Enhanced Distance Measuring Equipment Data Broadcast Design, Analysis,

Implementation, and Flight-Test Validation

A thesis presented to

the faculty of

the Russ College of Engineering and Technology of Ohio University

In partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree

Master of Science

Adam O. Naab-Levy

December 2015

© 2015 Adam O. Naab-Levy. All Rights Reserved.

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This thesis titled

Enhanced Distance Measuring Equipment Data Broadcast Design, Analysis,

Implementation, and Flight-Test Validation

by

ADAM O. NAAB-LEVY

has been approved for

the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

and the Russ College of Engineering and Technology by

Wouter J. Pelgrum

Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Dennis Irwin

Dean, Russ College of Engineering and Technology

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ABSTRACT

NAAB-LEVY, ADAM O., M.S., December 2015, Electrical Engineering

Enhanced Distance Measuring Equipment Data Broadcast Design, Analysis,

Implementation, and Flight-Test Validation

Director of Thesis: Wouter J. Pelgrum

Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) are critical parameters that are necessary

for efficient and safe air travel. In the future, aviation operations will require more

advanced PNT that demands higher accuracy while also maintaining an onboard

monitoring capability, which is already required for Global Positioning System (GPS)

and Space Based Augmentation System (SBAS) operations. These requirements can

currently only be met by GPS, and likely other Global Navigation Satellite Systems

(GNSSs) in the future, which poses a threat to aviation if a loss of GNSS occurs.

Consequently, alternative systems, like Enhanced Distance Measuring Equipment

(eDME), have been proposed to mitigate this threat.

eDME is a candidate alternative PNT system that exploits the underlying structure

of the legacy DME signal to improve system accuracy, integrity, and robustness.

Specifically, eDME enhancements are based on the ability to track the underlying carrier

that the legacy DME pulse-pairs are modulated onto and the transmission of a

predetermined Beat signal that is comprised of precisely transmitted pulse-pairs. Data

broadcast, which will be the focus of this thesis, can then be achieved by leveraging the

information delivery potential intrinsic to the DME carrier phase and eDME Beat signal.
 4

Specifically, this thesis will design and analyze data requirements, noise and

interference mitigation techniques, legacy compliant modulation schemes, impact of data

on legacy capacity, and forward error correction (FEC) techniques. A prototype data

broadcast system is then implemented and validated by flight-test campaigns and it is

shown that data can be reliably transmitted across the DME channel by using differential

phase-shift-keying in conjunction with Turbo codes or Low-Density Parity Check

(LDPC) FEC.
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DEDICATION

To my mother and father

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to acknowledge the vast sum of support that I have received not only

as a graduate student but also throughout my entire life. I can state without a doubt that I

would not have been able to finish a graduate degree nor have made it this far in life if it

weren’t for the support of my family, friends, teachers, and colleagues.

Specifically, I’d like to thank my advisor, Dr. Wouter Pelgrum, for the academic

and life lessons that he has imparted on me as well as his unwavering support and faith he

had in my ability to finish a master’s degree. I would have abandoned my goals of higher

education long ago if he had not convinced me otherwise and am glad that I stayed the

course and completed this thesis. I’m also very grateful for Wouter’s patience since he

helped me see the bigger cohesive engineering picture instead of just the isolated details,

which has made me a better engineer. Finally, I’d like to acknowledge all of the work and

time Wouter put in to acquire funding and the DME hardware, build the eDME test setup,

and coordinate the flight-tests since it funded my graduate education, gave me a base

platform to expand on, and helped me collect data to determine and validate my theories.

Thank you Wouter!

I’d also like to acknowledge my mother and father, William Levy and Tammey

Naab, as well as my three sisters, Nicole Naab-Levy, Natalie Naab-Levy, and Alaina

Naab-Levy, for their support throughout my entire life. Their perspective and guidance

encouraged me to keep going and also helped me avoid pitfalls that I would have

otherwise made. I cannot thank them enough for their support.

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There are also many friends that I would like to mention that have helped me

throughout my journey. I am very thankful for my life-long friends, or more accurately

brothers, Matt Kaplan, Garrett McNamara, and Andrew Lyons that have encouraged and

grounded me and also shown me the great lengths that friends will go to help one

another. I’d also like to thank the countless friends that I’ve met at Ohio University which

helped me maintain a work life balance, provided me with a couch to crash on when

needed, and taught me a host of interesting things that I would have not otherwise

learned. I’d like to acknowledge everyone and reminisce the good times that we’ve had

but unfortunately the list and accompanying stories would not fit in this

acknowledgement. Nonetheless, thank you all for your support.

In addition, I’d also like to thank my colleagues at the Avionics Engineering

Center (AEC) that helped me learn and conduct my research. I’d like to thank Dr.

Kuangmin Li especially since much of my work and a significant chunk of my

knowledge regarding DME comes from him and also Jamie Edwards for all of the fun

and safe flights that he piloted. I am also grateful for the help and guidance that I received

from Dr. Frank van Graas and Dr. Maarten Uijt de Haag. I am also thankful for Dr.

Martin Mohlenkamp helpful thesis suggestions that helped me improve this thesis.

Finally, I’d like to acknowledge the financial support from the FAA APNT Program

(Contract DTFAWA-10-D00020 TTD14 from June 2014 - present) and FAA Joint

University Program for Air Transportation Research - Grant 10-G-018 (June 2010 – June

2014) as well as the hardware that was provided from Moog, Inc. and Rockwell Collins.
 8

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Abstract ............................................................................................................................... 3
Dedication ........................................................................................................................... 5
Acknowledgments............................................................................................................... 6
List of Tables .................................................................................................................... 11
List of Figures ................................................................................................................... 12
List of Acronyms .............................................................................................................. 15
Chapter 1: Introduction ..................................................................................................... 19
Chapter 2: Background ..................................................................................................... 23
2.1 Alternative Position Navigation and Timing .................................................. 23
2.1.1 Candidate Systems ........................................................................... 26
2.1.2 General Data Requirements and Content ......................................... 27
2.2 Legacy Distance Measuring Equipment ......................................................... 33
2.2.1 Principle of Operation ...................................................................... 33
2.2.2 Specifications and Limitations ......................................................... 36
2.2.2.1 Legacy DME Transponder ................................................ 36
2.2.2.2 Legacy DME Interrogator ................................................. 41
2.3 Enhanced-DME............................................................................................... 43
2.3.1 Potential eDME Architectures ......................................................... 43
2.3.2 Core eDME Technical Improvements ............................................. 46
2.3.2.1 eDME Beat Signal ............................................................ 47
2.3.2.2 eDME Carrier Phase ......................................................... 47
Chapter 3: Relevant Digital Communication Elements .................................................... 49
3.1 Source Encoder/Decoder ................................................................................ 50
3.2 Authentication Encoder/Decoder .................................................................... 51
3.3 Channel Encoder/Decoder .............................................................................. 53
3.4 Modulation and Transmission......................................................................... 54
3.4.1 Pulse Position Modulation (PPM) ................................................... 54
3.4.2 Phase Shift Keying (PSK) ................................................................ 56
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3.5 RF Transmission ............................................................................................. 59

3.6 Demodulation and Detection .......................................................................... 60
3.7 Propagation Channel ....................................................................................... 61
3.7.1 Free-Space Loss and Thermal Noise ............................................... 62
3.7.2 RF Propagation Phenomena ............................................................. 63
3.7.3 Pulsed Interference........................................................................... 64
Chapter 4: Forward Error Correction and Error Detection ............................................... 65
4.1 General Principles and Terminology .............................................................. 66
4.2 Hard and Soft Decisions and Likelihood Ratios ............................................. 67
4.3 Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem Codes ........................................................... 69
4.4 Reed-Solomon Codes...................................................................................... 71
4.5 Turbo Codes .................................................................................................... 72
4.6 Low-Density Parity Check .............................................................................. 75
4.7 Mitigating Channel Interference ..................................................................... 77
4.8 Error Detection................................................................................................ 78
4.8.1 Error Detection Capabilities Native to FEC Codes ......................... 84
Chapter 5: Flight-Test Channel Noise Measurements ...................................................... 91
5.1 Noise and Interference Sources ...................................................................... 91
5.1.1 DME Related Interference ............................................................... 91
5.1.2 Onboard Avionics Impact ................................................................ 93
5.1.3 Link-16 Tactical Data Link .............................................................. 94
5.2 Flight-Test Measurement Setup ...................................................................... 95
5.3 Flight-Test Channel Noise Measurement Results......................................... 100
5.4 Channel Models ............................................................................................ 102
5.4.1 Symmetric Alpha Stable Model ..................................................... 103
5.4.2 Middleton Class-A Noise Model ................................................... 103
5.5 Model Channel Estimates ............................................................................. 104
Chapter 6: eDME Data System Design .......................................................................... 108
6.1 Data System Requirement Derivation .......................................................... 108
6.1.1 Time-to-Alert, Continuity, Latency, and FER ............................... 109
6.1.2 Message Integrity ........................................................................... 112
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6.1.3 Coverage and Data Throughput ..................................................... 113

