Feasibility Study on Improving the Frequency Utilization for VHF COM in Airport Terminal Area

With the rapid development of the civil aviation transportation business, the frequency occupancy is increasing in VHF COM. The spectrum utilization mode will be changed from the fixed frequency planning mode to the dynamic utilization mode using spectrum holes. Fortunately, the radio cognitive communication can now be effectively used to improve the spectrum utilization efficiency. In order to verify the feasibility to improve spectrum utilization in VHF COM task, in this paper, the occupancy of VHF spectrum under different time scales is calculated by collecting the measured real data in the VHF COM band in the terminal areas of Guanghan airport. The results with the collected real spectrum data indicate that the frequency utilization efficiency is still low. And there is a large space for improving spectrum utilization. For the allocated spectrum resource at the Guanghan airport, it is feasible to improve the spectrum utilization by using radio cognitive technology but without the need to apply for new frequency resources specifically.