FACTS2: Framework for aeronautical communications and traffic simulations 2

Abstract

Civil air traffic is currently growing by about 2.7% per year and, thus, is expected to double in the next 26 years. To cope with this growth the current communication, navigation and surveillance infrastructure for civil aviation is undergoing the transformation from analogue to digital systems. To fulfill the requirements of digital ATM communication we need large-scale simulations to simulate future aeronautical communication systems scaled to the increased amount of participants. This paper presents FACTS2 - the Framework for Aeronautical Communications and Traffic Simulations 2 - enabling the German Aerospace Center (DLR) to use simple software building blocks called "simulation services" to create complex simulations for this purpose. Via FACTS2 we can simulate and evaluate arbitrary air-to-ground or air-to-air wireless point-to-point or broadcast data links between arbitrary entities such as ground-stations, aircraft, or drones in a mobile environment.