Airport surface wireless technology and profile status

There is a need in the international aeronautical community for a broad-band voice and data communications capability to support future safety and regularity of flight services on the airport surface worldwide. This wireless data service can augment the projected Datacomm services to aircraft or vehicles by providing connectivity to Air Traffic Control, Airline Operations Services and Airport Communications Services. Results from the joint Future Communications Study conducted by U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and EUROCONTROL recommended the use of existing wireless communications technology based on the commercially available 802.16 2009 standard as the solution to support the future aviation requirements on the airport surface. This system, referred to as the Aeronautical Mobile Airport Communications System (AeroMACS) would operate in available protected aviation mobile communications spectrum from 5091MHz to 5150MHz. In addition to alleviating an already congested VHF communications band, the AeroMACS system would also provide a capability to support data intensive applications projected under the FAA´s future Next Generation (NextGen) and the Single European Skies Aviation Research (SESAR) Programs. RTCA Special Committee 223 (SC-223) was organized to develop an Aviation Specific System Profile that could be used to guide the design and implementation of equipment and systems used in a broadband airport surface wireless network in the United States. RTCA SC-223 is coordinating with the EUROCAE Working Group 82 and SESAR in the development of the AeroMACS profile. Additionally, since the WiMAX Forum owns and holds the copyright for the 802.16e standard, the RTCA SC-223 profile working group has established a working relationship with the WiMAX Technical Working Group (TWG) to participate in the generation of the AeroMACS profile, and issue any needed change requests to the Mobile WiMAX Release 1 System Profile (DRAFT-T23-001-R010v09-B_MSP) document.