ACP WG-C9/WP-aa

AERONAUTICAL COMMUNICATIONS PANEL (ACP)

Working Group N

Montreal, Canada

20-29 May, 2005

Agenda Item: tbd

The Status of the Future Communication Study

Operating Concepts and Requirements Work

Presented by Brent Philips and Jacky Pouzet

Prepared by Gregg Anderson & Danny Van Roosbroek

SUMMARY

This working paper provides a report on the activities associated with collecting and specifying the operational concepts and requirements under the Future Communications Study, being conducted in accordance with the joint EUROCONTROL/FAA Action Plan 17.

1.Background

This paper describes the activities undertaken under the joint EUROCONTROL/FAA Action Plan 17.

The study is to identify potential future communication technologies to meet global requirements for safety and regularity of flight communications i.e. those supporting Air Traffic Services (ATS) and Aeronautical Operational Communications (AOC) as a joint effort in the ICAO process.

2.Operational requirements and technology investigation

Among the different tasks, the Action Plan includes, two main tasks which are being progressed on an iterative basis and presented jointly in this paper. The first refers to identification of the operating concept and requirements and the second is related to the technology investigation.

2.1Process

The process to progress these two activities is shown diagrammatically below.

2.1.1Initial and Final Communications Operating Concepts and Requirements (ICOCR and FCOCR)

The purpose of the FCS Initial Communications Operating Concept and Requirements (ICOCR) is to develop a mutual understanding of the:

  • future communications concepts of operation
  • services necessary to achieve the operational concepts, and
  • environment(s) in which the services will be delivered

The ICOCR contains the initial communication operating concept and requirements to provide information to assist the future communications study (FCS). It has guided the down selection process of technologies as well as the identification of the most promising candidate(s).

The Operational Concepts and Requirements team comprised of members from FAA and EUROCONTROL was formed in late May 2004 to perform the concepts and requirements definition phases of AP-17. The concepts were analyzed and services supporting those concepts were developed. Much of the information utilized came from, or was derived based upon, existing ICAO, RTCA, EUROCAE, EUROCONTROL & FAA documents and related activities.

The ICOCR captures operational services and environment information associated with the future concepts. Its scope encompasses Air Traffic Services, Flight Information Services and Aeronautical Operational Control (AOC) Services that require both voice and data operations. The ICOCR now addresses the timeframe 2015-2030.

The ICOCR contains excerpts from many authoritative U.S. and European documents which set the baseline operating concept, services and operating environment in place until approximately 2025. Excerpted material was used purposefully, to reflect existing consensus, to avoid unnecessary replication of seminal work, and to facilitate rapid acceptance. Documents referenced include the following:

1ICAO Global ATM Operational Concept

2Safety and Performance Requirements Standard for Air Traffic Data Link Services in Continental Airspace – RTCA DO-290/EUROCAE ED-120

3EUROCONTROL Operational Requirements for Air/Ground Cooperative Air Traffic Services – AGC ORD-01

4Next Generation Air/Ground Communications (NEXCOM) – RTCA DO-284

5Roadmap for the Implementation of Data Link Services in European Air Traffic Management (ATM: Non ATS Applications) – European Commission

6Minimum Aviation System Performance Standards for Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast – RTCA DO-242A

7Joint Planning & Development Office: End State Description for the Next Generation Air Transportation System, July 2004

8RTCA National Airspace System Concept of Operations and Vision for the Future of Aviation

9EUROCONTROL ATM Operating Concept Volume 1, Concept of Operations, Year 2011

10IATA - ATM Implementation Roadmap – Short and Medium Term – Release Version 1.0 – 15th October 2004

11EUROCONTROL Air/ground data volumes in Europe – version 0.B – July 2000

The major difficulty, considering the FCS timeframe (i.e. 2030), is to extract the requirements that will help dimensioning a future global communication system considering the high level description of the global ATM environment as contained in current documentation such as the ICAO Global Operation Concept document. Currently, Regional concept documents are being reviewed to define a baseline for the start of the FCS and trends in the evolution are being considered. A baseline version of the ICOCR is available in softcopy with the following reference : “Initial Communications Operating Concept and Requirements for the Future Radio System”.

A first draft of the final version of the document (FCOCR – Final Communications Operating Concepts and Requirements) will be distributed in May 2005, to WG-N and WG-C with the following reference : “Final Communications Operating Concepts and Requirements Draft 0.1”. It is this version of the document which is provided to the WG, in Annex A, for information and possible comments.

2.1.2Technology Assessment

In parallel with the operational concept and requirements definition process above, a technical set of activities is underway. This consists of two main areas of work.

A review of A/G technologies, focusing on the mobile link, will include a critical appraisal of information provided by proponents and an investigation of other ”promising’ technologies.

To judge the suitability of the candidate technologies and to down select them, a set of criteria has been developed.

These criteria have been used to judge the capability of the candidate technologies against the requirements identified in the I(F)COCR.. WG-C is reviewing the initial results of these studies.

2.2Timescale

The ICOCR is completed; the FCOCR is planned to be completed by December 2005; the initial results of the selection of technologies is being completed. This will be followed by a more targeted review of a few candidate communication technologies which is planned do be completed by early 2006.

3.Recommendations

The Working Group is invited to:

  • Note and comment on the information in this working paper and the : “Final Communications Operating Concepts and Requirements Draft 0.1”. in Annex A;
  • Provide information on differences regarding future communications services or requirements not addressed in Annex A, especially as it relates to non-US and European regions for the 2015-2030 timeframe.

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