Aeronautical Channel Modeling

A class of aeronautical wide-band channel models is proposed, featuring parking and taxi environments, takeoff and landing situations, and en-route scenarios for ground–air and air–air links. Typical and worst case parameter sets are suggested, based on published measurement results and empirical data. The models are suitable for channel emulators that can be easily implemented on digital computers or in hardware and thus are useful for the validation of digital aeronautical links. A time-domain and frequency-domain implementation of such a channel emulator are derived, and results for a typical multicarrier system are presented. It is shown that the scenarios have distinguishable performance results depending on the underlying maximum ranges and shapes of the Doppler and delay spectra and the presence of a line-of-sight path. Finally, the degrading effects of intersymbol interference and intersubcarrier interference on the multicarrier signal are explained.