A study of future communications concepts and technologies for the national airspace system-Part I
The National Aviation and Space Administration (NASA) Glenn Research Center (GRC) is investigating current and anticipated wireless communications concepts and technologies that the National Airspace System (NAS) may need in the next 50 years. NASA has awarded three NASA Research Anouncements (NAR) studies with the objective to determine the most promising candidate technologies for air-to-air and air-to-ground data exchange and analyze their suitability in a post-NextGen NAS environment. This paper will present progress made in the studies and describe the communications challenges and opportunities that have been identified during the studies' first phase.
Analysis of AeroMACS Data Link for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Aeronautical Mobile Airport Communications System (AeroMACS) is based on the IEEE 802.16e mobile wireless standard commonly known as WiMAX. It is expected to be a main part of next-generation aviation communication system to support fixed and mobile services for manned and unmanned applications. AeroMACS will be an essential technology helping pave the way toward full integration of Unmanned Aircraft Vehicle (UAV) into the national airspace. A number of practical tests and analyses have been done so far for AeroMACS. The main contribution of this paper is to consider the theoretical concepts behind its features and discuss their suitability for UAVs’ applications. Mathematical analyses of AeroMACS physical layer framework is provided to show the theoretical trade-offs. We mainly focus on the analysis of AeroMACS OFDMA structure, which affects the speed limits, coverage cell, channel estimation requirements and intercarrier interference.
A study of future communications concepts and technologies for the national airspace system — Part III
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Glenn Research Center (GRC) is investigating current and anticipated wireless communications concepts and technologies that the National Airspace System (NAS) may need in the next 50 years. NASA has awarded three NASA Research Announcements (NAR) studies with the objective to determine the most promising candidate technologies for air-to-air and air-to-ground data exchange and analyze their suitability in a post-NextGen NAS environment. This paper will present progress made in the studies and describe the communications challenges and opportunities that have been identified as part of the study.