Strawman design for terrestrial unmanned aircraft control links

Abstract

In order to facilitate the introduction of unmanned aircraft (UA) systems (UAS) into nonsegregated airspace, highly reliable radio control and nonpayload communications (CNPC) links will be required. The International Telecommunication Union Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) has estimated in report M.2171 [1] that in the year 2030 a total of 34 MHz of spectrum will be required for terrestrial communications and another 56 MHz will be necessary for satellite communications. This paper addresses only the terrestrial (that is, direct ground/air without satellites) links. Its purpose is to validate, via a concrete example, that all of the terrestrial link requirements can be met within a potential 34 MHz allocation in portions of the L-band (960–1164 MHz) and C-band (5030–5091 MHz). There are many potentially conflicting issues that have to be addressed to satisfy the requirements levied in [1]. All of these requirements are somewhat difficult to satisfy simultaneously; however, a system design that meets the known requirements has been devised. The proposed design should be considered as an “existence proof” that the terrestrial system requirements can indeed be met; it is not necessarily the final link design.