Safran Passenger Innovations (SPI) has enjoyed an impressive trajectory in embedded inflight entertainment and today is seen as delivering proverbial ‘Cadillac’ IFE systems to airlines around the globe.
In the less than 15 years since its RAVE-branded IFE debuted with all-new innovations — first via predecessors IMS and later Zodiac Inflight Innovations which was acquired by Safran — SPI has seen its system installed on thousands of aircraft, with many airline contracts seemingly never even publicly announced, such as the IFE hardware aboard Starlux’s A350-900s or Icelandair’s Boeing 737 MAX twinjets.
Also of note, SPI is a key partner to Lufthansa as the airline rolls out its Allegris nextgen long-haul product. And a joint ideation project between SPI and Lufthansa led to the launch of new docked companion tablets that enable Allegris business class passengers to control their IFE, seat functionality, lighting and thermal environment with the device. SPI confirms it is not bound by exclusivity and can supply similar products to other airlines.
But SPI is also focused on what it says is a more sustainable approach to embedded IFE. And so, when it set about to design its next-generation system, it didn’t just adopt new display and processor technology — 4K miniLED HDR 10+ Liquid Crystal Displays for the former and Snapdragon for the latter — it also focused on slashing weight to reduce CO2 emissions.
The result, RAVE Ultra plus, was first announced in 2023 with the promise that it will achieve, depending on aircraft type, up to 23% in weight savings over its immediate predecessor, RAVE Ultra, by using smaller and lighter line replaceable units and optimizing cable weights.
Some of the hardware was later showcased by SPI at the 2024 Aircraft Interiors Expo (AIX) in Hamburg. And at that time, the manufacturer also committed to offering the new miniLED LCD displays beyond just premium classes but rather across all travel classes and screen sizes: 13.3″, 15.6”, 17.3” and 32”.
RAVE Ultra plus builds on the foundation of SPI’s award-winning RAVE Seat-Centric IFE, which broke the mold in aviation with local storage and docked screens that can be easily replaced or upgraded, and RAVE Ultra, which served as SPI’s foray into a new kind of architecture whereby each screen system contains local content but also works as part of a cloud of drives to open up terabytes of storage for thousands of hours of content. The RAVE Ultra displays are also backward compatible with SPI’s legacy RAVE meaning airlines can mix and match displays on the common backbone.
Impressively, however, the “plus” part of the new nextgen RAVE Ultra plus system takes this cloud-based architecture to another level, and represents a variety of new technologies, company vice president of products and strategy Ben Asmar explained to RGN at AIX 2024.
For one, the move to bring much more powerful Snapdragon processors onboard allows SPI to “take all of the displays we have on the aircraft and put them together into a cloud networked storage and processing solution. So, we’re taking the same concept that, say, an Amazon does on the ground, where they have a ton of servers all communicating together with virtualized environments to serve applications and we’re replicating that on the plane by knitting all these screens together to make a virtualized server infrastructure and storage infrastructure,” Asmar said.
“So we’ll have the power of 300 Snapdragon processors [on a widebody] that can do distributed processing for anything you can imagine onboard.” This in turn eradicates the need for a head-end box, saving crucial weight. “The only thing we need the head-end for is aircraft interfaces,” he noted.
“There is going to be a terabyte (TB) in each of these displays which means I can provide 300 terabytes of storage space which allows us to do really interesting things in the future” including facilitating edge caching (storing streaming video locally after it has been accessed online by a passenger) as part of SPI’s new RAVE Cloud Services portfolio.
SPI showcased its new miniLED LCD displays at AIX 2024. It is also offering the option of a new tethered second screen device which can be used as a remote control (the passenger’s own device can also be paired with the IFE system).
Also driving weight savings is a decision by SPI to tuck a lightweight DC power system into the seat leg to power its RAVE Ultra plus 13.3″ displays in economy class and provide up to 60W of USB charging per passenger. “It doesn’t take any room from the passenger,” Asmar noted.
The DC power system/seat leg integration is discreet.
SPI also developed a product that allows AC power in economy to be selected as an option, explaining thusly: “The solution is deployed by distributing AC power directly to AC outlets located in every seat from a small number of power distribution points located throughout the cabin. This means AC power can be offered in every seat without the need for an AC seat power box in every seat group – an industry first.”
As ever with the RAVE product line, the RAVE Ultra plus system features inherent modularity. For example, below each 13.3″ display sits what Asmar calls “the little pill at the front” which features the USB ports and the audio socket, presently available in four combos (including USB-A and/or USB-C).
So if a passenger manages to jam something into one of the ports and breaks it, no worries. “Rather than replacing the whole display, all I’m doing is replacing this small pill, which means I’m serviceable,” said the SPI executive.
The same holds true for when it’s time to phase out USB-A; the peripherals can be easily swapped out and upgraded.
For RAVE Ultra plus, SPI has also adopted what’s called ‘reduced paired Ethernet’ — technology it borrowed from the automotive industry.
Describing the solution to RGN, Asmar said: “An Ethernet cable is eight wires. Reduced paired means there’s only two to still deliver 1000BASE-T Ethernet. There’s roundabout a kilometer-and-a-half of IFE cabling on an aircraft. So, if I can reduce its weight by over half, then I’m saving an enormous amount of weight that’s actually not seen by anyone.”
“I’m not reducing any passenger services, but I’m saving an incredible amount of weight and sustainability is one of the key elements of what RAVE Ultra plus is about.”
All in, the choices made by SPI for RAVE Ultra plus bring the Brea, California-headquartered firm much closer to reaching the Holy Grail vision described by IMS to your author nearly 15 years ago, wherein the head-end box is removed, and rapid content delivery is supported but cable weight is reduced.
“It’s now coming true,” Asmar said. The new screens are expected to debut in premium cabins in the near future, and the broader RAVE Ultra plus ecosystem should be flying in a couple of years.
It would seem that Safran Passenger Innovations is seeking to leave no weight-reduction or sustainability stone unturned in its pursuit of a more environmentally-conscious IFE system.
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All images of SPI hardware credited to Mary Kirby
