Europe-based global major aerospace and defence group Airbus has entered into a partnership with Dutch high-technology industrial company VDL Group to develop and produce a laser communication terminal for aircraft. Designated UltraAir, the terminal would be based on development work jointly undertaken by Airbus and the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO).

Laser communications systems can transmit 1 000 times more data at ten times the speed of current radio networks. Laser systems are also immune to interference and detection, while being very difficult to intercept, because of the narrowness of their beams. This will also allow laser communications terminals to be lighter, need less power, and be more secure than radio networks.

Although Airbus expects that, in the longer term, UltraAir could be fitted to commercial airliners, allowing passengers to have high-speed data connections, the immediate applications for the system will be in the defence sphere. UltraAir will allow unjammable and low-probability-of-interception data transmission at rates of up to several gigabits-per-second. It will link aircraft, both crewed and uncrewed, with ground stations and with geostationary satellites orbiting 36 000 km above the Earth, in an interconnected network.

The terminal used what Airbus has called “unparalleled technology”. This includes an extremely stable and precise optical mechatronic system.    

Airbus and VDL will now prepare the prototype for demonstration and are aiming at starting flight tests in 2024. This will involve the further industrialisation of the prototype, so that it can be integrated on to an aircraft. VDL will contribute its ‘design for production’ expertise and will also manufacture critical systems for the terminal.

The project is being co-financed by Airbus and VDL. Support is also being provided by the ScyLight (Secure and Laser Communication Technology) programme of the European Space Agency, as well as the TNO-led Dutch Growth Fund NxtGen (sic) Hightech programme.

(Research and development of laser communications systems are known to be also under way in China, the UK and the US, again with a focus on space and defence.)