Air Traffic Management
With the increase of flights in the recent days, air traffic management has become a challenge. Efficient management of flights require both advance technology and skilled human involvement. The purpose is to provide safety to the aircrafts in the air and also on the ground. Air traffic management system composed of two main parts ground station (GS) and aircraft stations (ASs).
Air traffic management has been divided into following 3 processes.
1.Airspace management
2.Air traffic flow and capacity management
3.Air traffic control
Airspace management involves management of routes flights need to follow during their journey from source to the destination. With the increase of air traffic levels air space management is becoming more complex. This requires proper modelling of routes across the air ways much like the routes on the roadways.
After the routes are laid down the next process is to manage the number of flights with the use of limited resources available at the ground in the form of air traffic controller. Each aircraft voluntarily sends the flight details to the central station (GS) and the same need to be managed based on the capacity by air traffic flow and capacity management.
Air traffic control takes care of flight separation at the airport during take off and landing as well as during the journey in the sky.
LDACS for Air traffic management
Due to increase of aircrafts for air travel monitoring and control is becoming challange in the future. EUROCONTROL is working towards LDACS technology for better Air traffic management of Aircrafts at the Airport as well as during their travel path from the source to the destination.
LDACS stands for L Band Digital Aeronautical Communication System designed for better communication between Air crafts and Ground station. This is the future of air traffic management system. There are two main types of LDACS viz. LDACS1 and LDACS2. This is based on modulation scheme and physical layer needed for air traffic data and control signals to be transmitted over the air between Aircraft station and ground station.
L band frequency spectrum from band 960MHz to 1164MHz is identified as spectrum for communication between Aircraft station(AS) and Ground station(GS). As mentioned LDACS1 and LDACS2 project proposals have been identified for Air Navigation system by Eurocontrol. Eurocontrol is the European organization for safety of the air navigation systems.
Various wireless technologies are used for air traffic management and control in aeronautical communication applications. It includes measurement of distance, aircraft collision avoidance, surveillance beaconing etc. LDACS is used for data communications between the aircraft plane, ATC, AOC and AAC. LDACS1 uses multicarrier modulation scheme OFDM and LDACS2 uses single carrier modulation scheme as GMSK.
LDACS RELATED LINKS
Refer following links on LDACS used for air traffic management which covers LDACS1 and LDACS2 Physical layers, LDACS1 and LDACS2 frame structures and provide difference between LDACS1 and LDACS2.
Difference between LDACS1 versus LDACS2
LDACS1 frame structure
LDACS2 frame structure
LDACS1 physical layer
LDACS2 physical layer