Airborne cellular communication system

A computer-implemented method of providing cellular communication between an aircraft and infrastructure of ground communication nodes, comprising:

• identifying, by one or more computing devices, one or more ground communication nodes with which the aircraft plans to communicate in a given period of time;
• determining, by the one or more computing devices, a signal power level for communicating between the aircraft and the one or more identified ground communication nodes;
• determining, by the one or more computing devices, a frequency shift value for modifying communicated signals to account for expected Doppler effects associated with the communicated signals due to a velocity of the aircraft relative to the identified one or more ground communication nodes;
• and
• transmitting or receiving cellular communication signals between the aircraft and the identified one or more ground communication nodes using the determined signal power level and determined frequency shift value.

An aircraft, comprising:

• a directional antenna;
• one or more processors and one or more memory devices, the one or more memory devices storing instructions that when executed by the one or more processors cause the one or more processors to perform operations, the operations comprising:
• identifying one or more ground communication nodes with which the aircraft plans to communicate in a given period of time;
• determining a signal power level for communicating between the aircraft and the one or more identified ground communication nodes;
• determining a frequency shift value for modifying communicated signals to account for expected Doppler effects associated with the communicated signals due to a velocity of the aircraft relative to the identified one or more ground communication nodes;
• and
• determining an antenna beam steering command for the directional antenna, wherein the antenna beam steering command is based at least in part on the relative position of the aircraft to the identified one or more ground communication nodes with which the aircraft plans to communicate in the given period of time;
• and
• a radio transmitter/receiver configured to transmit and receive cellular communication signals between the aircraft and the identified one or more ground communication nodes using the directional antenna, determined signal power level, determined frequency shift value, and determined antenna beam steering command.