Digital air/ground communications for air traffic control

MITRE's Center for Advanced Aviation System Development (CAASD) has developed an operational concept and a prototype system for the future VHF communications system. The system will be digital, using efficient coding and modulation techniques to offer multiple access capabilities for both voice and data message transfer. Many of the system parameters identified in the MITRE design are based on features found in cellular telephone and military communications. The principal performance factor is the addition of data, fully integrated with voice, while offering an increase in throughput. The current architecture is structured to put priority on the uplink voice messages while offering significant information capacity capabilities for external data sources. When digital data and voice communication systems mature in the ATC environment, a natural evolution to more data traffic and less voice will occur. At that time a simple restructuring of the channel assignments and priorities could offer increased throughput for connection to ground based data sources such as high capacity routers.