System Dimensioning of a DVB-S2/RCS System for Aeronautical Communications

In the future, the communication demands of aircraft will significantly increase. Very likely it will only be possible to manage this new challenge by using satellite communication systems as complement to direct air to ground data links. This configuration can provide the needed QoS requirements in terms of capacity, coverage, availability, priority and integrity. The DVB-S2/RCS standard is a very promising solution for the satellite component of such a system. To assess a possible deployment of this technology for air communication, the traffic volumes and the resulting bandwidth demands have to be quantified. This paper presents results for the traffic load based on realistic aircraft movements. Moreover it is shown that it is accurate enough to apply a simple priority queueing model for generation of the traffic load. The traffic load is then used for the calculation of the necessary bandwidth. Finally results for the worldwide required bandwidth are presented for a GEO satellite constellation