6.1.4 eDME Legacy Impact .................................................................... 115
6.1.5 Transponder Hardware Constraints ............................................... 129
6.2 eDME Modulation/Demodulation ................................................................ 130
6.2.1 Pulse-Pair Position Modulation/Demodulation ............................. 131
6.2.2 Phase-Shift Keying ........................................................................ 148
6.2.3 eDME Modulation Decision .......................................................... 157
6.3 Demodulation and Detection ........................................................................ 158
6.3.1 Detection/Demapper ...................................................................... 160
6.4 Forward Error Correction and Detection ...................................................... 163
Chapter 7: eDME DPSK Implementation and Flight-Test Results ................................ 173
7.1 eDME Transponder and Broadcast Setup ..................................................... 173
7.1.1 eDME Transmit Hardware and Software ...................................... 173
7.2 Flight-Test Demonstration Details ................................................................ 177
7.3 Transponder and Modulation Performance .................................................. 179
7.4 Forward Error Correction and Error Detection Results ................................ 184
Chapter 8: Recommendations ......................................................................................... 197
Chapter 9: Summary and Conclusions ............................................................................ 201
References ....................................................................................................................... 206
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LIST OF TABLES

Page

Table 1: Relevant Proposed APNT Requirements [4] ...................................................... 25

Table 2: Data Throughput of Various GNSSs after FEC and Error Detection [10] [11]
[12] [13] [14]..................................................................................................................... 28
Table 3: Potential eDME Message Payload...................................................................... 30
Table 4: DME/N Operational Specifications .................................................................... 37
Table 5: DME/N Transponder Pulse Specifications ......................................................... 38
Table 6: DME/N Interrogator Specifications [15] [18] .................................................... 42
Table 7: 8-PSK Natural and Gray Symbol Mapping ........................................................ 58
Table 8: Hamming Distance Example .............................................................................. 66
Table 9: Error Detection Properties for Various Methods [61] ........................................ 79
Table 10: Approximate UCWER for Several RS and BCH codes ................................... 86
Table 11: Max FER and Message Latency as a Function of Messages per TTA Window
for (1 - 1e-7) Continuity.................................................................................................. 111
Table 12: Expected RF Front-End Losses ...................................................................... 114
Table 13: Impact of Data Broadcast on DME Capacity ................................................. 129
Table 14: TOA Thermal Noise Sigma Values as a Function of SNR [25] ..................... 141
Table 15: Code-rate, Necessary CRC, and Symbol Rate for 4/5/6/7 bit Symbols at
2700/5000/7000 ppps Transponder Load (For 15 dB SNR and 2.926e-3 FER) ............ 146
Table 16: Non-Priority and Partial-Priority PPPM Effective Throughput for 4/5/6/7 bit
Symbols at 2700/5000/7000 ppps Load (For 15 dB SNR and 2.292e-3 FER) ............... 147
Table 17: DPSK Modulation and Code Parameters for FER Simulation Shown in Figure
40..................................................................................................................................... 155
Table 18: Important Performance and Code Parameters from Figure 48 ...................... 170
Table 19: Code Performance and Parameters for Figure 49 ........................................... 172
Table 20: First Pulse Phase Variation Statistics ............................................................. 180
Table 21 Beat Signal TOT Statistics............................................................................... 181
Table 22: Measured DPSK Error Statistics of the Transmitted Beat Signal .................. 183
Table 23: Flight-test Data Message Contents ................................................................. 185
Table 24: FEC Schemes Tested for the November 2014 and March 2015 Flight-tests . 189
Table 25: 2014 and 2015 Flight-test Overall FEC Performance .................................... 192
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LIST OF FIGURES

Page

Figure 1: DME Slant-range Calculation Procedure .......................................................... 35

Figure 2: Single DME/N Pulse Represented Using a Gaussian Distribution ................... 39
Figure 3: Potential eDME Architectures [21] ................................................................... 44
Figure 4: eDME Beat Signal Example.............................................................................. 47
Figure 5: Underlying DME Carrier Phase [9]................................................................... 48
Figure 6: Basic Communication System........................................................................... 49
Figure 7: Pulse Position Modulation (Reproduced from [41]) ......................................... 55
Figure 8: Pulse-pair Position Modulation (PPPM) ........................................................... 56
Figure 9: BPSK (left) and QPSK (right) Symbol Constellations ..................................... 57
Figure 10: 8-PSK Natural (Left) and Gray (Right) Symbol Constellation ....................... 59
Figure 11: RSC Turbo Encoder ........................................................................................ 72
Figure 12: Turbo Decoder ................................................................................................. 74
Figure 13: LDPC Bipartite Graph ..................................................................................... 76
Figure 14: Simulated Error Detection Performance for Fletcher Checksum, CRC, and
Hash .................................................................................................................................. 81
Figure 15: Probability of N errors for a 64-bit Message at High BER ............................. 83
Figure 16: Performance Relationship Between Dataword Length and 6-bit CRC
Polynomial ........................................................................................................................ 84
Figure 17: UCWER NASA LDPC(128,64) on Impulsive Channel ................................. 87
Figure 18: DVB-RCS UCWER Performance for DME Impulsive Channel .................... 89
Figure 19: Ground and Airborne Flight-Test Setup for 2012 Flight Tests [25] ............... 96
Figure 20: Side View (Left) and Front View (Right) of the 2014 Airborne Setup .......... 97
Figure 21: Real-time Quality Monitoring of the 2014 Airborne Measurement Setup ..... 99
Figure 22: 2014 and 2015 DME Channel 1 MHz Noise Measurements at FL100 and
FL35 ................................................................................................................................ 101
Figure 23: 2014 and 2015 DME 1 MHz Noise Measurements at FL100 and FL35 from [-
50,50] .............................................................................................................................. 102
Figure 24: 2015 Measured and Estimated Noise ............................................................ 105
Figure 25: 2015 Measured and Estimated Noise Distributions (Zoomed In) ................. 106
Figure 26: TTA Fault Corner Case (Rational for Requiring 2 Messages) ...................... 110
Figure 27: DME/N Y-Channel Dead-time Behavior (Top), Effective DME/N Dead-time
Behavior (Bottom) .......................................................................................................... 116
Figure 28: DME/N Uniform and Poisson Reply Efficiency Models .............................. 120
Figure 29: DME/N Interrogations vs Replies for Uniform and Poisson Models (60µs
Dead-time) ...................................................................................................................... 121
Figure 30: Number of Interrogations vs Reply Efficiency for Poisson Model (45µs Dead-
time) ................................................................................................................................ 123
Figure 31: DME/N Reply Efficiency vs Interrogation Rate for Poisson Model with
Uniform Data (500 ppps) and Uniform Monitor (120 ppps) .......................................... 126
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Figure 32: DME/N Reply Efficiency vs Number of Interrogations for Poisson Model with
Uniform Monitor and Data Pulse-Pairs .......................................................................... 127
Figure 33: Power Lost from Sampling Offset of Single DME/N Pulse with 250kHz 4th
Order Butterworth Filter ................................................................................................. 130
Figure 34: Maximum Dot Duration IDENT Sequence for "JJ" ...................................... 135
Figure 35: Minimum Dot Duration IDENT Sequence for "JJ" ...................................... 135
Figure 36: Half-Amplitude TOA Measurement Noise as a Function of SNR ................ 139
Figure 37: Number of Errors and Erasures vs SNR for Non-Priority and Partial Priority
PPPM with 31 5-bit Transmission Symbols and 2.926e-3 FER ..................................... 143
Figure 38: Maximum Code-Rate and Optimal Decoding Window Size vs SNR for Non-
Priority and Partial-Priority PPPM with 31 5-bit Transmission Symbols and 2.926e-3
FER ................................................................................................................................. 144
Figure 39: DPSK and PSK Demodulation for Impulsive and AWGN Noise................. 152
Figure 40: FER for Hard-decision Codes Using DPSK over Impulsive Channel .......... 154
Figure 41: D-BPSK Gaussian Pulse Demodulation with 4th Order Butterworth and
Matched Filter with AWGN ........................................................................................... 159
Figure 42: Frequency Response of 4th Order Butterworth Filter and Matched Filter
(Gaussian Template) ....................................................................................................... 160
Figure 43: BER for Individual Bits for 2-DPSK, 4-DPSK, 8-DPSK, and 16-DPSK ..... 162
Figure 44: 8-DPSK LLR After Max-log-MAP Demodulation on Impulsive Channel .. 163
Figure 45: FER Performance of 1 second BCH, Turbo, and LDPC Codes on Impulsive
Channel ........................................................................................................................... 164
Figure 46: High-rate Turbo, LDPC, and BCH Comparison ........................................... 166
Figure 47: FER of Several 2/3 DBTC Codes on 4-DPSK .............................................. 168
Figure 48: FER of DBTC for 1/3 (Solid Lines) and 1/2 (Dotted) Rate on 4-DPSK and 1/2
(Dashed) Rate on 8-DPSK .............................................................................................. 169
Figure 49: Throughput Summary after FEC and Error Detection for Turbo (Red), LDPC
(Blue), and BCH (Green) Codes ..................................................................................... 171
Figure 50: Prototype eDME Transponder Setup ............................................................ 174
Figure 51: The Exterior (Top) and the Interior (Bottom) of the Transponder Site......... 177
Figure 52: Flight-test Flight Paths .................................................................................. 178
Figure 53: Phase Noise Associated with Non-IDENT, IDENT, and IDENT-equalizing
Pulse-pairs ....................................................................................................................... 180
Figure 54: Measured DPSK Modulation Phase Noise.................................................... 182
Figure 55: Transponder Modulation Phase Instability Associated with Low Temperatures
......................................................................................................................................... 184
Figure 56: 2014 and 2015 Flight-test FER vs SNR ........................................................ 188
Figure 57: Total Number of Frames per SNR for 2014 and 2015 FEC (Dashed Lines
Represent Total Number of Frames; Solid Lines Represent Frame Errors) ................... 190
Figure 58: Total Number of Frames per SNR for 2014 and 2015 FEC for SNRs from -10
to 20 dB (Dashed Lines Represent Total Number of Frames; Solid Lines Represent
Frame Errors) .................................................................................................................. 190
Figure 59: 2014 Flight-test 2-DPSK (Top) and 8-DPSK (Bottom) ................................ 193
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Figure 60: 2015 Flight-test Data Results (LDPC(128,64), 2-DPSK, Top) (DVB-
RCS(288,96), 4-DPSK, Bottom) .................................................................................... 193
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LIST OF ACRONYMS

