TECHNICAL FIELD

This invention relates to aircraft communications, and in particular to systems, devices, and methods for determining how an aircraft's flight path will affect the availability of Internet services of aircraft passengers while the aircraft is flying, which provides solutions that reside within a customer portal and provides a visual indication of whether an aircraft may expect to have an internet connection along their flight path.

BACKGROUND

Passengers on aircraft, especially private aircraft, are increasingly using Internet services for their digital devices, such as for their smart phones, tablets, laptop computers and the like. A problem occurs when the Internet service of the passengers is interrupted and dropped without any notice to the passengers before the interruption occurs. These disruptions to service have caused loss of communications between the aircraft passengers and other parties. Additionally, these interruptions have resulted in losing data on the digital devices of the passengers, such as losing drafted work products such as draft documents, and the like. Thus, the need exists for solutions to the above problems.

SUMMARY

An advantage of embodiments described herein is to provide systems, devices, and methods for determining and forecasting how an aircraft's flight path will affect the availability of internet services of aircraft passengers while the aircraft is flying. Another advantage of embodiments described herein is to provide systems, devices, and methods for providing a visual indication to passengers aboard an aircraft of whether the aircraft may expect to have an internet connection along their flight path. Further objects and advantages of embodiments described herein will be apparent from the following detailed description of the presently preferred embodiments which are illustrated schematically in the accompanying drawings.

These and other advantages may be provided, for example, by a connectivity forecast system to provide users aboard aircraft with status of network services. The connectivity forecast system communicates with one or more service providers. The connectivity forecast system includes a non-transitory or other physical storage medium to store non-transitory computer readable and executable instructions in communication with one or more processors to execute the executable instructions, and to retrieve and store information, that cause the one or more processors to perform the functions of the system and method described herein, including operations to provide the status and connectivity forecast of the network services. The operations may include any, all or any portion of the following in any combination: retrieving a flight plan to generate a flight path; retrieving one or more service coverage data from the service providers; retrieving or storing information about the service providers such as bandwidth, cost, or reliability and storing such information in the storage medium; receiving a priority assignment for all or a portion of the service providers; coupling the flight path with the service coverage data to generate an integrated flight path that indicates service available and unavailable portions of the flight path; providing the connectivity forecast display information of the system through a web portal such that a user having an electronic device may communicate with a processor of the system via the web portal, for example via the Internet accessing a web address such an Internet Protocol (IP) address, for the purpose of retrieving from the system the connectivity forecast display information of the system and displaying the connectivity forecast display information on a display of a user electronic device; and, in embodiments, displaying an integrated or segmented flight path as part of the connectivity forecast display information. The flight path may include one or more waypoints. The one or more service coverage data is transmitted from the service providers and the service coverage data may include a plurality of sub-coverage data.

The operations may further include updating the one or more service coverage data from the service providers during flight. The coupling the flight path may include interpolating the waypoints to generate intervening waypoints between waypoints. The coupling the flight path may include selecting sub-coverage data that cover regions in which the flight path is formed, determining sub-coverage data, among the selected sub-coverage data, which indicate unavailability of the network services, and determining portions of the flight path in which the network service is unavailable. The determining portions of the flight path may include finding new or more waypoints that are not covered by any of sub-coverage data indicating network service availability. The operations may further include checking changes of the one or more service coverage data periodically or upon receiving information from the service providers during flight, checking changes of the flight plan during flight, updating the one or more service coverage data and the flight plan based on the changes during flight, and updating the integrated flight path based on the updated one or more service coverage data and flight plan.

