Communications inside an aircraft cockpit are currently based on wired or radiofrequency connections. For instance, wireless ones have been introduced to support the tablets. However, the use of radiofrequency technologies remains limited. For example, a wireless connectivity for the headset would be an advantage for the pilots in terms of comfort and flexibility but there are some issues especially concerning radiofrequency interferences but also audio data security. Optical wireless communications based on visible light or infrared offer interesting possibilities to overcome these issues. Indeed, as optical beams are confined in the environment, this technology brings robustness against the risks of attacks, thus increasing security. In addition, radiofrequency immunity ensures the absence of disturbances, allowing more resources for communications. For the first time in the literature and using simulation, this paper investigates the optical wireless channel for pilot headset connectivity inside aircraft cockpit, and determines its performance in terms of maximal data rates that can be achieved for a given link reliability.

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International audienceLinear closed-loop MIMO precoders are attractive owing to their scalability. They can significantly improve the received signal via optimization of pertinent criterion. The solution of max-dmin precoding is optimal for 4-QAM as it utilizes the channel state information at the transmitter (CSIT) to minimize the system error probability making it very attractive. However, as M increases the solution which is dependent on channel angle gets complex, due to its multi-form precoder search. Motivated by a requirement to provide MIMO system evaluation parameters to upper layer protocol(s) as a function of precoder optimization criterion, we propose deriving a general expression for the probability density function (pdf) of max-dmin. Our approach applies numerical approximations to derive the system bit error rate (BER) and ergodic capacity for any values of M, nr, and nt, and with b = 2 data streams. Results show that the performance of our numerical approximation approach is close to the analytical simulation method

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