Commercial Link 16 for ATC Application

摘要

The Current air traffic control (ATC) systems rely heavily on Voice waveforms for control of the air space. This is severely limited by the principal of one controller per sector at one frequency. Voice has a limited spectrum and the present set of frequencies in both the US and Europe is extremely congested. This limits the number of aircraft that can safely operate in a sector, increases the probability of operational errors by controllers, and adds to the overall high stress environment of the controllers. A more flexible approach to ATC will increase airspace capacity while keeping safety at the highest standards. One approach to solve this problem is the utilization of a commercialized version of Link 16 to provide a seamless worldwide network for air traffic management. The Link 16 application can provide Traffic Situational Awareness, Conflict Detection and Prediction and ultimately Conflict Resolution. These features allow more aircraft to safely occupy the current air space sectors. Future ATC will not only have to support additional aircraft capacity but will also require security for data transfers that control the route and path of an aircraft. The Link 16 approach allows anti-hijack and anti-spoofing provisions as part of the basic network. This enables positive identification between aircraft and controller when exchanging flight path messages. The Link 16 approach supports a concept which utilizes data as a compliment to voice with the best available path (data or voice) chosen for each transaction between the controller and pilot. The waveform and spectrum for Link 16 also support more efficient use of the spectrum allowing multiple controllers on one data frequency. The availability of this increased data will enable new services to be introduced that will yield benefits across the airspace community. This paper/presentation describes how a representative Link 16 architecture implemented in a Software Defined Radio format can be implemented to support ATC. Utilizing this approach has the potential to reduce development costs by leveraging previous design approaches, reducing development risk through the use of established designs, and reducing the cost and risk of qualification by leveraging testing from a government sponsored program. Deployment of a Link 16 system for ATC application addresses top level network application as well as equipment approaches deployed in order to meet the changing requirements of this environment.