Routing IP packets to an aircraft
AssigneeThe Boeing Company
InventorMichael A. D'Annunzio
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system and method for routing IP packets to an aircraft eliminates the need for the exchange of routing information via dynamic routing protocols between the aircraft and ground station routers. An Internet protocol (IP) packet routing table is populated by converting a tail number of the aircraft into a destination subnet address for the aircraft. Forward channel information for a ground router is determined based on the tail number. The method further provides for adding a route entry to the routing table based on the forward channel information and the destination subnet address such that the route entry enables the ground router to delivery IP packets to the aircraft.
Claims20
A method for populating an Internet protocol (IP) packet routing table, the method comprising the steps of:
- converting a tail number of an aircraft into a destination subnet address for the aircraft;
- determining forward channel information for a ground router based on the tail number;
- and
- adding a route entry to the routing table based on the forward channel information and the destination subnet address such that the route entry enables the ground router to deliver IP packets to the aircraft.
A method for maintaining an Internet protocol (IP) communications link table, the method comprising the steps of:
- defining forward channel identifiers for a plurality of aircraft tail numbers;
- defining preference metrics for the plurality of aircraft tail numbers such that each tail number, corresponding forward channel identifiers and corresponding preference metric represents an entry in the communications link table;
- and
- dynamically updating the entries based on data from an airborne polling link.
A method for populating an Internet protocol (IP) packet routing table, the method comprising the steps of:
- retrieving an aircraft identifier from an aircraft configuration table based on the tail number;
- determining a subnet class for the aircraft;
- converting the aircraft identifier into a destination subnet address in accordance with the subnet class;
- retrieving a forward channel identifier from a communications link table based on the tail number;
- retrieving a next hop address from a ground switching configuration table based on the forward channel identifier;
- retrieving a preference metric from the communications link table, the preference metric defining a relative preference of data transmitted over the forward channel versus data transmitted over other forward channels;
- and
- building the route entry based on the next hop address and the preference metric.
An Internet protocol (IP) database comprising:
- an aircraft configuration table for linking a tail number of the aircraft to a corresponding aircraft identifier;
- a communications link table for linking the tail number to forward channel information;
- and
- a ground switching table for linking the forward channel information to a next hop address such that the database enables addition of a routing entry to a routing table.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.