Digital air/ground communications for air traffic control

The early 1990's communications for air traffic control (ATC) uses analog single channel radios with conventional amplitude modulation (AM) in the very high frequency (VHF) band. To overcome eventual saturation of the current system, a sample “next generation” ATC communications system has been designed to increase capabilities and provide a graceful transition from the current system. The new ATC communication system must address problems with the modulation format and a balance between increased channel capacity and overall cost. The controller/pilot workloads can be reduced in that the information segments allow for either semi-automatic or fully automatic handoff or frequency change. The principal performance factor is the addition of data, fully integrated with voice, while offering an increase in throughput. The architecture is structured to put priority on the uplink voice messages while offering significant information capacity capabilities for external data sources. When digital data and voice communication systems mature in the ATC environment, a natural evolution to more data traffic and less voice will occur. At that time, a simple restructuring of the channel assignments and priorities could offer increased throughput for connection to ground based data sources such as high capacity routers