Fiber-optic network architectures for on-board radar and avionics signal distribution

Future avionics systems will require high-bandwidth on-board communication links that are lightweight, immune to electromagnetic interference, and highly reliable. Fiber optic communication technology can meet all these challenges in a cost-effective manner. Recent advances in fiber optic technology, especially wavelength division multiplexing (WDM), have opened a number of possibilities for designing on-board fiber optic networks for radar and avionics RF signal distribution. In this paper, we investigate a number of different novel approaches for fiber-optic transmission of on-board VHF and UHF RF signals using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components. The relative merits and demerits of each architecture are discussed, and the suitability of each architecture for particular applications is pointed out.