5 INTERNATIONAL CIVIL AVIATION ORGANIZATION WORKING PAPER FSMPWGF32WP16 FREQUENCY

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Update of ICAO Position for WRC-15 to include information on global tracking and surveillance and planned use of Satellite ADS-B

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5 INTERNATIONAL CIVIL AVIATION ORGANIZATION WORKING PAPER FSMPWGF32WP16 FREQUENCY

5 INTERNATIONAL CIVIL AVIATION ORGANIZATION WORKING PAPER FSMPWGF32WP16 FREQUENCY

International Civil Aviation Organization


WORKING PAPER

FSMP-WG-F32/WP-16





FREQUENCY SPECTRUM MANAGEMENT PANEL (FSMP)


32nd MEETING OF THE WORKING GROUP F (WG F)


Cairo, Egypt February 2015


Agenda Item 7: Development of potential updates to ICAO WRC-15 Position




Update of ICAO Position for WRC-15 to include information on global tracking and surveillance and planned use of Satellite ADS-B


(Presented by John Taylor)



SUMMARY


This working paper discusses global aircraft tracking, and air traffic services ADS-B surveillance via satellite and highlights some of the Recommendations from the recent ICAO High Level Safety Conference, one being that ITU WRC-15 provides the necessary spectrum allocations for global air traffic services surveillance as a matter of urgency.


ACTION


WG-F is invited to consider the benefits of global air traffic surveillance. That the regulatory allocation matter for ADS-B surveillance via satellite should be included in the ICAO WRC-15 Position to highlight the satellite reception of existing aircraft ADS-B signals in the Earth-to-space direction only.











  1. INTRODUCTION



    1. The unfortunate recent events that have resulted in the loss of commercial aircraft in remote oceanic areas, has brought a heightened focus on the need for global aircraft surveillance and tracking. ICAO convened a multi-disciplinary meeting in May last year on global tracking and surveillance, for experts to agree on recommendations and a plan of action. That meeting concluded that global flight tracking should be pursued as a matter of urgency and as a result, two groups were formed; the ICAO Ad hoc Working Group, which developed a concept of operations to support future development of a Global Aeronautical Distress and Safety System (GADSS) and the Aircraft Tracking Task Force (ATTF), an industry-led group under the ICAO framework that identified near-term capabilities for normal flight tracking using existing technologies.

    2. 1090 Extended Squitter (ES) Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) was developed and standardised by ICAO in the 1990s largely based on the Mode S messaging scheme. The key difference with ADS-B is that ground or airborne systems cannot invoke transmissions from these avionics, but rather the airborne avionics automatically broadcast the position of the aircraft typically twice per second. These long messages (112 bits) also contain aircraft state vector information that conveys the aircraft’s on-board GNSS navigation information directly to any 1090 ADS-B receivers. The communication of state vector information eliminates the need for any interrogation since the aircraft has accurately determined its own position via GNSS and broadcasts that to ADS-B 1090 MHz receivers. This information is used by other aircraft to determine the location of surrounding traffic, and also used by air traffic management as a means of providing required aircraft separation.

1.3 Currently reception of 1090 MHz broadcasts is limited to line of sight, therefore requiring considerable ground based infrastructure to make the message data available to air traffic management. However in oceanic, Polar and remote regions the installation of ground based facilities is impractical, hence ADS-B position data from aircraft operating in these regions is unavailable to air traffic management.

    1. Presently a space-based system is under development using ADS-B receivers on a LEO satellite constellation that will provide global coverage and overcome the aforementioned limitations of terrestrial ADS-B receiver ground stations. The objective is to have multiple ADS-B receivers on each satellite. The satellite network receivers would have the capability of providing ADS-B position, velocity data and message integrity from aircraft in near real time, for air traffic management. Surveillance coverage in oceanic and remote regions in this manner would support a more efficient airspace use and the potential for increased aircraft capacity within an airspace region.

  1. discussion

    1. An ICAO Annex 10 SARP’s requirement specifies mandatory carriage of ACAS on all aircraft above 5700 kgs. ACAS operation requires aircraft antenna diversity (upper and lower antenna), and these antennae are also used by ADS-B avionics. Many commercial transport aircraft operating in international civil airspace are already ADS-B equipped. (for example 90% of the North Atlantic flights) In addition, many States are mandating the requirement for the use of ADS-B in their domestic airspace.

    2. ITU WP 5B is developing a new ITU-R Report [ADS-B] on the satellite implementation of ADS-B surveillance and global tracking in the 1090 MHz band. Satellite reception of existing aircraft ADS-B signals would provide global surveillance coverage of all oceanic, Polar and remote regions. The operation of ADS-B is authorised in the same SSR frequency band at 1 090 MHz that is allocated and protected on a global basis, no new additional transmissions are foreseen at 1 090 MHz. Since the satellite reception of the ADS-B signals from aircraft to the satellite has not been done before, a regulatory matter needs to be addressed to formally authorise the uplink of the safety service. The appropriate allocation designation would be an Aeronautical Mobile Satellite (Route) Service allocation (AMS(R)S).

