Method and system for compression for ACARS and related transmissions

1. A method of communicating a data file over an aircraft communications addressing and reporting system (ACARS), the method comprising:

determining a type of data represented in the data file;

analyzing data in the data file wherein the data has a data type of at least one of HTML, XML, Portable Network Graphics, or Comma Separated Value;

selecting an encoding scheme from a plurality of encoding schemes based upon the type of data and the data in the data file;

encoding one or more messages to represent the data file according to the selected encoding scheme, wherein the one or more messages comply with a protocol defined by ARINC 618 and the encoding losslessly compresses the data into the one or more messages;

tagging the one or more messages to indicate the selected encoding scheme; and

transmitting the one or more messages over the character-oriented data link.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein selecting the encoding scheme includes determining a number of available characters in the protocol defined by ARINC 618;

determining a number of characters in the data file; and

comparing the number of available characters in the protocol defined by ARINC 618 to the number of characters in the data file.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the one or more messages are encapsulated in a second data link protocol.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the second data link protocol is VDL-2.

5. The method of claim 3 wherein the second data link protocol is a multiple network layer protocol.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the plurality of encoding schemes comprises a run-length encoder and a Huffman encoder.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the plurality of encoding schemes are located in a compression database.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the tagging comprises including an encoded header symbol in the one or more messages.

9. A system to compress data of a data file for transmission on a radio frequency data link communication network, the system comprising:

an aircraft communications addressing and reporting system (ACARS) onboard an aircraft, the ACARS configured to:

determine a type of data represented in the data file wherein the type of data is at least one of of HTML, XML, Portable Network Graphics, or Comma Separated Value;

analyze data in the data file;

encode one or more messages to represent the data file; and

tag the one or more messages to indicate the encoding and

a compression database storing a plurality of encoding schemes;

wherein the ACARS selects one of the plurality of encoding schemes, losslessly compresses the data into the one or more messages, and transmits the one or more messages over a data link defined by ARINC 618.

10. The system of claim 9 wherein the compression database storing a plurality of encoding schemes indexes the schemes based upon a type of data.

11. The system of claim 9 wherein the radio frequency data link is VDL-2.

12. The system of claim 9 wherein the ACARS further includes a processor.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein the compression database is located in memory accessible by the processor.