Multiple-Path Erasure Coding for Future Air Traffic Control Communications

Abstract

The air traffic control data communications performance is measured using the International Civil Aviation Organization’s Required Communication Performance metric. The metric’s values proposed by Eurocontrol and the Federal Aviation Administration to support the future data-centric air traffic control communications will only be achievable using a new, air–ground data link with low latency and low loss. In this Paper, we propose using erasure coding to generate redundancy and transmitting over multiple links, each with higher latency and/or higher loss than the single link. We propose a model to calculate the expected performance using multiple links and erasure coding based on the different links characteristics, the coding rate, and the encoded packet distribution over the links. Then, we present the results of using the model to calculate the characteristics of multiple new air–ground data links that support the requirements of the future air traffic control communications, and we compare them with the results of a single link.