Future Aeronautical Communications. Institute of Communications and Navigation, German Aerospace Center

390 Pages·28.371 MB·English

by  Plass S.(Ed.)

FUTURE AERONAUTICAL
COMMUNICATIONS
Second Edition
Edited by Simon Plass
FUTURE AERONAUTICAL
COMMUNICATIONS
Edited by Simon Plass
Future Aeronautical Communications
Edited by Simon Plass

Copyright © 2016 Second Edition
All chapters are Open Access articles distributed under the Creative Commons
Non Commercial Share Alike Attribution 3.0 license, which permits to copy,
distribute, transmit, and adapt the work in any medium, so long as the original
work is properly cited. After this work has been published, authors
have the right to republish it, in whole or part, in any publication of which they
are the author, and to make other personal use of the work. Any republication,
referencing or personal use of the work must explicitly identify the original source.
Statements and opinions expressed in the chapters are these of the individual
contributors and not necessarily those of the editors or publisher. No responsibility is
accepted
for the accuracy of information contained in the published articles. The publisher
assumes no responsibility for any damage or injury to persons or property arising out
of the use of any materials, instructions, methods or ideas contained in the book.
First published September, 2011 second - 2016
ISBN-10: 953-307-625-9
ISBN-13: 978-953-307-625-6

Contents

Preface IX
Part 1 Current Trends 1
Chapter 1 SESAR and SANDRA: A Co-Operative
Approach for Future Aeronautical Communications 3
Angeloluca Barba and Federica Battisti
Chapter 2 Handling Transition from
Legacy Aircraft Communication Services to
New Ones – A Communication Service Provider's View 25
Frederic Durand and Luc Longpre
Part 2 Future Aeronautical Network Aspects 55
Chapter 3 SOA-Based Aeronautical Service Integration 57
Yifang Liu, Yongqiang Cheng, Yim Fun Hu,
Prashant Pillai and Vincenzo Esposito
Chapter 4 Transport Protocol for Future Aeronautics 83
Muhammad Muhammad and Matteo Berioli
Chapter 5 Security Concepts in
IPv6 Based Aeronautical Communications 101
Tommaso Pecorella, Romano Fantacci, Luigia Micciullo,
Antonietta Stango, Neeli Prasad, Piotr Pacyna,
Norbert Rapacz and Tomasz Chmielecki
Chapter 6 Quality of Service Management and Interoperability 129
Christian Kissling and Tomaso de Cola
Chapter 7 Interoperability Among Heterogeneous
Networks for Future Aeronautical Communications 147
Kai Xu, Prashant Pillai,
Yim Fun Hu and Muhammad Ali
VI Contents

Chapter 8 Design Aspects of a Testbed for an
IPv6-Based Future Network for
Aeronautical Safety and Non-Safety Communication 171
Oliver Lücke and Eriza Hafid Fazli
Part 3 Challenges for the Satellite Component 185
Chapter 9 The Role of Satellite Systems in
Future Aeronautical Communications 181
Nicolas Van Wambeke and Mathieu Gineste
Chapter 10 Development of a Broadband and
Squint-Free K -Band Phased Array Antenna
u
System for Airborne Satellite Communications 201
David Marpaung, Chris Roeloffzen, Willem Beeker,
Bertrand Noharet, Jaco Verpoorte and Rens Baggen
Part 4 Future Aeronautical Data Links 225
Chapter 11 Future Aeronautical Communications:
The Data Link Component 227
Nikos Fistas
Chapter 12 Aeronautical Mobile Airport
Communications System (AeroMACS) 235
James M. Budinger and Edward Hall
Chapter 13 Utilizing IEEE 802.16 for
Aeronautical Communications 263
Max Ehammer, Thomas Gräupl and Elias Pschernig
Chapter 14 The LDACS1 Link Layer Design 291
Thomas Gräupl and Max Ehammer
Chapter 15 The LDACS1 Physical Layer Design 317
Snjezana Gligorevic, Ulrich Epple and Michael Schnell
Part 5 Visions for Aeronautics
Chapter 16 IFAR – The International Forum
for Aviation Research 335
Richard Degenhardt, Joachim Szodruch and Simon Plass
Chapter 17 The Airborne Internet 349
Daniel Medina and Felix Hoffmann

Preface

Introduction
There are well-founded concerns that current air transportation systems will not be
able to cope with their expected growth. Current processes, procedures and
technologies in aeronautical communications do not provide the flexibility needed to
meet the growing demands. Aeronautical communications is seen as one major
bottleneck stressing capacity limits in air transportation. Ongoing research projects are
developing the fundamental methods, concepts and technologies for future
aeronautical communications that are required to enable higher capacities in air
transportation.
A study of EUROCONTROL states achievement of the aeronautical communications
capacities in Europe in the next decade. Still, the main aeronautical communications is
based on analog voice communication. The analog techniques are using the HF band
for remote and oceanic regions and the VHF band is used for populous continental
areas. There already exist aeronautical digital data links which do not increase a data
rate of about 32 kbits/s but accessible satellite links. Table 1 lists available digital
aeronautical data and satellite links. Moreover, the expected air traffic management
(ATM) paradigm shift towards more strategic and tactical planning requires
additional communication capabilities which are not provided by current air traffic
control (ATC) and ATM communication systems.

