AERONAUTICAL MOBILE COMMUNICATIONS PANEL (AMCP)
Working Group C – 5th meeting
Kobe, Japan
15 – 25 October 2002
AMCP/8 REPORT, non-ATS communications
Presented by Kors van den Boogaard
The attached material is related to the need for non-ATS communications and is proposed for consideration in the report to AMCP/8
Non-ATS Air-Ground Communication Services
1.1 Introduction
1.1.1 The need for non-ATS Air-Ground Communication Requirements is growing significantly due to the increased complexity of operations and the trend towards a full global personal communications mobility. To the extent that it is technically and institutionally feasible the infrastructure supporting the ATS communications should also be capable of supporting the non-ATS communications.
1.1.2 The non-ATS Air-Ground communication requirements can be divided into the following services:
· Airline Operational Control (AOC): services involving data transfer between the aircraft and the Airline Operational Centre or operational staff at the airport associated with the safety and regularity of flights.
· Airline Administrative Communications (AAC): applications concerned with administrative aspects of airline business such as crew rosters and cabin provisions.
· Airline Passenger Correspondence (APC): communication services that are offered to passengers (e-mail, Internet access and telephony).
1.1.3 AAC and APC are non-safety communication services which are not authorised to operate in radio bands allocated solely for aeronautical safety communication services,therefore they are not being dealt within this document. A communications infrastructure providing safety and non-safety services without degradation in QOS for safety communications could provide significant economic efficiencies.
1.2 Airline Operational Communications
1.2 General
1.2.1 Aeronautical Operational Communications (AOC) services are concerned with the safety and regularity of flight and as such are defined in Annex 6 of the ICAO Convention. AOC applications involve data transfer between the aircraft and the Airline Operational Centre or operational staff at the airport.
1.2.2 AOC voice communications have been conducted almost since the beginning of aviation. After the introduction of ACARS (Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System) in the early sixties, AOC has played a major role in increasing safety and efficiency. ACARS is a character-oriented system, which is deployed on a VHF analogue data link but can also operate over VDL Mode 2, HFDL and AMSS Data Link. Over time the AOC character oriented applications will evolve towards a full bit oriented environment and the use of voice will diminish significantly. Exponentially AOC communication traffic will grow with air traffic as the messages per aircraft will also increase.
1.2.3 From the perpspective of the supporting communication infrastrcuture, the AOC communication can be typified in two categories:
· Communications at the Gate: Significant information exchange occurs between the airline operational staff and the aircraft when the aircraft is parked at the airport. This communication covers information elements such as take off data and software updates. In general these applications require high bandwidth and integrity, but are not time critical.
· En-Route communications: During flight various AOC applications are supported. There are routine applications such as flight following and aircraft performance monitoring, on demand applications such as weather updates and non-routing applications in case of system malfunctioning. The communication performance requirements for these applications will vary depending on phase of flight or the application.
1.3 AOC Applications
1.3.1 Current AOC Applications include:
· Out Off On In (OOOI)
· NOTAM Request/NOTAMS
· Free Text
· Weather Request/Weather
· Position Weather Report
· Flight Status
· Fuel Status
· Engine Performance Reports
· Maintenance Items
· Flight Plan Request/Flight Plan Data
· Loadsheet Request/LoadSheet Transfer
· Flight Log Transfer
1.3.2 Future Applications
When increased communication capacity becomes available the following additional AOC services are likely to be implemented in the 2005-2010 timeframe:
· Real Time Maintenance Information
· Graphical Weather Information
· Online Technical Trouble Shooting
· Real Time Weather Reports for Met Office
· Telemedicine
· Technical Log Book Update
· Cabin Log Book Transfer
· Update Electronic Library
· Software Loading
1.3.3 Further developments.
With the anticipated introduction of Collaborative Decision Making ATM concept there will be an increased need for AOC communication, although these applications could also be considered ATS communication.
Although there are at present a number of proposals to downlink both audio and video recordings during a flight, for security purposes it would be premature to take these into consideration.
1.4 QOS Requirements
The ACARS applications vary from routine to emergency and therefore there is range of QOS required. The following table provides an indication of the QOS parameters.
Parameter / ValueTransit Delay / 5-60 seconds
Availability / 94-99%
Accuracy / 10-6
Transferred in to the Required Communication Concept it would mean RCP type 5C through 60G.
1.5 Traffic Estimation
The following table, based on an average flight of one hour is a conservative estimate of the AOC traffic in one direction. For a specific application, the traffic has only being considerd in the direction of the main information flow and to achieve an aggregate value of the up and down link traffic it is assumed that the opposite direction is 10% of the main traffic direction.
Application / Message Size (Octets) / Freq. Per hour / Gate / En-routeCurrent Applications
Out/Off/On/IN (OOOI) / 40 / 4 / 160
NOTAM Request / 260/110 / 4 / 520 / 220
Free Text / 300 / 4 / 0 / 1200
Weather Request / 80 / 4 / 0 / 320
Position Weather Report / 260 / 2 / 0 / 520
Loadsheet Request / 80 / 1 / 0 / 80
Flight Status / 80 / 12 / 0 / 960
Fuel Status / 50 / 4 / 0 / 200
Engine Performance Reports / 100 / 4 / 0 / 400
Maintenance Report / 100 / 2 / 0 / 200
Flight Plan Transfer / 200 / 3 / 0 / 600
Load Sheet Transfer / 80 / 1 / 80 / 0
Flight Log Transfer / 100 / 2 / 0 / 200
Total Present / 600 / 5060
Pending Applications
Real Time Maintenance Information / 50 / 6 / 0 / 300
Graphical Weather Information / 2000 / 4 / 0 / 8000
Online Trouble Shooting / 500 / 5 / 0 / 2500
Real Time Weather Reports / 80 / 12 / 0 / 960
Telemedicine / 4000 / 1 / 0 / 4000
Technical Log Book Update / 400 / 1 / 400 / 0
Cabin Log Book Update / 400 / 1 / 400 / 0
Update Electronic Library / 4000 / 1 / 4000 / 0
Software Loading / 4000 / 1 / 4000 / 0
Total Pending / 8800 / 15760
Total Current and Pending / 9400 / 15.760
Total Up-Down Link (90 % Asymetric Traffic) / 10.340 / 17.336