U.K.’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is monitoring recent resear...
U.K.’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is monitoring recent research by NASA on interference to aircraft communications systems posed by ultra-wideband (UWB) devices, agency spokeswoman said. She said CAA would have to be convinced by airlines or UWB developers that…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
technology didn’t pose threat before its use would be allowed on planes in laptop PCs or other devices. Issue has received flurry of attention in U.K. with news reports that any CAA ban would have to entail outlawing use of all laptop computers on aircraft because there would be no way to pinpoint only devices with UWB technology. Earlier this year, NASA’s Langley Research Center conducted tests on United Airlines aircraft in Victorville, Cal., examining impact of UWB emissions to plane radios. NASA in presentation in May to Air Transport Assn. said preliminary test results showed UWB source caused loss of targets on Traffic Alert & Collision Avoidance System of planes. Limited testing also recorded interference incident at lower emission levels involving part of instrument landing system (ILS). CAA spokeswoman said NASA tests appeared to have involved higher power levels than what would be available on commercially offered UWB equipment. One industry source said ILS system that was tested operated in 108-137 MHz band, below 3.1 to 10.6 GHz at which UWB handheld and indoor systems are allowed to operate. Only emissions from UWB at those levels would be unintentional, source said. TCAS system tested also operated on 2 frequencies that UWB operators aren’t allowed to use, 1030 MHz and 1090 MHz, source said. For now, CAA hasn’t made any decisions on possible UWB ban. “We are waiting for more research to be done,” CAA spokeswoman told us, and “for the technology developers and the airlines if they are looking into it to come to us and tell us that it is not a threat to flight safety.” In U.K., portable electronic devices can’t be used during take-off, landing or when seatbelt sign is on, she said. CAA already has conducted research on interference from wireless phones on ground on frequencies used by those headsets, she said. “We did find that there was potentially significant interference coming from those frequencies.” That led to retention of ban on cellphone use, spokeswoman said, with wireless phone users required to switch off devices when plane’s engines are turned on.