Analysis of temporal impairments on airborne VDL Mode 2 packet reception

Abstract

The FAA planned Data Communications Network Service (DCNS) will enable digital air/ground (A/G) communication between Air Traffic Control (ATC) facilities and VHF Digital Link (VDL) Mode 2 (VDL-2) equipped aircraft. In successive program segments, ATC services will evolve to include both 'essential' and 'safety critical' applications. Appropriate requirements will be imposed on the DCNS to transport these applications. These requirements will place challenging demands on the performance of the VDL-2 A/G links.Predicting and accommodating the impairments to the air-ground radio channel are necessary for the DCNS provider to deploy a design that assures endto-end performance requirements are satisfied. Good engineering practice requires the characterization of the air-ground radio channel and development of detailed link budgets. Certain significant VDL-2 channel impairments are intermittent (temporal) and add complexity to the analysis.

VHF data Link communications to provide air traffic services in Colombia

“…Therefore, it is able to withstand the protocols required for different operational applications, increasing significantly the effective use of VHF channel [3]. The VDL Mode 2 equipment installed both on board and on ground should have the ability to tune any channel in band 118.0 to 136.975 MHz with channel separation of 25 kHz [14,6,29].…”