Axinom extends On‑Board Cloud across all cabin devices
Axinom's On-Board Cloud will turn every device onboard into an edge node of the cloud infrastructure
Axinom has announced that it is extending On-Board Cloud across the cabin itself, onto seatback screens and mobile devices, turning every device onboard into an edge node of the cloud infrastructure.
Devices that have always been systems of their own become part of a single cabin environment, and it does not stop at the aircraft door: every device in it is connected to the cloud. What gets built on it is the airline’s decision, and the range is wide. A seatback screen that dims the reading light and reclines the seat, because the devices around it already speak the same language. A coffee maker that reports a failing heating element while the aircraft is still in the air, so maintenance is waiting at the gate with the part. Live flight data reaching the moving map, the crew tablet, and the passenger’s own phone at the same time. A multiplayer game added to the screens on long-haul routes, or a partner’s app to premium cabins only, chosen from the ground.
"A seatback screen, a crew tablet, the oven in the galley: these are all just devices running services, and there is no reason for each of them to sit in a separate system. But a unified platform is not enough by itself. It has to be open, so that devices from any manufacturer work together and any application can run, whether the airline built it or a third party did. That is how an airline takes back the decisions about what happens in its cabin," said Ralph Wagner, CEO of Axinom.
On-Board Cloud builds on open standards, among them ARINC 853, the Cabin Secure Media-Independent Messaging (CSMIM) standard, so devices from different manufacturers exchange information seamlessly. Applications are treated the same way: written by the airline or by a third party, they run on the same platform and are managed from the cloud. On board, this takes shape in components such as an app launcher for the seatback screen, a CSMIM broker for cabin messaging, passenger authentication that pairs a personal device with the seat, and edge caching that keeps files close to the devices using them, filling continuously rather than on a synchronization schedule.
Established features of On-Board Cloud such as secure, efficient synchronization between cabin and ground, central management of fleet and devices and deployment of services on the server continue exactly as before, now reaching onto the seatback screen and into the hands of passengers and crew. The platform also remains hardware-agnostic, working with what is already installed in the cabin, including legacy infrastructure, and supporting partial deployments, so an airline can start with part of its cabin or part of its fleet and extend from there.
Taken together, this expansion turns Axinom On-Board Cloud into the foundation for an open, cloud-based seatback platform. The seatback becomes the airline’s own digital surface for entertainment, commerce, loyalty, and crew and disruption services, with the cloud serving as the brain. A platform built to grow with the airline’s ambitions.
Axinom will present On-Board Cloud at the World Aviation Festival in Lisbon, October 13 to 15, and at APEX FTE Expo Asia in Singapore, November 18 to 19.