ADS-B Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast

APNT Alternative Position Navigation and Timing

ARINC Aeronautical Radio, Incorporated

AWGN Additive white Gaussian noise

BCH Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem

BER Bit Error Rate

BP Belief Propagation

bps Bits per second

BPSK Binary-PSK

BRGC Binary Reflected Gray Code

CC Convolutional Code

CDF Cumulative distribution function

CONUS Contiguous United States

CPM Continuous Phase Modulation

CRC Cyclic Redundancy Check

Cs Cesium

CW Continuous Waveform

DDI DME/DME/IRU

DME Distance Measuring Equipment

DME/N DME/Narrowband

DME/P DME/Precision

DPSK Differential-PSK

DSSS Direct Sequence Spread-Spectrum

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DTED Digital Terrain Elevation Data

DVB-RCS Digital Video Broadcasting - Return Channel via Satellite

eDME Enhanced-DME

FAA Federal Aviation Administration

FCS Frame Check Sequence

FEC Forward Error Correction

FER Frame Error Rate

FPGA Field-Programmable Gate Array

GNSS Global Navigation Satellite System

GPS Global Positioning System

HD Hamming Distance

ICAO International Civil Aviation Organization

IRU Inertial Reference Unit

JTIDS Joint Tactical Information Distribution System

LAAS Local Area Augmentation System

LDPC Low-Density Parity-Check Code

LLR Log-Likelihood Ratio

LOS Line-of-Sight

MAP Maximum a posteriori estimation

MIDS Multifunctional Information Distribution System

ML Maximum Likelihood

MLS Microwave Landing System

MOPS Minimum Operational Performance Requirements

MPS Message-Passing Algorithm

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MSA Min-Sum Algorithm

MSL Mean Sea Level

NAS National Airspace System

NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NextGen Next Generation Air Transportation System

NF Noise Factor

nmi Nautical mile

PBN Performance Based Navigation

pdf Probability Density Function

PLL Phase-Locked Loop

pmf Probability mass function

PNT Position Navigation and Timing

PPM Pulse Position Modulation

PPPM Pulse-Pair Position Modulation

ppps Pulse-Pairs per second

PPS Pulse-Per-Second

PSK Phase-Shift Keying

QPSK Quadrature-PSK

Rb Rubidium

RE Reply Efficiency

RF Radio Frequency

RFI Radio Frequency Interference

RNAV Area Navigation

RS Reed-Solomon
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SDR Software Defined Radio

SNR Signal-to-Noise Ratio

SPA Sum-Product Algorithm

sps Symbols per Second

TACAN Tactical Air Navigation

TCP/IP Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol

TDMA Time Division Multiple Access

TOA Time-of-Arrival

TOT Time-of-Transmission

TOW Time of Week

TTA Time-to-Alert

TTFF Time-to-First-Fix

UCWER Undetected Codeword Error Rate

USRP Universal Software Radio Peripheral

UTC Coordinated Universal Time

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Commercial aviation is expected to experience continued growth that is projected

to result in additional utilization of the National Airspace System (NAS). The

corresponding increase in NAS occupancy, has prompted the Federal Aviation

Administration (FAA) to create and allocate funds to the Next Generation Air

Transportation System (NextGen) Program that will increase the effective NAS capacity,

enhance safety, reduce delays, and lessen the environmental impact associated with

aviation [1], [2]. The NextGen program intends to facilitate these enhancements by

leveraging benefits from four categories that are associated with Multiple Runway

Operations, Performance Based Navigation (PBN), surface operations, and ground and

voice data communications, of which PBN will be the category of importance for this

thesis [1], [2].

For PBN, the fundamental factors are related to attainable Position, Navigation

and Timing (PNT) performance, and PBN procedures are defined by their operational

context instead of sensor quality [3]. A navigation system must then be able to meet PBN

requirements by using any sensors onboard the aircraft, such that PNT requirements are

no longer tied to one sensor or system [3]. This change in sensor use marks a shift in the

navigation paradigm and has the potential to increase aviation efficiency and flexibility

by allowing for direct flights, which are possible since PBN removes flight path

limitations that require an aircraft to overfly a utilized navigation aid [3]. PBN also plans

to implement Trajectory-Based Operations (TBO) that will utilize aircrafts' current and

projected 3D position, referred to as Four Dimensional Trajectory (4DT), to provide

 20

separation, sequencing, merging, and spacing of flights [4]. These new operations will

require either an Area Navigation (RNAV) or Required Navigation Performance (RNP)

capable system with requirements that are defined by accuracy, integrity, continuity,

availability, coverage, and navigation functionality specifications [3]. In addition, RNP

systems will require the capability to perform onboard monitoring and alerting with

regards to navigation performance [3].

Advanced RNAV and RNP operations will require precise PNT information and

consequently rely heavily on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSSs) since there

are potentially only a few systems that can meet requirements [1] [3] [5]. In addition,

there is currently no system that is certified for the more stringent NextGen PBN

requirements which causes concerns in addition to PBN’s reliance on GNSS. For GNSS,

NAS resiliency also requires additional scrutinization because a loss of GNSS could

disrupt PBN operations unless an alternative or backup system is available [4] [5]. The

effects associated with losing GNSS are also further exacerbated by the new NextGen

surveillance procedures that use an aircraft's self-derived position and velocity, instead of

the traditional ground based radars, to track an aircraft [1] [4] [6]. This information is

derived from the same sensors that are used for navigation and is subsequently relayed to

Air Traffic Control (ATC) and other nearby aircraft by means of the Automatic

Dependent Surveillance - Broadcast (ADS-B) system [1] [4] [6]. By association, ADS-B

and surveillance operations also rely on GNSS, which invalidates the typical contingency

plan that uses surveillance information to aid an aircraft in the event that navigation
 21

information is unavailable [4]. This coupling between navigation and surveillance makes

GNSS a common mode failure that compounds GNSS outage concerns.

As a result of NextGen's critical reliance on GNSS, the FAA created the

Alternative Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (APNT) Program whose purpose is to

ensure that "alternate PNT services will be available to support flight operations,

maintain safety, minimize economic impacts from GPS outages within the NAS, and

support air transportation's timing needs" [4]. APNT intends to meet these objectives by

using existing navigation systems so that implementation costs can be minimized [4].

Distance Measuring Equipment (DME) is one legacy system that is being investigated

and will also be the focus of this thesis [4]. Specifically, this thesis will discuss, simulate,

and analyze how the legacy DME/N system can be modified to support data transmission

that would aid in the task of making DME an RNP capable system by providing integrity

related station ID, position, and health information. This thesis also implements the

proposed data related modifications and provides flight-test results that demonstrate that

DME can indeed be augmented to reliably transmit data without significantly degrading

legacy performance.

Overall, this thesis will cover the background of APNT, DME, and enhanced

DME and will also derive basic data requirements in Chapter 2. In Chapter 3, the basics

of a digital communication system will be covered and relevant modulation schemes will

be summarized. In Chapter 4, the general principles and terminology of Forward Error

Correction (FEC) codes will be covered along with hard-decision and soft-decision FEC

codes and methods of providing adequate error detection. Chapter 5 will discuss the
 22

possible error sources in the DME channel and present a set of statistical channel models

that are used for simulation. In Chapter 6, more specific data requirements are

determined, the impact of data on legacy DME is derived, the feasibility of PPPM and

PSK modulation are studied, and the FEC schemes as applicable to PSK are simulated

and discussed. In Chapter 7, the implementation and the flight-test results are

documented. As a disclaimer, Chapter 7 utilizes previous work that was co-authored and

published by the author of this thesis. Some of this work is utilized verbatim and is cited

accordingly. Finally, Chapter 8 concludes the thesis with a summary, conclusions, and

recommendations.
 23

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND

2.1 Alternative Position Navigation and Timing

PBN navigation and surveillance operations rely heavily on GNSSs since GNSS

can provide the necessary accuracy, precision, and monitoring required to meet PBN

RNP requirements [3]. However, all GNSSs are space based and are therefore susceptible

to common events that could cause a simultaneous loss of many satellite signals. An

excitation of the earth’s ionosphere, due to increased solar activity, is one such event that

could cause an unavoidable loss of GNSS coverage since the highly charged ionosphere

would significantly distort the GNSS signal during transit and would make it very

difficult or possibly impossible to track the GNSS signal due to signal attenuation and/or

scintillation. Intentional or unintentional jamming is another concern since even a low

power jammer could cause GNSS tracking problems due to the fact that the received

signal power of a GNSS signal is very low as a result of free space losses and satellite

transmission power limitations. Finally, spoofing is a growing concern that is being

studied, for example, by the GNSS Intentional Interference and Spoofing Study Team

(GIISST). With spoofing, a party maliciously transmits a counterfeit GNSS signal, with

the intent of introducing a false position solution by the GNSS receiver. As a result of the

susceptibility of GNSS to ionospheric scintillation, jamming, and spoofing, it is necessary

that a backup or alternate PNT system be available that is resilient to the aforementioned

threats.

