The Role of Satellite Systems in Future Aeronautical Communications

Recent evolutions in the context of aeronautical communications have changed the landscape and the role of the different systems that allow aircrafts to maintain a link with the ground while in flight. The increase in capacity needed to support the growth of worldwide air traffic and the need for increased communication safety are driving a transition from voice-centric procedures aided by slow data link connections to data-centric control applications executed on higher capacity communication systems. These future data links have to fulfil very stringent performance requirements. Indeed, the nature of the information they carry which is bound to become the first mean of air traffic control make their availability critical to the safety of air transportation in the future. Satellite communication systems have many differentiating arguments when compared to terrestrial solutions. Indeed, while the deployment costs of terrestrial systems can be sustainable in high-density areas, their use in low-density remote areas is much less interesting. In high-density areas, satellite could also be useful either as a primary mean of communication or as a secondary one in order to improve the overall communication system’s availability. A satellite system, by nature, is able to cover large regions of the earth and can thus provide a cost effective solution to the coverage of both high and low density areas such as oceanic regions where reliable terrestrial coverage is nonexistent. In this paper, the interest of a satellite solution to be used as a data link for future aeronautical communications is studied. After presenting an overview of the existing satellite systems for aeronautical communication in operation today, the discussion focuses on the interest and strength of the forthcoming satellite link under definition in the frame of the ESA Iris Programme and its integration in the communication concept defined by the SANDRA EC FP7 project.