Airborne photonics, a technology whose time has come

The past twenty years has seen the rapid introduction of fiber optic hardware into commercial telecommunications networks because of the cost and performance advantages that the technology provides. The aerospace industry has also been engaged in research and development to apply the technology to military and commercial aircraft. The specific applications of photonic technology to aircraft can be organized into the following categories: point-to-point fiber optic data transmission to replace copper wiring high speed networks and computer interconnects flight and engine controls generally known as “fly-by-light” smart skins and smart structures. The projected advantages of fiber optic systems are: very high bandwidth (unachievable with wire), EMI/EMP immunity (without the need for additional shielding), weight/volume/cost savings over wire for equivalent high bandwidth applications and elimination of spark induced fire hazards. This paper reviews present applications of fiber optics to aircraft as well as recent significant photonic component and systems advances in both the commercial and military sector which will provide new capabilities which cannot be achieved with wire. Novel components which will be described include improved fibers, cables, connectors, couplers, lasers, amplifiers, modulators, and sensors. Novel broadband network concepts which will be described use multiple fiber channel redundancy to provide built-in fault prediction, isolation, and circumvention without the weight, volume, cost, or performance penalties of alternative wire or fiber approaches. Implementation of systems of this type in both avionics and control systems can provide in-flight diagnostics and real time reconfiguration of the cable plant with elimination or minimization of data loss during reconfiguration. The status of optical backplane development and acceptance of commercial standards for avionics applications will also be discussed. If the aircraft community expends the resources to exploit these recent advances now, photonic systems will become the technology of choice in our production aircraft before the turn of the century