B-VHF - a multi-carrier based broadband VHF communications concept for air traffic management

In this paper, we introduce the B-VHF project which is funded by the European Commission and has started in January 2004. The prime goal of the B-VHF project is to verify the feasibility of broadband VHF aeronautical communications system based on multi-carrier technology and to demonstrate its benefits to the aeronautical community. The project deals with the investigation, design, and evaluation of a broadband overlay communications system for air traffic control (ATC) and air traffic management (ATM) communications in the VHF band. This overlay concept facilitates in-band transition from the current to a future ATC communications system and, thus, allows future ATC communications to remain in the advantageous and protected VHF band. The focus in this paper is on the technical approach for realizing the overlay concept and on the system architecture concept behind B-VHF. The proposed transmission system, which permits the parallel operation with the current DSB-AM system, utilizes multicarrier technologies which are based on orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM)