Case Study –Digital Signage for Aircraft De-Icing
May 13th, 2016
Introduction & Key Facts
● The customer is one of the European leaders in the low-cost segment of the airlines industry. Recently, for the airports easyJet operates from, it intended to deploy a system for a so called “remote de-icing”. The aircrafts are deiced in the direct vicinity of the airstrip, rather than at the deicing pods near the departure hall. This saves the time between deicing and takeoff, and reduces the risk of a repeated deicing, in congestion situations (long departure planes queue).
● Mobica was asked to develop a software solution for a digital signage HW platform, allowing for visual communication between the deicing staff and the airplane crews.
The challenge and objectives
The HW platform consisted of a large, trolley-mounted, PC-powered LCD screen, and a controlling tablet (ruggedized hand-held PC). Due to a specific airfield environment and reliability requirements, the communication between the screen and tablet had to be implemented as a wireless, but highly reliable connection.
Solution and delivered value
Mobica designed and implemented the software for the visual signage system for displaying predefined and custom messages, accordingly to the customer requirements and relevant aviation regulations (SAE AS5635). The main communication channel was implemented through a WiFi connection (allowed 2,4GHz band), with an additional UDP protocol layer, to improve the display system responsiveness to the commands, especially in a poor radio communication conditions. Due to the requirement for a high robustness of the solution, an independent backup communication channel (implemented as a hot stand-by) was introduced, though the 433MHz ISM band RFCOM port.
Mobica participated in the design and development of the solution for both the display unit and the controlling hand-held device. Additionally, Mobica participated in software integration on the display unit, helping out to integrate the wireless chipset in the operating system. The whole solution was tested in-house (with target HW units) and in the actual airfield environment.