Eurocontrol/FAA Future Communications Study - Phase II Technology Assessments

As a result of International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Air Navigation Commission (ANC) meeting 11 in 2003, a need emerged to identify a future air-ground communications system for air traffic management (ATM) communications on which different regions of the world could eventually converge. This need results from the extreme difficulties in having divergent communications systems to meet identical ATM communications requirements in different regions of the world. The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Eurocontrol initiated a joint activity called the Future Communications Study (FCS) to develop solutions to the need identified by the ANC. The FCS includes operational concepts and communications requirements development, analysis of business and institutional elements, and identification and assessment of technology alternatives. Two of three phases of the FCS technology identification and assessment have been completed. The first phase identified all relevant communications technologies that could be applied to the aeronautical safety communications requirements and screened those technologies against a set of evaluation criteria to determine the best candidates. The second phase performed detailed technical evaluations of a subset of those candidates to determine their potential performance under the expected conditions and operational scenarios envisioned under the FCS. This paper provides background on the FCS and presents an overview of the approach and results of the FCS technology assessment to date.