B-AMC — broadband aeronautical multi-carrier communications

The broadband aeronautical multi-carrier communications (B-AMC) system is a promising candidate for the future L-band radio system called L-band digital aeronautical communications system (L-DACS). In this paper, the design of the physical (PHY) as well as of the data link layer (DLL) is addressed. As B-AMC is intended to be operated in the L-band between two adjacent distance measuring equipment (DME) channels, the avoidance of mutual interference between existing L-band systems and B-AMC has been in the focus of the PHY layer design. In order to demonstrate the feasibility of the coexistence with DME, a draft frequency planning has been performed for Europe, resulting in successful frequency assignments in wide parts of Europe. The B-AMC DLL supports data link communication with low latency and high throughput. It is designed to be highly configurable and to support different service requirement sets and traffic profiles. In this paper, the current DLL configuration featuring a low RL duty-cycle and graceful degradation is discussed in detail.