As mentioned earlier, the APNT program is tasked with combating these threats

by investigating a backup system that can ensure safety and eventually an alternative
 24

system that can meet the stringent PBN RNP requirements [4] [5]. Such a system is

qualitatively described in the APNT Concept of Operations (CONOPS) by four “pillars”

that are [4]:

1. Safe Recovery by means of landing currently airborne aircraft

2. Strategic modification of current flight trajectories to circumvent portions of

airspace that are impacted by interference and management of affected aircraft

3. “Continued dispatch of air carrier operations to deny an economic target for

an intentional jammer” [4]

4. Seamless transition to alternate PNT system(s) so that flight operations can

continue without a significant increase in either pilot or Aircraft Navigation

Service Provider (ANSP) workload.

These pillars illustrate that NAS safety is the first primary objective and that allowing for

continued flights without burdening the crew is the second eventual objective.

Quantitatively, the specific RNAV and RNP operations associated with PBN, and

by association APNT, are separated into two categories: Navigation and Surveillance [3]

[4]. For the Navigation category, the requirement is defined with respect to the Total

System Error (TSE) that incorporates the Path Definition Error (PDE), Navigation

System Error (NSE), and Flight Technical Error (FTE) [3] [4]. All three of the above

error types are assumed to be Normally Distributed with zero mean such that the TSE can

be calculated via the L2-norm, or Root-Sum-Square (RSS), of the individual error

components, which results in [3] [4]:

𝑇𝑆𝐸 = √𝑃𝐷𝐸 2 + 𝑁𝑆𝐸 2 + 𝐹𝑇𝐸 2 (2.1)

 25

For the TSE calculation, it is assumed that the majority of the error will be associated

with FTE, that the NSE will be equal to the surveillance Navigation Accuracy Category

(NAC), and that PDE is negligible [3] [4]. The TSE value is then used to differentiate

between performance levels by means of the notation RNAV X or RNP X, where X is

defined by the TSE [3].

Table 1: Relevant Proposed APNT Requirements [4]

Navigation1 Surveillance
( ≥ 99.0% Availability) ( ≥ 99.9% Availability)
Flight Accuracy2 Containment2 Separation2 NACp2 NIC2 (10-7)
Operation (95%) (10-7) (95%)
Departure 1.0 2.0 3.0 0.05 0.6
High Density 0.3 0.6 3.0 0.05 0.6
Cruise 2.0 4.0 5.0 0.17 1.0
High Density 1.0 2.0 3.0 0.05 0.2
Arrival 1.0 2.0 3.0 0.17 1.0
High Density 0.3 0.6 3.0 0.05 0.2
1
Navigation performance is comprised of the Path Definition Error (PDE), Flight
Technical Error (FTE), and Navigation System Error (NSE) that combines to form the
Total System Error (TSE)
2
Units are nautical miles (nmi)

Table 1 summarizes the suggested APNT accuracy and integrity requirements [4]

with RNP 0.3 as the most challenging navigation performance target and NACp-8 (92.6

m, 95% accuracy) and NIC-7 (370.4 m, 1-10-7 containment) as the most challenging

surveillance performance targets. RNP 0.3 navigation performance with a Total System

Error (TSE) of 0.3 nmi can be further split into a Flight Technical Error (FTE),

Navigation System Error (NSE), and Path Definition Error (PDE). With the FTE assumed
 26

to be 0.25 nmi [3] and the PDE assumed 0 nmi, the resulting NSE is 0.17 nmi (307 m)

95%. The Horizontal Alert Limit (HAL) is twice the NSE, or 614 m with 10-7

containment.

The currently available non-GNSS aviation navigation systems are not certified to

these stringent performance levels. For this reason, the modification of existing systems

and potentially the development of new systems are being investigated to fill this gap.

2.1.1 Candidate Systems

Several candidate systems have been investigated for the APNT program. DME

with an optimized legacy DME network, referred to as “NextGen DME/N”, enhanced

DME, or “eDME”, which is an advanced version of the DME system, and “Hybrid

Ranging” are three main candidate systems that have received significant attention [4]

[5]. A pivotal component of the above systems is DME due to its existing infrastructure,

resilience and reliability over decades of service, potential accuracy, and indifference

regarding time synchronization between stations given certain configurations [4] [5]. For

the Hybrid Ranging system, eDME 2-way ranging, pseudoranging, and time-transfer are

combined with Mode-S and UAT beacons to derive slant-range/position [7]. DME also

has the benefit that it can be used for RNAV 1 operations when a RNAV 1 certified

Flight Management System (FMS) has access to measurements from at least two DME

stations and an inertial reference unit (IRU), referred to as DME/DME/IRU (DDI), which

may help expedite certification [5] [8]. In addition, the high-power DME signal and

Contiguous United States (CONUS) infrastructure respectively reduces the efficacy of

jamming and cost associated with deploying a new system. The possibility to improve
 27

DME accuracy, facilitated by carrier-phase tracking, also makes it likely that DME will

satisfy APNT accuracy requirements [5] [9]. These benefits are some of the reasons why

DME is the candidate system that will be investigated in this thesis.

2.1.2 General Data Requirements and Content

Data requirements for an APNT system are foremost based on the data system’s

ability to provide information that will help the overall system meet RNP monitoring

requirements. Such information would include station ID and position, health, and system

performance information since PBN specifies that accurate navigation database

information, indication of RNP system failure, and RNP system accuracy metrics be

available to the user [3]. From an APNT perspective, it is also desirable that the data

channel be capable of providing precise time and frequency corrections to facilitate the

use of advanced communications [4] [5]. The data channel should also have the necessary

capacity and functionality to add an authentication layer to the navigation system to

prevent spoofing. Other factors such as the degree of impact on legacy users, hardware

limitations, and system robustness, coverage, complexity, and cost are also important and

these constraints must be balanced so that the system can fulfill its purpose while

remaining practical and efficient.

The data throughput required to provide station ID and position, health status,

system accuracy, timing coefficients, and other relevant information is likely relatively

low since it is expected that the DME navigation message will contain similar

information that is encompassed within a typical GNSS navigation message. Note that

certain GNSS message information such as ephemeris parameters and ionospheric model
 28

coefficients are not applicable to a terrestrial based navigation system. Instead, these

parameters will likely be replaced by a static position and mask angle limit parameters,

thereby further reducing the required data rate. Given the assumption that the DME data

system will require a similar data throughput to that of GNSSs, it is insightful to look at

the typical GNSS data throughput, which has been tabulated below in units of bits per

second (bps), for various GNSS systems with and without Forward Error Correction

(FEC) and error detection [10] [11] [12] [13] [14]:

Table 2: Data Throughput of Various GNSSs after FEC and Error Detection [10] [11]
[12] [13] [14]

System Data Throughput: Data Throughput: After FEC

Raw (bps) and Error Detection (bps)
GPS L1 C/A [10] 50 40.0
GPS L1C [12] 100 43.7
GPS L2-CNAV [10] 50 23.0
GPS L5-CNAV [11] 100 46.0
GLONASS L1 [13] 50 45.3
GLONASS L2 [13] 50 45.3
Galileo E1 [14] 250 90.0
Galileo E5a [14] 50 21.4
Galileo E5b [14] 250 90.0
Galileo E6 [14] 1000 494

Table 2 indicates that the effective data rate is roughly 50 bps if the Galileo E6

signal is excluded and 100 bps otherwise. Therefore, it is expected that an effective data

throughput of 50 bps will be more than sufficient to meet terrestrial navigation data

requirements since in this case the data heavy satellite ephemeris data is unnecessary.
 29

However, note that potential future station authentication is not included in this analysis.

Therefore, it is recommended to allocate sufficient design margin to enable authentication

and possible other future data requirements.

The data that could be transmitted using the aforementioned bandwidth is

discussed below in Table 3. The contents of the table are primarily derived from the

current GPS navigation message as well as from DME constraints.

 30

Table 3: Potential eDME Message Payload

Message Information Bits Range Scale

Message Type 5 [0, 63] 1
Message Integrity Check 24 -- --
21
Station Identification 21 [0, 2 ) 1
Health 6 -- 1
Station Position
Latitude 27 [-90, 90] 180/(227 – 1) degrees
Longitude 28 [-180, 180) 360/228 degrees
Height 17 [-500, 9000] 0.125 meters
Antenna Mask Info
Azimuth – Start Sector 8 [0, 360) 360/28 degrees
Azimuth – End Sector 8 [0, 360) 360/28 degrees
Azimuth – Symm. Flag 1 -- --
Elevation – Start 5 [0, 3.2] 0.1 degrees
Sector
Elevation – End Sector 7 [0, 45] 0.5 degrees
Precise Time
a_f0 22 [-(2-10), (2-10 – 2-31)] 2-31 sec
a_f1 16 [-(2-28), (2-28 – 2-43)] 2-43 sec/sec
a_f2 7 [-(2-49), (2-49 – 2-55)] 2-55 sec/sec2
Residual time offset 12 ±1e-9 ns 50 picoseconds
Residual Freq offset 12 ±1e-9 s/s 5e-13 s/s
Course Time
Time of Week (TOW) 20 [0, 1,007,999] 0.6 seconds
Week Number 12 [0, 4095] 1 week
GPS Time Sync Status 1 -- --
Universal Coordinated 10 [0, 1000] 1 millisecond
Time (UTC) Bias
UTC Leap Sec 8 [0, 255] 1 second
Next UTC Leap Sec 3 [-4, 3] 1 second
Delta
Next UTC Leap Week 10 [0, 4095] 1 week
Next UTC Leap Day 3 [0, 7] 1 day
TOTAL 293
 31

The information in the above table would provide the user with the necessary

identification, location, health, time, environmental parameters, i.e. mask angle, and

integrity check information to utilize the navigation signal. The justification for the

number of bits allocated per field was either based on GPS messages or chosen by the

author. Specifically, course time, precise time, and health, are the same as GPS since an

analysis was not conducted to determine what the necessary coefficient resolution should

be and there is disagreement with regards to what timing is necessary to meet APNT

objectives. The station identification was determined by considering how many bits

would be required to represent all possible DME/N station identifiers that are labeled

with 4 Morse-code sequences that contain the alphanumeric set in addition to the space

character. This results in ceil(4 log 2 37) bits. Station location fields were designed to

result in an approximate 24.5 cm position resolution for a station which is more than

sufficient for the PBN specification.

