Computer Gaming using the Boeing Airplane Wireless Cabin System

This is a mockup of the interior for the new Boeing 787 aircraft                               This picture shows that we spend more time playing than working.

ECE students:

• Rianon Tiensvold
• Michael Panique
• Dwayne Folden
• Trent Jackson

CS students:

• David Lopez
• Eric Julian
• Todd Howard
• Levi Junkert

Faculty Advisor:  Richard Wolff

Industry Sponsor:  Boeing

Project Description:

Boeing wishes to provide games and streaming of video and audio to on-board passengers.  Their current wired cabin systems are costly and difficult to maintain.  They are hoping to implement a wireless cabin system to solve this problem. The project for the Montana State University students is to conduct an intra passenger, head-end server based, seat based and internet based gaming study for a broadband on-board wireless network platform.  The study will include an overview of the current computer gaming industry, identifying trends and assessing future direction of the industry, and proposing potential architectures for the games to be supported through the wireless network.  The final goal is to provide passengers the gaming experience which is similar to or better than their home environment.

To accomplish this goal, Boeing has given us several specifications that our architecture must satisfy.  The specifications are divided into hardware requirements and network requirements.  The hardware requirements for the project are listed below.

�        Power Consumption limited to 25 Watts per seat

�        No hard drives are allowed at the seat (Flash Memory Ok)

�        No fans or active cooling elements allowed for heat dissipation

�        Processor must be 1GHz or less

The network requirements for the project are:

�        Wireless 802.11 a or n

�        Throughput at the seat is 1 Mb/s per seat

�        Wireless coverage will allow 18-20 seats per access point

�        Each seat will be in view of 3-4 access points

�        15 or more access points per cabin

�        Fiber backbone interconnecting access points

By creating an architecture which satisfies the above hardware and network requirements, we will present Boeing with a proper and sufficient design.

Link toTraffic Modeling Page (under construction)

Link to Boeing 787 Page

Link to Project Work Page

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