Air Traffic Management Concept Baseline Definition - The Boeing ...

Appendix A. Technology Inventory
A.1 Communication
The communication technology elements are shown in Tables A-1 through A-3. As
described in the body of this report, communication technology can be described as three
layers. Each lower layer provides certain communication services to the next layer above
it. The top, application, layer presents communication services to the flight crew or air
traffic controller through a set of control and display interfaces and by accessing and
servicing data bases hosted in the aircraft and controller workstation automation.
Table A-1 describes the applications which use communication paths to perform their
function. Table A-2 describes the communication protocols which operate over the
communication media and provide communication transport services to the
communication applications. Table A-3 describes the communication media which
connect the aircraft to the ground to support the communication functions.
Table A-1, Communication Applications, presents each application and describes key
characteristics about that application. The input column identifies the protocol technology
which is appropriate for that particular application. The output column identifies the user
of the communication service. The column marked “performance” describes the user
expectations of performance currently associated with this particular application and its
underlying protocol and medium. Greater performance may be required in the future to
support more critical functions (e.g., en route, terminal and ground operations.) The
availability column describes when the technology and its underlying protocol and medium
support is, or will be, available.
Table A-2, Communication Protocols, presents each protocol and describes key
characteristics about that protocol. The input column identifies the medium or other
protocol element that supports it. The output column identifies the application or other
protocol which uses the services provided by the protocol element. Note that ATN and
FANS-1 require certain mutually-supporting protocol elements, which are described in
Section 5.1 of the body of this document. The performance column identifies the
performance contribution or reduction which the protocol adds to the communication
path.
Table A-3, Communication Media, presents each radio or other medium which has been
used for aircraft/ground communication. Since the media represent the bottom of the
communication stack they do not have inputs but the column was retained for consistency.
The output column identifies the protocol elements which use the services of the medium.
There is a subnetwork protocol associated with all of the data link related media, in
addition to the protocol described in Table A-2. The performance column describes when
the medium is, or will be, available.
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