In addition to the required data throughput, it is also necessary to consider the

Time-to-Alert (TTA), which is defined as the time between when a fault occurs and when

the receiver notifies the user, and the continuity, which is defined as “the capability of a

system to perform its function without unscheduled interruptions” since these two

quantities determine how frequently a decoding failure can occur [15]. This is the case

because health information must be transmitted to the airplane within the TTA window

so that the receiver can verify that the system is fault-free. Arguably, the DME system

could cease transmission if a fault was detected, as prescribed by the legacy DME

specification [16]; however, this is likely unacceptable since it is possible that the fault
 32

only degrades performance so that the more stringent PBN requirements cannot be met

and that the signal is still within specification for legacy DME/N users.

Currently, the TTA and continuity are not explicitly defined for PBN operations,

but [15] does provide GNSS signal-in-space requirements for various phases of flight that

should be applicable since GNSS is currently used for RNP operations [3]. Specifically,

[15] states that for Initial approach, Intermediate approach, Non-precision approach, and

Departure operations a GNSS requires a NSE of 220 m, TTA of 10 seconds, and

Continuity between (1 – 1e-4)/hr and (1 – 1e-8)/hr. The description of the aforementioned

operations matches those in Table 1 for RNP 0.3 operations. The TTA requirement of 10

seconds is most applicable for the intended DME usage, since the next most stringent

GNSS operation in [15], Approach with Vertical Guidance I (APV-I), has a NSE

requirement of 16.0 m and also requires a TTA of 10 seconds. APV-I also has a

continuity requirement of (1 – 8e-6) in any 15 second observation window which is less

stringent than the previous category, when extrapolated to a per hour basis, so instead the

more stringent continuity requirement of (1 – 1e-4)/hr will be used [15].

Although the overall TTA window is set at 10 seconds, not all 10 seconds can be

allocated to message latency since it takes some finite amount of time to detect a fault as

well as propagate and process the message. It will instead be assumed that half of the

TTA window, 5 seconds, is used for fault-detection, message generation, propagation,

and message decoding and that the other half is available to account for message latency.

Another assumption is that once a message transmission is started that it cannot be

interrupted. As a result, it is necessary that at least two messages be received within the 5
 33

second TTA latency window to account for the corner-case where a fault occurs at the

start of a new message. The relationship between the 5 second TTA window, overall data

continuity of (1 – 1e-4)/hr, number of messages transmitted within the TTA window, and

message error rate will be discussed further in Chapter 6. In addition, the term TTA

window will be used to describe the effective TTA data window of 5 seconds.

2.2 Legacy Distance Measuring Equipment

DME is a pulsed radio navigation system that effectively provides the user with a

slant-range to a ground station and was first standardized by ICAO in 1952 [17]. This

version of DME is referred to as DME/Narrowband (DME/N) and is the DME system

that is primarily used today for standard flight operations and can be used for RNAV 1

operations when certain navigation aid geometry is met and when integrated with an IRU

[3] [4]. A variation of DME that is referred to as DME/Precision (DME/P) was

standardized in 1985 for landing procedures when coupled with the Microwave Landing

System (MLS). DME/P provides a ranging accuracy of better-than 30 meters, but only

during the Final Approach phase of a landing (11 nmi). The limited range of DME/P

makes the system not useful for APNT en-route navigation. Furthermore, since the

commercial use of MLS never materialized, there is currently no existing DME/P

infrastructure in the Continental United States (CONUS). Therefore, this work focusses

on the widely used legacy DME/N system and its potential enhancements.

2.2.1 Principle of Operation

DME/N operates in the L-Band spectrum and exploits a pair of Gaussian shaped

pulses to determine the approximate round trip time between the airborne user and
 34

ground station, which can then be used to calculate the slant-range [17] [15] [16] [18].

The system accomplishes this calculation by using an airborne unit that is referred to as

an interrogator and a ground station that is referred to as a transponder [17] [15] [16]

[18]. Explicitly, the approximate round trip time is calculated by executing the following

procedure: 1) the airborne interrogator transmits a pulse pair on frequency A and records

the time of transmission 𝑡𝑡𝑥 , 2) the ground station receives the pulse pair, waits a fixed

duration 𝑡𝑑 , and then transmits a reply pulse pair on frequency B which is 63 MHz away

from frequency A, 3) the interrogator receives the transponder pulse pair, records the

time of reception 𝑡𝑟𝑥 , and then calculates the slant-range to the ground station via the

following equation (when error terms are not considered):

𝑡𝑟𝑥 − 𝑡𝑡𝑥 − 𝑡𝑑
𝑅= (2.1)
2𝑐

where 𝑅 is the slant range and 𝑐 is the speed of light through atmosphere (12.359 µs per

round-trip mile, which corresponds to 2 nmi, or 299700623 m/s). In Equation 2.1, all

times are with respect to the half-amplitude (HA) point of the first pulse since the second

pulse is not used for timing and is only present to determine if a valid DME pulse was

received [17] [15] [16] [18]. This procedure is pictorially summarized below in Figure 1.
 35

1. Interrogator (Airplane) transmits pulse pair on freq A

2. Transponder (DME ground station) receives pulse pair,
adds 50 or 56 μs delay, transmits pulses on freq B
3. Airplane receives pulses, measures round-trip delay,
calculates slant range:
o l o i el − o e el
l ge =
23

Figure 1: DME Slant-range Calculation Procedure

In practice, there are multiple interrogators that are transmitting pulse-pairs to the

transponder which results in an interrogator receiving transponder replies that are not

associated with its own interrogations [17]. The interrogator resolves these discrepancies

by interrogating the transponder at pseudorandom intervals, recording all replies that are

received after the most recent interrogation, and then choosing the set of replies that

produce the most consistent slant-range measurements [17]. This procedure can then be

replicated for multiple transponders and a position solution can be derived using two or

more DME stations in combination with a barometric altimeter. However to obtain an

accurate position solution that meets RNAV 1 standards, the DME station pair geometry

needs to be such that the two stations are between 30 and 150 degrees apart [8].
 36

2.2.2 Specifications and Limitations

The specifications for the legacy DME transponder are defined by ICAO, [15],

and the FAA, [16]. Similarly, the specifications and Minimum Operational Performance

Standards (MOPS) for the interrogator are respectively defined by ICAO, [15], and

RTCA, Inc [18]. The above documents specify the waveforms that are transmitted as well

as the operating conditions that the transponder and interrogator must perform in.

2.2.2.1 Legacy DME Transponder

For the transponder, the key specifications in the context of this thesis are the

operational requirements associated with system capacity, continuity, and integrity as

well as the physical signal requirements associated with the pulse shape, pulse-pair

spacing, transmit power, spectrum usage, and frequency and phase stability. These

quantities are important because they define minimum requirements for an augmented

DME system and also constrain modifications to the DME signal structure. The overall

operational DME/N requirements from [15] and [16] are summarized by Table 4.
 37

Table 4: DME/N Operational Specifications

Parameter Defined Specification

Capacity 70% Reply efficiency with minimum peak traffic of 200
interrogators interrogating at an average rate of 30 pulse-pairs per
second (ppps) [16].
Ground components capable of supporting minimum peak traffic
load of 4800 ppps [16]
Continuity Defined as the probability of not losing radiated guidance signals:
 4e-6 Probability of Failure for 120 second exposure period
[16].
Integrity Defined as the probability of not radiating false guidance signals:
 1e-7 Probability of Failure [16]

The pulse specifications are also defined in [15] and [16] and have been reproduced in

Table 5, below.
 38

Table 5: DME/N Transponder Pulse Specifications

Parameter Defined Specification

Pulse Rise-time Nominally 2.5 (min: 1.5, max: 3.0) µs [15] [16]
 from 10% to 90% point of pulse
Pulse duration Nominally 3.5 ± 0.5 µs [15], [16]
 between rising and falling 50% points
Pulse decay-time Nominally 2.5 (min: 1.5, max: 3.0) µs [15], [16]
 from falling 90% to 10% points
Pulse-pair Spacing X-Channel: 12 ± 0.25 µs [15], [16]
Y-Channel: 30 ± 0.25 µs [15], [16]
Reply Delay X-Channel: 50 ± 0.25 µs [18]
Y-Channel: 56 ± 0.25 µs [18]
Reply Dead-time Nominally 60 µs [17]
Transmit Power 100 W (low-power) or 1000 W (high-power) peak power
[16]
Pulse Power Variation <1dB power variation between 1st and 2nd pulse peaks [15],
[16]
Pulse Bandwidth <200 mW for each 0.5 MHz band centered on frequencies
±0.8 MHz from nominal center frequency. [15], [16]
Carrier Frequency ±0.001 % of nominal frequency according to [16]
Accuracy ±0.002 % of nominal frequency according to [15]

Using the pulse parameters in Table 5, a DME pulse-pair can be approximated

with Gaussian shapes [17], [19]. The Gaussian representation for a single pulse-pair is:

−𝛼𝑡 2 −𝛼(𝑡 − ∆𝑡)2

(𝑡) = ex ( ) + ex ( ) (2.2)
2 2

where 𝛼 = 4 527 × 011 −2

, t is the time vector in seconds, and ∆𝑡 is equal to the pulse-

pair spacing in seconds. As Equation (2.2) shows, the two pulses are identical but shifted

in time so it is only necessary to look at one pulse to convey the pulse characteristics.

