Effect of the Aeronautical L-DACS2 Radio-Frequency Signals on the DME System Performance

Abstract

In this paper, we consider the Radio-Frequency Compatibility (RFC) of a candidate system for the future aeronautical communication infrastructure. This infrastructure is being developed within the International Civil Aviation Organization since 2004, to accommodate the air traffic load and improve the aerial security. The system presented in this paper is one of the two preselected proposals for the L-band Digital Aeronautical Communication System (L-DACS), which will be responsible for the continental communications. This proposed candidate is named L-DACS2 and is foreseen to use part of the L-band spectrum (960 to 1164 MHz) allocated to the Aeronautical Mobile Service reserved for communications relating to safety and regularity of flight. Despite its potentially large spectrum, the L-band is a challenging environment for aeronautical communications because of the channel propagation characteristics and the dense spectral occupation by a large number of aeronautical systems. On the other hand, the RFC characterizes the electromagnetic compatibility between two radio systems and determines if they can coexist in the same electromagnetic environment. For this reason, the RFC is one of the main issues for L-DACS deployment and if it is not satisfied, the flight safety could be endangered. Hence, we propose to study in this paper the impact of the L-DACS on the Distance Measuring Equipment (DME), which is a very important equipment that has been using this band for decades. According to recent studies performed in the frequency domain , that is assuming continuous transmissions and no time domain variations, the achieved RFC level seems insufficient. The main objective of this work is to analyze the RFC between L-DACS2 and DME taking into account the time domain aspects of both systems. The idea is to verify and quantify the impact of the radio- frequency signals generated by a L-DACS2 interferer on the performance of a DME victim receiver. The study is performed for the co-site case (i.e. when both equipments are onboard of the same airplane), which is the most critical interference scenario due to the proximity of both systems. The results are obtained through computer simulations as well as laboratory measurements. They present the DME performance degradation for some values of the Signal to Interference Ratio, assuming a constant DME signal level and different L-DACS2 interference powers.