Avionica Releases Iridium Portal Technology Source Code

Avionica has released its Iridium Portal product source code to the aviation community, including OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) and operators.  The company made the announcement at last month's ARINC Datalink Users Forum in San Diego.

Avionica's president, Raul Segredo, said his company wants to promote Iridium as the communications medium of choice for long-range operational communications envisioned by FANS (future air navigation system), and will be commencing trials with our commercial and technology partners this summer. "In the interest of avoiding the patent race that our industry experienced in implementing Wi Fi, we've decided to share enabling technologies with the community..."

Currently, the Iridium satellite system can't accept pre-emptive air traffic control calls to the cockpit (doesn't support call waiting).  Avionica's Iridium Portal technology provides this capability.

The Iridium system is also SIM (subscriber identity module) -card based, meaning that operators must either exchange SIM cards when equipment is replaced (as with most cell phones), or provision remotely mounted SIM-card holders in the aircraft.

Avionica says its Iridium Portal avoids this problem by maintaining an internal relationship between the SIM-card number and the aircraft's registration, which is automatically reset after an Avionica satLINK unit is installed.

The Iridium Portal also provides redundancy, Avionica says. By attaching Iridium radios directly to the portal platform, airline operators can maintain communications links with their fleets even if Internet or telephony connections fail.  And since Iridium-to-Iridium communications are cheaper that Iridium-to-ground communications, airlines save money.

Avionica says it will be releasing the technology under the GNU GPLv3 license. Under these terms, any licensee who makes improvements to the source must re-submit those improvements to the community under like terms.

Those interested can contact Raul Segredo at Avionica for more information.  02-14-2008.

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