System and method providing improved, dual-purpose keep-alive packets with operational data

Abstract

Systems and methods for combining operational data transmission (statistics about device health, connected device information, and the like) and keepalive packets (ping type packets which expect a reply back within predetermined amount of time to indicate network connections can pass traffic bi-directionally) are described. Embodiments provide an onboard aircraft communication equipment, in which the onboard aircraft communication equipment is deployed on an operational aircraft and transmits keep-alive packets to a ground network. Embodiments generate operational data from the aircraft, construct a bi-directional keep-alive packet with keep-alive data for transmission between the onboard aircraft communication equipment and the ground network, combine the operational data with the bi-directional keep-alive packet into a combined keep-alive request transmission, and transmit the combined keep-alive request transmission from the onboard aircraft communication equipment to the ground network.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.