This is illustrated below in Figure 2, which shows a single DME/N pulse that is annotated

with letters for the 10%, 50%, and 90% rising and falling points of the pulse as well as
 39

the peak point. The pulse rise time, duration, and decay time are then respectively defined

by the time difference between points [a,c], [b,f], and [e,g]. The pulse spacing between

the pulses within a pulse-pair is calculated with respect to HA point of the pulse [15] [16]

[17] [18].

Figure 2: Single DME/N Pulse Represented Using a Gaussian Distribution

In addition, the transponder must also transmit a Morse Code identification

sequence, hence forth referred to as the "Ident", every 30 seconds ± 1 second according to

[16], at least once every 40 seconds according to [15], or every 37.5 seconds ± 10%

according to [20] so that an interrogator can know which ground transponder it is

tracking. The Ident is defined such that each Morse-code dot has a duration of 0.1 – 0.160

seconds, [15], or 0.125 seconds ± 10% [20], each dash has a duration approximately
 40

equal to 3 dots, each period between a dot or dash is equal to 1 dot ± 10%, and each

period between characters has a duration of 3 dots ± 10% [15] [16]. [15] and [16] also

constrain the Ident to a key-down duration that is less than 5 seconds and a total Ident

duration that is less than 10 seconds. During this key-down period, the transponder

nominally transmits uniformly spaced pulse-pairs at a rate of 1350 ppps or 2700 ppps if

equalizing pulse-pairs are used [15] [16]. If the equalizing pulse-pairs are transmitted,

then a second pulse-pair is transmitted 100 µs ± 10 µs after each Ident pulse-pair so that

the duty cycle is preserved, which is necessary for the Tactical Air Navigation (TACAN)

System, but is optional for DME [15] [20]. Briefly, TACAN is a military system that

performs the same function as DME/N but also amplitude modulates the transmitted

signal in space, resulting in a 15 and 135 Hz scanning beam, that is used by the military

user to determine its bearing with respect to the ground station [20]. In addition, TACAN

also broadcasts additional pulse bursts to provide a bearing reference [17] [20]. TACAN

also has more stringent Ident considerations, such as a dot duration of 0.125 sec ±10%

and dash duration of 0.375 ±10%, so many modern transponders adhere to the TACAN

values to remain compliant with both systems [20].

Squitter is another operation performed by the DME transponder [15] [16] [17].

Squitter is defined as random pulse-pairs that are transmitted by the transponder so that at

least 700 ppps is maintained for DME and 2700 ppps for TACAN [15] [16] [20]. The

squitter pulses are utilized to ensure that the transponder is constantly transmitting a

signal and the randomness is introduced so that squitter pulse-pairs look like replies to

other DME interrogations.

 41

A final specification that is important to the DME transponder is its receiver

sensitivity. The receiver sensitivity determines the threshold that the transponder will use

to reply to a received pulse pair. If threshold is too high, the transponder will ignore

pulse-pairs resulting in reduced system capacity and coverage. According to [16], the

nominal transponder receiver sensitivity can be at most -94 dBm for received

interrogations that are properly coded.

2.2.2.2 Legacy DME Interrogator

The airborne interrogator effectively utilizes the same signal as the transponder

except that the pulse pair is defined by different terms. The operation and procedural

routines of the interrogator are also similar. For completeness, the terms that define the

interrogator pulse shape are shown below in Table 6. In comparison to the interrogator

specifications, shown in Table 5, the transponder specifications differ with respect to the

pulse-rise and pulse-fall time, transmit power, and spectrum limitations become apparent.

The pulse-rise and pulse-fall times are effectively the same except that the interrogator

does not state a minimum or nominal value; instead it states the maximum duration of the

pulse attribute [15] [18]. The second major difference is that the interrogator can transmit

up to 2 kW and the spectrum usage in the adjacent bands is relative to the peak pulse

power instead of an absolute value that is defined for the transponder [18]. Finally, the

interrogator Y-channel uses a pulse-pair spacing of 36 µs instead of 30 µs that is used by

the transponder [15] [18].

 42

Table 6: DME/N Interrogator Specifications [15] [18]

Parameter Defined Specification

Pulse Rise-time ≤ 3 µs [15] [18]
 from 10% to 90% point of pulse
Pulse duration Nominally 3.5 ± 0.5 µs [15] [18]
 between rising and falling 50% points
Pulse decay-time ≤ 3.5 µs [15] [18]
 from falling 90% to 10% points
Pulse-pair Spacing X-Channel: 12 ± 0.25 µs [15] [18]
Y-Channel: 36 ± 0.25 µs [15] [18]
Transmit Power At least 250 W for aircraft operating above 18,000 ft [18]
At least 50 W for aircraft operating below 18,000 ft [18]
Maximum Peak Power  2 kW [18]
Pulse Power Variation <1dB power variation between 1st and 2nd pulse peaks [18]
Pulse Bandwidth 90% of power in 0.5 MHz band centered on nominal
frequency and recommended -23 dB down with respect to
peak power in each 0.5 MHz band centered on ± 0.8 MHz
from nominal frequency [15] [18].
Carrier Frequency ±100kHz of assigned channel frequency [15] [18]
Accuracy

Besides the signal definition differences, the interrogator also has a different

operational procedure because the interrogator initiates the DME slant-range calculation

process. These interrogations manifest as pseudorandom transmissions that have their

Time of Transmission (TOT) recorded and are subsequently used to determine slant-

range to the transponder [17]. The randomness is incorporated into the interrogation

pattern to reduce the likelihood that the interrogator falsely locks onto interrogations from

another aircraft [15] [18]. For the overall interrogation rate, [18] states that an

interrogator with transmit power greater than 100 W can interrogate on average 16 ppps

in tracking mode and 150 ppps in search mode when it is assumed that the interrogator
 43

tracks 95% and searches 5% of the time. [18] also indicates that an interrogator that has a

transmit power of 100 W or less can interrogate at 30/150 ppps for track/search modes

and [15] [16] document the same interrogation rates but do not include a transmit power

threshold.

2.3 Enhanced-DME

Enhanced-DME (eDME) describes a group of candidate APNT systems that

improve upon the performance and functionality of legacy DME/N [21]. Within the

eDME paradigm, there are four subset systems that are referred to as DME/N-Recap,

DME-Next, DME-Sync, and Hybrid Ranging, which are ordered from least to most

complex and will be discussed in the subsequent section [7]. DME-Next and DME-Sync

are most relevant to this thesis and both primarily achieve performance improvements by

leveraging the ability to track the underlying DME carrier phase [9] [21] [22] [23] [24]

[25] [26] [27] [28] [29]. Overall, the use of DME carrier phase based algorithms have

been able to contain the DME/N ranging error to a sufficiently low magnitude such that

DME-Next can likely meet even the most aggressive APNT accuracy and integrity

requirements [22] [29].

2.3.1 Potential eDME Architectures

The four tiers of eDME, DME/N-Recap, DME-Next, DME-Sync, and Hybrid

Ranging, provide additional functionality at each tier but also introduce added complexity

and cost compared to the current DME/N standard [21]. The four tiers are summarized

below in Figure 3.
 44

DME/N-Recap • Beat signal broadcast DME-Next

Carrier Phase & beat signal

Leverage performance enhancements – Transponders NOT time synchronized
– Resolve transponder time offset by occasional 2-
of state-of-the-art interrogators and way ranging
transponders – Significant capacity increase
FAA-E-2996 State-of-the-art – Stratum-1 frequency distribution
Interrogator 0.17 nmi 0.05 nmi (?) • Carrier phase tracking
Propagation 0.04 nmi 0.04 nmi (?) – Precise displacement measurement (cm/s)
– Multipath & noise smoothing
Transponder 0.10 nmi 0.02 nmi (?) – Multipath bounding  assured ranging
TSE (2σ) 0.20 nmi 0.07 nmi (?) • Data broadcast
• Coarse time sync for advanced comm.
Remain legacy compliant Time-synchronize transponders

• •

Add UAT and Mode/S

Combination of DME, UAT and Mode-S Synchronized beat signal broadcast
– Synchronized ground-based infrastructure – Transponders time & frequency sync
– Sparse DME 2-way ranging for absolute range – passive ranging -> unlimited capacity
and time transfer to avionics
– Frequent passive ranging to DME, UAT, and – Precise time & frequency distribution
Mode-S • Multipath mitigation by enhanced waveforms
• Increased coverage – Coherent integration of low-power wide-band
beat signal pulses

Hybrid Ranging DME-Sync

Figure 3: Potential eDME Architectures [21]

For DME/N-Recap, the same principles from DME/N apply and only the timing and

pulse-shape tolerances are tightened to improve ranging performance [21]. This adherence to

current DME/N practices limits potential improvements but also makes DME/N-Recap the most

affordable of the four tiers to implement [21]. The tightened system tolerances, compared to the

specification current specifications, does reduce ranging error but does not mitigate DME’s

vulnerability to propagation phenomena, like multipath, which has been measured to exceed 200

m after 100 seconds of smoothing [29]. In addition, DME/N-Recap interrogators will still require

an interrogation rate that is similar to current interrogators, which will be an issue for DME

capacity if the airspace density increases as expected [4] [21]. DME/N-Recap also has no means

of transmitting time or data information so the APNT required provision of time cannot be
 45

delivered and desired algorithmic signal authentication cannot be completed, if deemed

necessary [21]. Overall, DME/N-Recap’s susceptibility to propagation phenomena, potential

capacity issues, and inability to transmit time or data information makes it unlikely that only an

upgraded DME/N system will be able to meet future APNT performance and functionality

requirements.

