PED Interference Reporting System in Japan

This paper describes the EMI reports submitted voluntarily by Japanese operators when they face interference events suspected to be caused by Portable Electronic Devices (PEDs) in aircraft. The reports are classified and analyzed in terms of aircraft types, victim aircraft sub systems, details of the events and flight phases. Suspected sources of events are investigated by noting the correlation between occurrence of events and PED use. A suspected source of events other than PED is also studied. 204 reports collected in 1993 - 2006 have shown that about one third of total events have some relationships with the use of PEDs and that anomalies relating to Auto Pilot have been increasing. Cell phones have been suspected most as the source of interference events. Probability of interference has become higher at lower altitude than at higher altitude, which means that some events may have been caused by the radio waves from the ground.