Broadband NCI-OFDM aeronautical communications in L-band

In order to provide broadband Air-to-Ground (A/G) data links for aeronautical communications, the NCI-OFDM system is considered in L-band system. Within L-band, there are spectrums assigned to the traditional navigation system, such as Distance Measuring Equipment (DME). Therefore, the NCI-OFDM system should make use of the spectrum gaps and holes which are not occupied by the navigation system. Similar to the NCI-OFDM system in VHF band, the L-band NCI-OFDM system should not interfere with the DME system, i.e., the out-of-band interferences are limited. In this paper, the L-band NCI-OFDM system is established for broadband A/G communications. Compared with the OFDM based L-DACS1 system, the L-band NCI-OFDM system shows better performance in Bit Error Ratio (BER), Peak-to-Average-Power-Ratio (PAPR), out-of-band interference and Inter-Carrier Interference(ICI), which proves more suitable to be used in the high speed mobile environment of aircrafts.