Project Goal
The development of efficient aeronautical communication systems is currently a predominant topic in view of the expected saturation of ATM communications by 2020-2025 due to air traffic increase. In addition, the envisaged paradigm shift in ATM as developed in SESAR and the existing high market demand for passenger communications are the driving factors for the modernization of aeronautical communications.
It is foreseen that different services, data links and networking solutions will be deployed.
Different services with highly diverse requirements shall coexist and partly or totally share the aeronautical network infrastructure. No single service on its own justifies the cost implication of a new communication system. Trends for the different aeronautical services include:
- Air Traffic Services (ATS) will be primarily based on highly safety-related data communication whereas voice communication will be mostly used as fallback solution,
- Airline Operational Communications (AOC) data traffic will strongly increase for efficient airline operations,
- Air Passenger Communications (APC) systems are foreseen to be further developed to meet passengers expectations of on-board broadband communication services.
According to both SESAR and the Future Communications Study jointly performed by Eurocontrol and FAA under Action Plan 17, these services will use ground-based, satellite-based, aircraft-to-aircraft and airport communication systems to fulfil the requirements: a satellite link (new standard developed within ESA IRIS program), an airport link (WiMAX), a high data rate air-ground link (L-DACS-1/2) and support of legacy data links (e.g. VDL2). In addition, further data links for APC are expected to be deployed.
Currently, the Aeronautical Telecommunication Network (ATN) based on the ISO/OSI reference model as networking solution is being deployed (e.g. Link2000 program) to enable advanced services. However, due to the marginal deployment of the ISO/OSI protocols in other areas than aeronautical communications, operation and maintenance costs are considerable. When looking at the 2020 (and beyond) horizon, it is hence foreseen that the widely deployed IETF Internet Protocol Suite (IPS) networking solution will be deployed for air-ground communication for cost savings, high reliability and an optimal alignment with the evolution of communication and security technologies. ICAO is currently specifying within ACP WG-I an ATN based on IPS, commonly known an ATN/IPS.
Summarizing, users of aeronautical communication services face a highly fragmented communication architecture with different services, different data links and different networking solutions to be supported. Interoperability and modularity of future communication systems are of major importance in this context.
The NEWSKY project adresses these challenges and will develop a concept of an integrated aeronautical network for cockpit and cabin communications with focus on air-ground communications and IPv6 technologies.
NEWSKY pursues the vision of “Networking the Sky” by integrating a range of data links based on different communication technologies (ground based, satellite-based, aircraft-to-aircraft) as well as different application classes (ATS, AOC, APC) into a seamless network based on Internet technologies.
The key NEWSKY outputs will be:
- Definition of application scenarios and service requirements,
- Business case study, development of a transition roadmap and a long-term concept evolution,
- Specification of network and transport layer solutions: protocol stack architecture (incl. interfaces to data link layers), Quality of Service (QoS) management, mobility management (incl. hand-over techniques, routing, multihoming), end-to-end data transport and network security solutions,
- Validation of the NEWSKY integrated airborne network design through computer simulations and a laboratory test-bed.
Integration of different aeronautical communication systems into a global network to realize the vision of 'Networking the Sky'.