James Budinger

Technology Assessment Results of the Eurocontrol/FAA Future Communications Study

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Eurocontrol jointly initiated the future communications study (FCS) to develop a common approach for a globally harmonized air traffic management (ATM) communications system. The FCS includes operational concepts and communications requirements development, analysis of business and institutional elements, and identification and assessment of technology alternatives. The FCS technology assessment determined the best set of available technologies for aviation safety communications for ATM given key constraints such as cost, transition feasibility, technical requirements, and spectrum availability. From 2004 to 2007, the assessment progressed in three phases, yielding technical results and recommendations for development and phased implementation of a future aviation communications infrastructure.

Aeronautical mobile airport communications system development status

This paper summarizes recent activities to understand and establish technical standards for a C-Band airport surface communications system based on the IEEE 802.16e standard for mobile broadband data communications. This system is referred to as the Aeronautical Mobile Airport Communications System (AeroMACS).

Aeronautical Mobile Airport Communications System (AeroMACS)

To help increase the capacity and efficiency of the nation s airports, a secure wideband wireless communications system is proposed for use on the airport surface. This paper provides an overview of the research and development process for the Aeronautical Mobile Airport Communications System (AeroMACS). AeroMACS is based on a specific commercial profile of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.16 standard known as Wireless Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access or WiMAX (WiMax Forum). The paper includes background on the need for global interoperability in air/ground data communications, describes potential AeroMACS applications, addresses allocated frequency spectrum constraints, summarizes the international standardization process, and provides findings and recommendations from the world s first AeroMACS prototype implemented in Cleveland, Ohio, USA.

Improvement of L-DACS1 design by combining B-AMC with P34 and WiMAX technologies

All currently pursued Air Traffic Management (ATM) concepts and associated roadmaps, i.e. Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) in Europe and Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) in the USA, heavily rely upon trajectory exchange between airborne and ground automated systems. Facilitating such exchanges requires high performance Air-Ground (A/G) data link communications. The decision about what technology the future data link shall be based upon has not yet been taken, but it is obvious, that the selected data link technology must be globally accepted and standardized.

Progress on the development of future airport surface wireless communications network

Continuing advances in airport surface management and improvements in airport surface safety are required to enable future growth in air traffic throughout the airspace, as airport arrival and departure delays create a major system bottleneck. These airport management and safety advances will be built upon improved communications, navigation, surveillance, and weather sensing, creating an information environment supporting system automation. The efficient movement of the digital data generated from these systems requires an underlying communications network infrastructure to connect data sources with the intended users with the required quality of service. Current airport surface communications consists primarily of buried copper or fiber cable. Safety related communications with mobile airport surface assets occurs over 25 kHz VHF voice and data channels. The available VHF spectrum, already congested in many areas, will be insufficient to support future data traffic requirements. Therefore, a broadband wireless airport surface communications network is considered a requirement for the future airport component of the air transportation system. Progress has been made on defining the technology and frequency spectrum for the airport surface wireless communications network. The development of a test and demonstration facility and the definition of required testing and standards development are now underway. This paper will review the progress and planned future work.

Future communication study technology investigation conclusions and recommendations

The aim of the work was the investigation of potential communications technologies to support the long-term aeronautical mobile air-ground data link communication requirements considering terrestrial and satellite based infrastructure. This paper presents the assessment of the final five candidate technologies, and also provides an overview of the entire technology assessment process, including final findings and recommendations of the future communication study (FCS) technology investigation and assessment.

Future Communication Study Technology Investigations

One goal of the Future Communication Study (FCS) cooperative research program is the investigation of candidate communications technologies to identify those that can support the long-term aeronautical mobile air-ground communication operating concept. The FCS was initiated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and EUROCONTROL to support the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Aeronautical Communication Panel (ACP) Working Group C (WG-C) (for aeronautical communications) activities to investigate technologies to meet emerging concepts of operation and communication requirements for the future [air/ground] radio system (FRS). The study is in its third and final year (due to complete later in 2007). The FAA requested NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) to conduct the FCS technology investigation task for the U.S. GRC has contracted with ITT Corporation to perform the task which includes the development of evaluation criteria derived from requirements, screening of candidate technologies, in-depth technology studies and evaluation to identify most promising technology candidates for all airspace domains. This paper provides and overview of the FCS technology investigation progress, providing results and status on the topic areas noted above. The paper concludes a description of on-going and future work that will be conducted to conclude the FCS and support development of technology recommendations.

Leveraging 802.16e in airport surface communications networks

The National Airspace System (NAS) is rapidly expanding and straining the capabilities of current communications technologies. The need to implement increased capacity, security and network enabled information sharing in limited spectrum will pose a significant challenge. To address these issues in the Next Generation (NextGen) airspace and develop a robust future communications infrastructure, a new airport surface wireless communications system is necessary.

AeroMACS prototype test results

• Standards are under development for the Aeronautical Mobile Airport Communications System (AeroMACS) • An AeroMACS system profile for the proposed C-Band AeroMACS has been developed in the RTCA SC-223 with collaboration with EUROCAE WG-82 • Presented here is a summary of the test research conducted by ITT for NASA and FAA in 2010 • An official NASA Contractor Report (NASA/CR-2010–216324) for ITTs 2009 research is posted to the NASA Glenn Technical Reports Server http://ntrs.nasa.gov/ • An official NASA Contractor Report in two volumes (CR-2011–216997-VOL I and VOL II) for ITTs 2010 research will be posted to the NASA Glenn Technical Reports Server http://ntrs.nasa.gov/ later in May