DVB-S2/RCS Suitability for the Provision of Air Traffic Management Services

Abstract

Safe flying in a future, crowded airspace will require significantly increased volumes of information exchanges, as well as reliable and adequate transfer mechanisms for both the air/ground and the air/air segments. However, current communications systems will not be able to support the estimated traffic growth using today’s operational data links or the upcoming data links already under development. A new Air Traffic Management communications infrastructure is hence required for the future. A very likely scenario for forthcoming aircraft communication includes satellite links as an essential component in order to meet the QoS requirements in terms of coverage, availability, priority and integrity. This work evaluates the suitability of DVB-S2/RCS for the provision of Air Trafficc Management services and discusses possible designs for network architecture, resource management concepts and security issues.