    3. At the recent 38th ICAO Assembly, the Commission also noted that the matter of a potential allocation to receive ADS-B by satellite had recently been brought to the attention to the ITU Radiocommunication Sector and the Air Navigation Commissions’ Aeronautical Communications Panel – Working Group F (Frequency), which is the relevant group of experts within the framework of ICAO. In terms of the ICAO Position, which had been approved by Council following a formal review by Contracting States and relevant International Organizations, it was foreseen that an update might be needed to reflect the outcome of ongoing WRC-15 preparatory studies. Such an update would include consideration of the ADS-B issue, as appropriate.

    4. At the recent ITU-R Plenipotentiary Conference (Busan 2014) the meeting resolved to instruct WRC-15, pursuant to No. 119 of the ITU Convention;

To include in its agenda, as a matter of urgency, the consideration of global flight tracking, including, if appropriate, and consistent with ITU practices, various aspects of the matter, taking into account ITU-R studies.

    1. One of the Recommendations at the recent ICAO High Level Safety Conference (Feb 2015) noted that; ICAO should encourage States and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to discuss allocation requirements at the World Radio Communication Conference in 2015 (WRC 15) to provide the necessary spectrum allocations for global air traffic services surveillance as a matter of urgency.



3.0 ACTION BY THE MEETING


The meeting is invited to note the global tracking and air traffic surveillance benefits of ADS-B via satellite and the potential for improved efficiencies in air traffic management and safety.


That, given the Plenipotentiary decision to add a WRC-15 agenda item on Global Flight Tracking, the attached information in the Annex be included in the ICAO WRC-15 Position regarding the regulatory action needed for an allocation in the Earth-to-space direction for the reception of existing aircraft ADS-B signals to be considered by WRC-15.

















ANNEX



The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), upon the completion of a Special Meeting on Global Flight Tracking of Aircraft in Montreal May 2014, forged consensus among its Member States and the international air transport industry sector on the near-term priority to track airline flights, no matter their global location or destination. The meeting concluded that global flight tracking should be pursued as a matter of urgency and as a result, two groups were formed, an ICAO ad hoc Working Group which developed a concept of operations to support future development of a Global Aeronautical Distress and Safety System (GADSS) and an industry led group under the ICAO framework called the Aircraft Tracking Task Force (ATTF) that identified near term capabilities for normal flight tracking using existing technologies.

The Global Flight Tracking meeting also concluded that, global tracking of airline flights will be pursued as a matter of priority to provide early notice of and response to abnormal flight behaviour. Pursuant to that goal, a high level concept of operations document should be delivered to the ICAO High Level Safety Conference (HLSC 2015, February, Montreal 2015). One of the Global Flight Tracking recommendations was that ICAO should encourage States and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to take action, at the earliest opportunity, to provide the necessary spectrum allocations as emerging aviation needs are identified. This includes spectrum for satellite and radio services used for safety of life aviation services. ICAO encouraged the ITU to place this on the Agenda for the upcoming ITU World Radiocommunication Conference 2015.

Taking into account the relevant provisions of Article 1 of the ITU Constitution, in particular No. 17, which stipulates that the union is to promote the adoption of measures for ensuring the safety of llife through the cooperation of telecommunication services, at the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference, Resolution COM5/1 (Busan, 2014) on global flight tracking for civil aviation was adopted. The Resolution noted that determination of the position of aircraft and reporting this information to air traffic control centres represents an important element of aviation safety and security. The Resolution resolved: “to instruct WRC-15, pursuant to No. 119 of the ITU Convention, and to include in its agenda, as a matter of urgency, the consideration of global flight tracking, including, if appropriate, and consistent with ITU practices, various aspects of the matter, taking into account ITU-R studies”.

Satellite extension of ADS-B to provide coverage in remote oceanic, Polar regions and other remote geographical areas is foreseen by ICAO and the aviation industry as bringing forth efficiency benefits in flight operations as well as enhancements in safety. Moreover, these elements were recognised and endorsed by the 12th Air Navigation Conference in Nov 2012, also the 38th ICAO Assembly in 2013 and the implementation of ADS-B via satellite has been included in the ICAO Global Air Navigation Plan. The recently concluded 2nd ICAO High Level Safety Conference reviewed the GADSS and ATTF documents that highlighted the needs and requirements for normal global tracking and surveillance.





Some of the recommendations agreed at the conference:

Global flight tracking

  1. ICAO should expeditiously finalize and use the Global Aeronautical Distress and Safety System (GADSS) for the implementation of normal, abnormal and distress flight tracking, search and rescue (SAR) activities and retrieval of cockpit voice recorders (CVRs) and flight data recorders (FDRs) data;

  2. ICAO should continue developing performance-based provisions for normal aircraft tracking, which provide industry with viable options, as a matter of urgency, and urge industry to start implementing global tracking, on a voluntary basis, through the use of available technologies;

  3. ICAO should encourage States and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to discuss allocation requirements at the World Radio Communication Conference in 2015 (WRC 15) to provide the necessary spectrum allocations for global air traffic services surveillance as a matter of urgency;






ICAO Position:


Support a new provision in the Earth-to-space direction only for an AMS(R)S allocation at 1090 MHz for the satellite reception of existing aircraft ADS-B signals that operate in accordance with recognised international aeronautical standards.











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