTE Operations (ALO) cellular modem of the aviation connectivity gateway module based on the status of the aircraft;
periodically upload blob data files to the cloud service via the multi-band cellular modem when the multi-band cellular modem is in use;
facilitating communication between the aviation connectivity gateway module and the cloud service via an edge message broker when the ALO cellular modem is in use;
and
publishing a real time streaming protocol (RTSP) video stream to the cloud service when the ALO cellular modem is in use.

8 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 17/104,511Filed 25 Nov 2020 · us provisional application
Priority: 27 Nov 2019
Published: US 2021/0160755 A127 May 2021
Granted: 14 Mar 2023
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification14 codes

H04W 52/0235
Where the received signal is a wanted signal: where the received signal is a power saving command
H04W 4/14
Messaging; Mailboxes; Announcements: short messaging services, e.g. short message services [SMS] or unstructured supplementary service data [USSD]
H04W 4/38
Services specially adapted for particular environments, situations or purposes: for collecting sensor information
H04W 4/42
For vehicles, e.g. vehicle-to-pedestrians [V2P]: for mass transport vehicles, e.g. buses, trains or aircraft