The next more advanced tier of eDME is called DME-Next and augments DME

with carrier phase acquisition and tracking, beat signal transmission, and data broadcast

[21]. The carrier phase acquisition and tracking, which will be discussed in the next

section, provides precise displacement measurements and can also be used to smooth

noise and multipath and as well as provide bounds on multipath range errors [21] [23]. In

addition, the eDME beat signal allows a receiver to track a transponder below the pulse

detection threshold, determine time, and receive data [21] [22] [23] [28]. The

combination of carrier phase and beat signal tracking facilitates the use of algorithms that

greatly improve accuracy, integrity, and robustness as well as effectively increasing

system capacity and providing the provision of time without the need to precisely

synchronize ground stations [21] [22] [23] [28]. The Beat Signal also provides a means of

transmitting data and the data design, analysis, implementation, and testing will be the

focus of this thesis.

DME-Sync is the second most complex eDME architecture that provides the same

benefits as DME-Next except that DME-Sync ground transponders are also precisely

time-synchronized with one another [21]. This time synchronization allows a DME-Sync

receiver to passively derive slant-range from the transponder, i.e. pseudoranging, which
 46

ameliorates capacity concerns [21]. Advanced signal processing techniques are possible

on the pseudoranging signal, such as super resolution techniques after long coherent

integration. Such techniques can significantly reduce multipath-induced pseudoranging

errors. However, the necessary requirement of time-synchronized ground transponders

significantly increases system complexity and also raises concerns regarding the integrity

and accuracy of maintaining this synchronization in the absence of GNSS [21].

Fortunately, [22] and [29] state that DME-Next is likely able to meet APNT requirements

so the additional complexity of DME-Sync may not be necessary.

The final eDME architecture is Hybrid Ranging, which combines DME 2-way

and pseudoranging with pseudoranging from time-synchronized terrestrial Mode-S and

UAT beacons. This increase in ground infrastructure improves APNT coverage at the

cost of higher overall system complexity.

2.3.2 Core eDME Technical Improvements

eDME Beat Signal and DME carrier phase tracking, discussed in-depth in [9] [22]

[27] [28], are two revolutionary techniques that facilitate many of the performance

improvements associated with DME-Next and DME-Sync [21]. More importantly for this

thesis, the eDME beat signal tracking provides data symbol synchronization and the

DME carrier phase tracking provides frequency and/or phase estimates that are necessary

for demodulation. This makes the eDME beat signal and DME carrier phase very

important for data purposes.

 47

2.3.2.1 eDME Beat Signal

The eDME Beat Signal provides timing and data symbol synchronization and is

represented by a pseudorandom pattern of DME pulse-pairs that are transmitted by the

transponder at known times [23] [28]. The airborne interrogator, which is privy to this

pattern information, is able to acquire and track the beat signal by using the methods

described in [28] and consequently knows what Radio Frequency (RF) samples should

contain data symbols. Figure 4, below, illustrates the beat signal as implemented for the

flight tests described in this thesis [7] [28].

Figure 4: eDME Beat Signal Example

2.3.2.2 eDME Carrier Phase

DME Carrier Phase is a core component of the DME signal and also facilitates

many of the enhancements associated with eDME. Specifically, techniques like Carrier

Smoothed Pulse Range (CSP), Pulse Minus Carrier (PMC), and Pulse Noise Multipath

(PNMP) are based on carrier phase and significantly reduce ranging error as well as

provide an estimate of multipath conditions [23] [24] [25] [30]. eDME carrier phase also

has an important role in phase related data demodulation since the eDME phase locked

loop (PLL) outputs frequency and phase measurements that are required for
 48

demodulation. However, to obtain the carrier related measurements a modified carrier

acquisition and tracking algorithm, described in [26] [9] [27] [22], is necessary due to the

sporadic and non-periodic nature of the pulse-pairs and the lack of a static envelope

tracking point. This dynamic envelope tracking point is a consequence of the non-

coherent relationship between the carrier phase and envelope. The non-fixed relationship

between phase and pulse envelope is illustrated in Figure 5, below, where the phase at the

same point in each pulse, for example the peak, is different [9].
amplitude

time

Figure 5: Underlying DME Carrier Phase [9]

 49

CHAPTER 3: RELEVANT DIGITAL COMMUNICATION ELEMENTS

A digital communication system is designed to reliably transmit information

between two or more locations [31] [32] [33]. This reliable transfer of information is

accomplished by using multiple components that encode, transmit, receive, and decode in

succession to overcome noise and interference that may degrade the signal being

transmitted. The important components typically include a source encoder, authorization

encoder, channel encoder, signal modulator, and transmitter followed by the reciprocal

components on the receive side [31] [32] [33]. The characteristics of the channel or

propagation environment are also a key component that must be considered [31] [32].

Figure 6, shown below, summarizes the blocks that compose a basic communication

system [31] [32] [33]:

Transmitter (Transponder for eDME)

Source Auth. Channel Transmit
Source Modulator
Encoder Encoder Encoder RF

Channel
Receiver (Interrogator for eDME)
Source Auth. Channel Detector/ Receive
Sink
Decoder Decoder Decoder Demodulator RF

Figure 6: Basic Communication System

 50

3.1 Source Encoder/Decoder

The source encoding or data compression process involves converting the

information source into a coded digital stream that ideally reduces the amount of data that

must be transmitted by removing redundant information [31] [32] [33] [34]. However,

this is only possible if the source alphabet symbols are not equally likely to occur [31]

[32] [33] [34]. If the symbols are equally likely, assumed to be the case for eDME, then

an uncoded data stream is an optimal code and the information source cannot be further

compressed without a loss of information [31] [32] [33] [34]. This can easily be proven

using Theorem 5.3.1 in [34], which has been reproduced below:

𝐿 ≥ 𝐻𝐷 (𝑋) (3.1)

If L is the expected, or average, length of the coded information source symbol in bits

and 𝐻𝐷 (𝑋) is the entropy of a D-ary information source represented by the random

variable X then an optimal code is one with L = 𝐻𝐷 (𝑋). If the information source is

comprised of N D-ary codewords then the entropy is:

𝑁

𝐻𝐷 (𝑋) = − ∑ ( ) log 𝐷 ( ) = −(log 𝐷 − log 𝐷 𝑁) = log 𝐷 𝑁 𝑏 𝑡 (3.2)

𝑁 𝑁
𝑛=1

If log 𝐷 𝑁 is an integer, then an optimal code is clearly one with log 𝐷 𝑁 information bits

per codeword. This means that for a typical binary digital communication system, which

transmits completely random data, the uncoded bitstream is optimal in the sense that it

cannot be further compressed. This is the case since a binary codeword composed of 𝐿

bits would have 2𝐿 possible codewords which meets equation 3.1 with equality since:

𝐿 = 𝐻2 (𝑋) = log 2 𝑁 = log 2 2𝐿 = 𝐿 (3.3)

 51

3.2 Authentication Encoder/Decoder

The authentication encoder and decoder, labeled "Auth. Encoder" and "Auth.

decoder" in Figure 6, allows the receiver to, in principle, explicitly verify the source of

the received data [35]. This verification is important in order to greatly reduce or

eliminate the possibility of spoofing. In the context of navigation systems, [36] discusses

general authentication options that include non-mathematical as well as algorithmic

symmetric and asymmetric cryptography schemes. The general cryptographic options

will be briefly covered below since they are most applicable to the eDME data system.

One potential scheme for symmetric authentication is called Timed Efficient

Stream Loss-Tolerant Authentication (TESLA), which uses a one-way cryptographic

function to generate keys that are released in reverse-order at predetermined times and

are only valid for a short duration [37]. Since the keys are generated and then released in

reverse order, any newly released key can be verified by using any previously released

key [37]. This allows a symmetric key to be used, which requires fewer bits compared to

an asymmetric key to achieve the same level of security [35]. However, the symmetric

key comes with time limitations that state that a key is only valid during a specific time

window and once that time window has elapsed then the key is no longer valid [37]. This

means that TESLA requires some level of time synchronization. In addition, TESLA also

requires that receivers be seeded with an initial key, via a different authenticated channel

or authentication scheme, so that future keys can be authenticated [37]. To the author’s

knowledge, TESLA is not commonly used in the commercial industry so caution should
 52

be taken in verifying that the algorithm and real-world implementation are

cryptographically secure.

The second subset of cryptographic authentication schemes fall under the

category of public-key cryptography or public-key infrastructure (PKI). Public-key based

schemes utilize asymmetric keys that are not subject to the aforementioned timing

limitations but require significantly more bits compared to symmetric keys to reach the

same level of security [35]. Digital Signatures are one form of PKI that can be used to

provide authentication without the need to share a private key with all potential receivers

[35]. Commonly used digital signature schemes include RSA (Rivest-Shamir-Adelman),

named after its creators, and the Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA) [35]. Both RSA and

DSA utilize discrete logarithm based private and public keys where only the sender,

transponder in the case of eDME, knows the private-key and all receivers know the

public-key, which must be initially seeded by means of another secure channel [35].

