L-band Digital Aeronautical Communication System Type 1 Research Articles

Gaussian Mixture Learning for LDPC Coded BICM Receivers With Blanking Nonlinearity

With the aid of blanking nonlinearity, the low density parity check (LDPC) coded bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) has been jointly considered as a robust mitigation for the impulsive interference in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. However, the Gaussian assumption for the nonlinear channel conditional probability induces the mismatched L-values in the conventional MAP demodulator. In this paper, combined with the pulse blanking optimization via the PEXIT analysis, we propose a novel MAP demodulator based on the Gaussian mixture model (GMM) and estimate the parameters with the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm. Taking the L-band Digital Aeronautical Communication System Type1 (L-DACS1) as an example, the GMM-based MAP demodulator can obtain the PEXIT thresholds that match the decoding curves well and provide the better BER performance in the interference-limit channel environment.

A Hardware-Efficient Synchronization in L-DACS1 for Aeronautical Communications

L-band digital aeronautical communication system type-1 (L-DACS1) is an emerging standard that aims at enhancing air traffic management by transitioning the traditional analog aeronautical communication systems to the superior and highly efficient digital domain. L-DACS1 employs modern and efficient orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation technique to achieve more efficient and higher data rate in comparison to the existing aeronautical communication systems. However, the performance of OFDM systems is very sensitive to synchronization errors such as symbol timing offset (STO) and carrier frequency offset (CFO). STO and CFO estimations are extremely important for maintaining orthogonality among the subcarriers for the retrieval of information. This paper proposes a novel efficient hardware synchronizer for L-DACS1 systems that offers robust performance at low power and low hardware resource usage. Monte Carlo simulations show that the proposed synchronization algorithm provides accurate STO estimation as well as fractional CFO estimation. Implementation of the proposed synchronizer on a widely used field-programmable gate array (FPGA) (Xilinx xc7z020clg484-1) results in a very low hardware usage which consumed 6.5%, 3.7%, and 6.4% of the total number of lookup tables, flip-flops, and digital signal processing blocks, respectively. The dynamic power of the proposed synchronizer is below 1 mW.

Mitigation of DME interference in LDACS1-based future air-to-ground (A/G) communications

In this article, an algorithm for mitigating distance measuring equipment (DME) interference in L-band digital aeronautical communication system type 1 (LDACS1)-based aeronautical communication sys...

Modified Cramér‐Rao lower bounds for joint position and velocity estimation of a Rician target in OFDM‐based passive radar networks

AbstractOwing to the increased deployment and the favorable range and Doppler resolutions, orthogonal frequency‐division multiplexing (OFDM)‐based L band digital aeronautical communication system type 1 (LDACS1) stations have become attractive systems for target surveillance in passive radar applications. This paper investigates the problem of joint parameter (position and velocity) estimation of a Rician target in OFDM‐based passive radar network systems with multichannel receivers placed on moving platforms, which are composed of multiple OFDM‐based LDACS1 transmitters of opportunity and multiple radar receivers. The modified Cramér‐Rao lower bounds (MCRLBs) on the Cartesian coordinates of target position and velocity are computed, where the received signal from the target is composed of dominant scatterer (DS) component and weak isotropic scatterers (WIS) component. Simulation results are provided to demonstrate that the target parameter estimation accuracy can be improved by exploiting the DS component. It also shows that the joint MCRLB is not only a function of the transmitted waveform parameters, target radar cross section, and signal‐to‐noise ratio but also a function of the relative geometry between the target and the passive radar networks. The analytical expressions of MCRLB can be utilized as a performance metric to access the target parameter estimation in OFDM‐based passive radar networks in that they enable the selection of optimal transmitter‐receiver pairs for target estimation.

Cramér–Rao bounds for L‐band digital aeronautical communication system type 1 based passive multiple‐input multiple‐output radar

In this study, of concern is the achievable estimation accuracy for a non-coherent passive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar employing orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) based signals of opportunity. The motivation behind this investigation is the surveillance aspect of the air trac management modernisation process currently taking place in civil aviation. To this end, the surveillance capability of the OFDM-based L-band digital aeronautical communication system type 1 (LDACS1) is analysed. The extension of the LDACS1 communication system towards surveillance is of great importance since it would enable an alternative, non-cooperative surveillance application, and, together with the already validated navigation extension, establish a fully integrated LDACS1-based communication, navigation, and surveillance technology. The modied Cramer-Rao bound on the joint estimation of target location and velocity for a non-coherent passive MIMO radar, employing the OFDM-based LDACS1 signals as signals of opportunity, is investigated. The analysis is carried out assuming one target, multiple and widely separated transmit and receive antennas, orthogonal waveforms, independent reection coecients, and zero-mean white Gaussian noise. Closed-form expressions for the relevant elements of the modied Fisher information matrix are obtained. The results can be used to assess the estimation accuracy of a multiple antenna passive radar system employing any OFDM-based signals of opportunity.

On Improved Noise Variance Estimation for Aeronautical Communications

The L-band Digital Aeronautical Communication System Type-1 (L-DACS1) has been considered as the potential standard for future aeronautical communications. As an important parameter for L-DACS1, the noise variance can be estimated via the well known Second-Moment-Fourth-Moment (M2M4) blind algorithm. However, due to influence from aeronautical fading channels, performance degradation is encountered by conventional M2M4 algorithm in L-DACS1. In this paper, channel responses obtained from L-DACS1 pilot symbols were carried out to compensate the estimation degradation brought by channel fading, which lead to an improved M2M4 algorithm for L-DACS1. It is shown through simulations that the proposed approach outperforms conventional M2M4 estimator in terms of estimation error for L-DACS1 in aeronautical fading channels.