UWB EMI to aircraft radios: field evaluation on operational commercial transport airplanes

Ultrawideband (UWB) transmitters can soon be integrated into a wide variety of portable electronic devices (PED) that passengers routinely carry on board commercial airplanes. The aeronautical community is concerned as to whether evolving FCC UWB rules are adequate to protect legacy and emerging aeronautical radio systems from electromagnetic interference (EMI) from emerging UWB products. The approach of this study was to introduce specific UWB-type EMI signals to radio systems installed on airplanes, and to observe effects in the same context that they would appear to flight crews, in a realistic operational signal environment. Since all UWB threat signals were calibrated referenced to FCC 15.209 limits for unlicensed transmitters, this paper presents an overview of the most extensive PED EMI direct effects testing ever performed on commercial airplanes. Extensive details regarding this work are reported in a NASA technical publication.