VDL-2 for the ATN/IPS

Activities have been initiated in ICAO and AEEC to further develop the Aeronautical Telecommunications Network/Internet Protocol Suite (ATN/IPS) rather than the ATN/Open System Interconnection (ATN/OSI) protocols for use by safety and regularity of flight applications. VHF Digital Link Mode 2 (VDL-2) has until now been defined to support the ATN/OSI protocol stack in accordance with ARINC 631[1] and also to support ACARS by following the “ACARS over AVLC (AoA)” technique whereby the character-oriented ACARS protocol can run over the VDL-2 link layer in accordance with ARINC 618 [2]. The bit-oriented ATN ATC applications run natively over the ATN/OSI stack while bit-oriented FANS ATC applications run over the ACARS stack following ARINC 622 [3]. This paper investigates how ATN ATC and AOC applications may run over an ATN/IPS stack that is operating over VDL-2.