Towards a new approach to ensure end-to-end reliability of aeronautical data communications

Abstract The aeronautical telecommunication network (ATN) aims to provide reliable end-to-end communications even for those including the air-to-ground segment and in particular for data link applications. The existing ATN, known as ATN/OSI, is based on OSI protocols since its first deployment. The OSI model implementation in ATN communicating entities causes great complexity in network management, particularly in terms of Internet network interoperability. Therefore, since 2010, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) proposed a migration to ATN over Internet protocol suite (IPS), called ATN/IPS. Thus, this research work focuses on specifying the reliability mechanisms required for air ground data link applications in future ATN/IPS. To achieve this, the transport protocols performance is assessed based on simulations using an ATN model developed considering the ICAO standards. The modeled legacy application enables to generate traffic based on real controller-pilot data link communications (CPDLC) log files from French area control centre (ACC). The air-to-ground subnetworks are characterised using time series delay induced from previously modeled VDL Mode 2 data link analysis. As proof-of-concept, CPDLC messages exchange from aircraft to controller and future applications that transmits heavier files from ground-to-board are simulated. Transport protocols performance are evaluated with respect to the most constraining requirements. The simulation results highlighted the limitations of both connection-oriented transport protocol class 4 (COTP4) and TCP. This enabled to provide a preliminary overview of a new QUIC-like reliable protocol that should meet the heterogeneous requirements of the legacy and the eventual future ATN/IPS applications.