Wideband Air–Ground Channel Model for a Regional Airport Environment

Abstract

In the air–ground propagation channel, multipath propagation severely affects the performance of communication, navigation, and surveillance systems used in civil aviation. To verify the performance of aeronautical wireless transmission systems independently from expensive flight trials, a channel model for computer simulations is required. Based on an exhaustive propagation measurement campaign, we propose a geometry-based stochastic channel model for the air–ground channel in a regional airport environment in the L -band. The proposed channel model allows us to correctly reproduce the non-stationarity of the channel impulse response. Thus, the channel model is suitable not only to assess the performance of communication systems, but also for ranging, i.e., for navigation systems. We validate the channel model using data from both channel sounding and as well as flight measurements performed in a navigation context.