Patent ID: 11968026
Assignee: SMARTSKY NETWORKS LLC
Field: Telecommunications (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 0:
1. A ground station among a network of ground stations configured to provide high speed wirelessly transmitted data communications to an in-flight aircraft, the ground station comprising:
an antenna assembly operably coupled to software defined radio to control the antenna assembly; and
a radio operably coupled to the antenna assembly to process signals sent or received at the antenna assembly utilizing Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM),
wherein the radio is configured to communicate with a receiver station located on board the in-flight aircraft to provide a high speed data communications link with the receiver station,
wherein the high speed data communications link is maintained while the in-flight aircraft transitions between a coverage area provided by the ground station and coverage areas of respective ones of the other ground stations as the in-flight aircraft moves from the coverage area provided by the ground station to one of the respective ones of the coverage areas provided by the respective ones of the other ground stations,
wherein the radio employs about a 1.4 MHz bandwidth using a Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) mode of operation, and
wherein the high speed data communications link has a range of greater than 50 miles.