The connectivity forecast system may further include a display device, and the displaying the integrated flight path may include displaying the integrated flight path on the display device. In embodiments, the display device may be a display of an electronic device that is in communication with the one or more processors of the system directly or via any network or communication interface as is known in the art, such as, for example, through any Internet connection, wireless interface (such as IEEE 802.11, Bluetooth®, Zibgee® or any other wireless connection) or wired interface (such as, for example, Ethernet) or any combination of such networking and communication systems. As a non-limiting example, a user's electronic device may comprise a display device, a processor, a physical media memory and a human user interface in communication with one another, the physical media memory containing non-transitory computer readable and executable instructions, and circuits, for receiving input data and commands from a user such as a keyboard, touchscreen, microphone for receiving voice commands, or other human interface elements as are known in the art, that is in communication with a processor of the system through any wired or wireless connection, such as, for example only, through a wireless router, or through any satellite, ground-to-air or other data link. Thus, as a non-limiting example, a passenger or user in flight may utilize any electronic device having such processing, communication, human interface and display features such as a laptop, electronic tablet, smart phone or computer to communicate with a processor of the system, for example via a web interface, for the purpose of receiving information from the connectivity forecast system of the invention and displaying such information on the display of their electronic device while the aircraft is in flight, or while the aircraft is on the ground. In embodiments, the system of the invention is web-based, meaning that any electronic device that is in communication with a processor of the system may access the web address of the system, using any wired, wireless or optical communication system and interface, for the purposes of receiving connectivity forecast display information as described herein from a processor of the system and displaying such connectivity forecast display information on a visual display of the user's electronic device.

The connectivity forecast system may communicate with global positioning system (GPS) to identify a current location of the aircraft during flight. The current location of the aircraft may be shown on the displayed integrated flight path. The connectivity forecast system may communicate with a flight operator to retrieve the flight plan.

These and other advantages may also be provided, for example, by a method for providing users aboard aircraft with status of network services. The method includes retrieving a flight plan to generate a flight path, transmitting one or more service coverage data from service providers, storing the service coverage data in database or one or more memories, coupling the flight path with the service coverage data to generate an integrated flight path that indicates service available and unavailable portions of the flight path, and displaying the integrated flight path. The flight path includes one or more waypoints. The service coverage data includes a plurality of sub-coverage data.

The method may further include updating the one or more service coverage data from the service providers during flight. The coupling the flight path may include interpolating the waypoints to generate intervening waypoints between waypoints. The coupling the flight path may include selecting sub-coverage data that cover regions in which the flight path is formed, determining sub-coverage data, among the selected sub-coverage data, which indicate unavailability of the network services, and determining portions of the flight path in which the network service is unavailable. The determining portions of the flight path may include finding one or more waypoints that are not covered by any of sub-coverage data indicating network service availability.

The method may further include transmitting information including a current location of the aircraft from GPS during flight. The displaying the integrated flight path may display the current location of the aircraft on the displayed integrated flight path. The method may further include checking changes of the one or more service coverage data periodically or upon receiving information from the service providers during flight, checking changes of the flight plan during flight, updating the one or more service coverage data and the flight plan based on the changes during flight, and updating the integrated flight path based on the updated one or more service coverage data and flight plan.

Further, the system and method of the invention may operate to cause the aircraft flight path to be graphically displayed, or otherwise presented, as a series of segments superimposed on a map in which each segment represents a portion of the flight path, indicating the highest priority service provider available, if any, for each segment. This may be desirable in cases in which a plurality of service providers are able to provide network services along the flight path, each service provider having unique coverage and other characteristic(s) such as bandwidth or cost. In such cases, a priority scheme may be utilized by the system and method of the invention to assign a unique priority to each service provider relative to the other service providers, such priority being based on a desired characteristic (for example, bandwidth), determine the highest priority service provider available for each segment of the flight path, where a segment is defined as portion of a flight path that has a differing highest priority available service provider than a preceding portion of the flight path, and display segments of the flight path using an identifier that uniquely identifies a specific service provide (for example, line color, line width, line type, associated graphic symbol, or other unique graphic identifier) that identifies the highest priority available service provider for that segment; or, alternatively, for those segments in which no service provider is available, displaying such “no service” segments in a unique identifier that identifies that segment as having no network services available. In embodiments, the entire flight path, from source to destination, may be displayed in such segments, or in embodiments, only a portion or multiple portions of a flight path may be displayed in such segments. Portions of the flight path for which no service is available may be displayed in segments in a unique identifier (for example, line color, line width, line type, associated graphic symbol, or other unique graphic identifier) that represents and identifies that no service is available for that segment.

