Experimental Evaluation on Quality of VoIP over Aero MACS

Abstract

Aeronautical Mobile Airport Communications System (AeroMACS) is being standardized in order to provide new broadband wireless communications on airport surface. AeroMACS will be used for voice-based Air Traffic Control (ATC) services in the future as it is recommended in standards and recommended practices (SARPs) of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Therefore, we evaluated the quality of voice over IP (VoIP) over AeroMACS for ATC. We developed the AeroMACS prototype system in Sendai Airport, a middle-size local airport in Japan. We carried out field experiments by using the prototype system to evaluate the quality of VoIP. In this paper, we provide experimental results and useful information for designing the AeroMACS system for VoIP-based ATC and airline operational control (AOC) services.