Modeling for spectrum congestion analysis of air-to-ground voice communications in China

Abstract

The traffic load of civil aviation, conjunction with the aircraft density, determines the number of frequency channels and ground radio sites in order to support various levels of future air-to-ground communications services. In the U.S. and Europe, the Very High Frequency (VHF) spectrum is highly congested due to the out of date Double Sideband Amplitude Modulation (DSB-AM) voice communication system. The U.S. and Europe have proceeded to update the DSB-AM voice communication system to confront with the increasing traffic load on the civil aviation system. Currently, DSB-AM voice communication system is still mainly used in Civil Aviation of China for air traffic services and it is still unknown that what the capability of this system is regarding the distribution feature of the traffic in China. Our main contribution of this paper is to establish a mathematical model which is able to allocate the spectrum according to the capability of DSB-AM voice communication system and analyze the spectrum congestion status in China. Based on this model, the spectrum allocation and the timeliness of the need for voice aviation communication system with respect to the impacts of the creation of voice communication can be inferred; the model provides a way to describe the ability of the communication infrastructure to meet the requirements of air traffic services. In this paper, the spectrum congestion status of aerodrome control service for voice communication around Yang Zi Jiang River is analyzed based on the geographic location of the airport sites as well as their traffic movements.