Technology Band Access Scheme Modulation Data Rate
VDL2
A VHF CSMA D8PSK 31.5 kbits/s
(VHF Data Link 2)
A ACARS VHF CSMA AM MSK 2.4 kbits/s
A HFDL (HF Data Link) HF TDMA MPSK 1.8 kbits/s
S Iridium L hybrid FDMA/TDMA DE-QPSK 9.6 kbits/s
combination of CDMA
S Globalstar L Offset-QPSK 9.6 kbits/s
with FDMA
S Inmarsat Swift Broadband L hybrid FDMA/TDMA QPSK / 16QAM < 450 kbits/s
Table 1. Existing digital aeronautical data links (A) and satellite links (S).
X Preface

From Vision to Action
Integrating existing and future communications infrastructure in a system of systems
is the vision of the future communications infrastructure (FCI) to enable the goals
for a safe, secure and capable future ATM communications. In 2003 ICAO expressed
the need of new functionalities in aeronautical communications by an evolutionary
approach. The Action Plan 17 by EUROCONTROL and the US Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) developed a comprehensive view of the overall needs in 2007.
From 2007 to 2009, the EU research project NEWSKY (NEtWorking the SKY)
addressed these demands by launching a first feasibility study for a global airborne
network design and developing initial specifications for a new aeronautical
communications network based on Internet technologies (IPv6). Also the EU
research project SANDRA (Seamless Aeronautical Networking through integration
of Data-links, Radios and Antennas) aims at designing and implementing an
integrated aeronautical communications system and validating it through a testbed
and further in-flight trails on an Airbus 320. Both, the FAA and the European
Commission support intensive studies in this field, namely by the NextGen and
SESAR programs. Of course, additional effort is and has to be spent in the area of
future aeronautical data links, i.e., satellite, L-band Digital Aeronautical
Communication System (LDACS), AeroMACS to facilitate the concept of a seamless
aeronautical network.
Outline of the Book
This book assembles recent research results, emerging technologies and trends in the
field of aeronautical communications. The book is organized in 5 parts covering
occurring trends, aspects for future aeronautical networks, the challenges for the
satellite component, emerging aeronautical data links, and visions for aeronautical
communications.
In the first part, Barba & Battisti give an insight of the recent SESAR program and the
SANDRA research project including their main objectives, research activities and their
collaboration. Current trends for datalink service providers (DSPs) are indentified by
Durand & Longpre and also new emerging roles and its new players for future aircraft
IT systems and associated ground components are discussed.
Future aeronautical network aspects are covered in the second part. The integration of
a service-oriented architecture in an aeronautical communications environment is
shown in the chapter of Yifang et al. whereas the system wide information
management (SWIM) ground-to-ground services are extended to air-to-ground
information exchange. Muhammad & Berioli investigate the influence of the different
data traffic characteristics by ATM communications to the transmission control
protocol (TCP) and detailed analysis of the ATM traffic pattern and suggestions on the
system design are given. Due to safety and security requirements an aeronautical
communications system is a critical infrastructure. Pecorella et al. give an overview of
Preface XI

security risks and major difference to a classical IP based network for an IPv6 based
aeronautical communications network. By approaching the lower layers of a
communications network, Kissling & de Cola study the aspects for quality of service
(QoS) management in the ATM context covering also the architecture for selection of
links and their interaction between technology independent and technology
dependent components. The following chapter goes into more detail regarding the
needed interoperability among the heterogeneous future aeronautical network. Xu et
al. present the required functionalities for a smooth communication between the upper
and lower layers of an aeronautical communications system. Finally, Lücke & Fazli
show different design aspects for an IPv6-based aeronautical communications testbed
and highlight several technical details such as IPv6 over IPv4 network transversal and
robust header compression.
Already facing and upcoming challenges for the satellite component in an entire
aeronautical communications system are discussed in the fourth part. An overview of
the current trends, requirements and problems for a future aeronautical satellite
communications link are given by Van Wambeke & Gineste. Reliability, low
maintenance and broadband connectivity are main goals of a satellite antenna
component. Marpaung et al. present the development of an electronically-steered
phased array antenna system included optical beamforming and the resulting
challenges.
At the airport, the highest density of information for flight operations exists and a
secure wideband wireless communications system is proposed: AeroMACS. Also the
existing VHF analog voice communications and VDL2 are a bottleneck for the ground-
based aeronautical communications today. Therefore, new aeronautical data links are
needed. Fistas describes the European view and approach on the FCI and its future
proposed data links: AeroMACS; LDACS and a satellite component. An overall view
on the development of AeroMACS and a first realized prototype implementation in
Cleveland, Ohio, USA is given by Budinger & Hall. Details on the AeroMACS profile
including the MAC layer design and the use of IPv6 over AeroMACS are discussed by
Ehammer et al. The second proposed future aeronautical data link is LDACS for
ground-based communications. Special focus in the following two chapters is on the
LDACS1 proposal. The functional architecture and its medium access for such a link
are analyzed by Gräupl & Ehammer, and furthermore, simulation results are provided.
The closing chapter of this part handles the physical layer design of LDACS1 giving
details on the frame structure, coding/modulation, out-of-band radiation and receiver
design by Gligorevic et al.
Without any vision in research there would be no future and new goals. One vision
booster is the new international platform of national aviation research organizations:
International Forum for Aviation Research (IFAR). Now with 21 members, in this
last part Degenhardt et al. introduce this new platform with a special focus on the
aeronautical communications aspect. The final chapter introduces the concept of an