Another version of DSA also exists that uses Elliptic Curve Cryptography and is aptly

named Elliptic Curve DSA (ECDSA) [35]. ECDSA has the benefit that it is currently

computationally more difficult to invert an elliptic curve based one-way function

compared to its discrete log counterpart, which means that elliptic curve cryptography

can use shorter key lengths [35].

Given the above schemes, it should be theoretically possible to ensure secure

authentication, however, the authentication protocol must be properly implemented and

use a sufficiently strong key to maintain the scheme’s cryptographic properties and to

avoid side-channel attacks, which has historically been an extremely difficult task as
 53

evident from the numerous exploits that have been uncovered in recent years [38] [39]

[40]. Specifically, in 2010, Sony’s PS3 authentication system was compromised due an

error in their DSA implementation that failed to use a proper random number generator to

create their DSA signature [38]. Later, in 2014, an implementation error was found in

OpenSSL, called Heartbleed, that made millions of users vulnerable to side-channel

attacks [39]. Finally, in 2015, it was discovered that many common implementations of

Diffie-Hellman key-exchange were insecure because they could either be forced to use a

weak 512-bit key or used bad prime numbers with “trapdoors” [40]. Clearly, these

examples illustrate that theoretically secure systems can be easily broken if they are

improperly implemented. Therefore, it is paramount that any potential cryptography

system be vetted and implemented by a cryptography expert and that all transponder

implementations be audited for correctness. This thesis does not further discuss

authentication. Instead, the author notes that the necessary “hooks” are available in the

suggested eDME data broadcast implementation, most importantly: excess data

bandwidth, to add authentication at a later stage.

3.3 Channel Encoder/Decoder

The channel encoder follows the source encoder and is used to add redundant

information to the encoded source data so that errors induced by the channel can be

detected and corrected [31, 32, 33]. This redundant information comes in the form of

additional symbols that are added to the data stream and are referred to as parity symbols.

The location and value of the data and parity symbols depends on the type of code or

combination of codes that are used. In the trivial case, the message is transmitted multiple
 54

times and the most common symbol is accepted to form the estimated codeword [31],

[33]. However, this is not efficient and better ways have been devised that leverage

mathematical properties to design codes that more effectively combat errors. These

methods are categorized as forward error correction (FEC) and can be augmented with

error detection codes to reduce the likelihood of accepting a corrupted message. Chapter

4 discusses FEC and error detection in depth.

3.4 Modulation and Transmission

After channel coding is applied, the data stream is modulated. The digital

modulation process maps the encoded channel information to one or more appropriate

baseband waveforms [31, 32, 33]. The information within the waveform is commonly

represented by the amplitude, phase, frequency, and/or location of the signal [31, 32, 33].

For eDME, the information must be encoded by utilizing the existing pulse-pair structure

without disturbing the shape, amplitude, or frequency of the pulse beyond its

specifications so that legacy users are unaffected. This effectively limits the system to a

modulation scheme that utilizes the phase and/or location of the pulse-pair signal, which

would encompass methods such as Pulse Position Modulation (PPM) and Phase Shift

Keying (PSK). The basic principles of PPM and PSK are covered below and further

analysis with respect to the eDME system is covered in Chapter 6.

3.4.1 Pulse Position Modulation (PPM)

With respect to the DME system, two forms of PPM are possible. The first form,

which will be referred to as PPM, would transmit data by modifying the spacing between

the 1st and 2nd pulse, patented in [41], and the second form, which will be referred to as
 55

Pulse-Pair Position Modulation (PPPM), transmits data by comparing the TOA of a

pulse-pair with respect to a reference time or the TOA of another pulse-pair. The figure

below illustrates the PPM concept [41]:

Figure 7: Pulse Position Modulation (Reproduced from [41])

Figure 7 illustrates how information is transmitted by varying the position of the

2nd pulse with respect to the 1st pulse. The performance of PPM is dependent on the error

sources that change the TOA determination point of the pulse and the accuracy and

precision of the pulse-spacing. The TOA is primarily affected by thermal noise,

multipath, and interference within the channel while the pulse-pair spacing is heavily

dependent on transponder related factors. These potential error sources are discussed in

Chapter 5 and Chapter 6.

 56

PPPM differs from PPM in that the TOA of a pulse-pair with respect to a

reference time or another pulse-pair is used to represent data. The latter scenario is

pictured below:

Figure 8: Pulse-pair Position Modulation (PPPM)

Figure 8 shows that information is sent by transmitting the blue data pulse-pair at

a specific time offset with respect to the green reference pulse-pair at time t0. Only one

blue pulse pair should be transmitted, in this case the symbol '10', which should result in

only one data slot being occupied so that the channel symbol can be unambiguously

detected. However, depending on the system setup, regular replies and squitter can also

be transmitted in a data slot, causing multiple data slots to be occupied at once. The

details of PPPM are discussed further in Chapter 6.

3.4.2 Phase Shift Keying (PSK)

PSK is another modulation method that can be used to map data to a waveform.

PSK involves changing the phase of a signal with respect to a reference phase to encode

information [31, 32, 33]. Mathematically this corresponds to rotating the phasor of a

signal. This rotation can nominally take a number of discrete values and is a form of M-

ary modulation that is denoted as M-PSK, where M is the number of discrete phase
 57

possibilities or states [31] [32]. Some common abbreviations are Binary-PSK (BPSK),

which is equivalent to 2-PSK, and Quadrature-PSK (QPSK), which is equivalent to 4-

PSK [31] [32]. The BPSK and QPSK constellation maps are shown below:

Constellation: BPSK Constellation: QPSK, Natural Mapping

2 2

1.5 1.5
01
1 1
Quadrature Amplitude

Quadrature Amplitude
0.5 0.5
1 0 11 00
0 0

-0.5 -0.5
10
-1 -1

-1.5 -1.5

-2 -2
-2 -1 0 1 2 -2 -1 0 1 2
In-Phase Amplitude In-Phase Amplitude

Figure 9: BPSK (left) and QPSK (right) Symbol Constellations

In general, any M-PSK signal can be represented using simple mathematical

operations. If 𝑔(𝑡) is the signal envelope and 𝑚𝑏𝑎𝑠𝑒𝑏𝑎𝑛𝑑 (𝑡) is the modulated baseband

signal then [31] [32]:

𝑚𝑏𝑎𝑠𝑒𝑏𝑎𝑛𝑑 (𝑡) = 𝑔(𝑡)𝑒 𝑗(2𝜋+𝜙𝑚) , = , 2, … , 𝑀 (3.4)

The relationship between m and 𝜙𝑚 depends on the symbol mapping of which Natural

and Binary Reflected Gray Code (BRGC), usually referred to as just Gray Code, are most

common [31] [32] [33]. For Natural Mapping [31] [32]:

 58

2𝜋
𝜙𝑚 = ( − ), = ,2, … , 𝑀 (3.5)
𝑀

In the case of the Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) Channel, BRGC is optimal

since it maximizes the average Hamming Distance between symbols [42]. The reader is

referred to [42] for creating the BRGC constellation map for arbitrary M. Table 7 and

Figure 10, shown below, illustrate the differences between the natural and BRGC

mapping schemes for 8-PSK.

Table 7: 8-PSK Natural and Gray Symbol Mapping

Phase Angle Natural BRGC (Gray)

atan2(Q,I) Mapping Mapping
0° 000 000
45° 001 001
90° 010 011
135° 011 010
180° 100 110
225° 101 111
270° 110 101
315° 111 100
 59

Constellation: 8-PSK, Natural Mapping Constellation: 8-PSK, Gray Mapping

2 2

1.5 1.5
010 011
1 1
Quadrature Amplitude

Quadrature Amplitude
011 001 010 001
0.5 0.5
100 000 110 000
0 0

-0.5 101 111 -0.5 111 100

110 101
-1 -1

-1.5 -1.5

-2 -2
-2 -1 0 1 2 -2 -1 0 1 2
In-Phase Amplitude In-Phase Amplitude

Figure 10: 8-PSK Natural (Left) and Gray (Right) Symbol Constellation

3.5 RF Transmission

The transmitter RF components are responsible for up-converting the waveform

to passband, amplifying, filtering, and then transmitting the signal [31] [32]. Expressing

this process is simple in mathematical terms as shown below in Equation 3.6 [31] [32].

Although, this transmission process is more difficult in practice for high-power signals

due to unintended distortions caused by filtering and amplification.

𝑚 (𝑡) = Re{𝐴𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛 𝑚𝑏𝑎𝑠𝑒𝑏𝑎𝑛𝑑 (𝑡)𝑒

𝑗2𝜋𝑓𝑐 𝑡
} (3.6)

In the above equation, 𝐴𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛 is the linear amplification term, 𝑚 𝑏𝑎𝑠𝑒𝑏𝑎𝑛𝑑 is the baseband

signal, 𝑓𝑐 is the carrier frequency in Hertz, and 𝑡 is time in seconds.

 60

3.6 Demodulation and Detection

To extract the coded information, the signal must pass through an RF filter chain,

be demodulated, and then detected [31] [32]. The demodulation operation is logically

dependent on the modulation scheme and therefore can widely vary. Usually, the

demodulation scheme involves some form of signal recovery by means of a PLL or

Frequency Locked Loop (FLL), however for the atypical DME signal, a non-standard

PLL or FLL implementation must be used and is discussed in detail in [9] and [22].

For signal detection, the receiver is tasked with deciding which signal or symbol

was received. The receiver optimally makes this decision by choosing the symbol, from a

finite set of symbols, that maximizes the probability of success or correct detection [31,

32, 33]. A priori information, knowledge known before, about the symbol probabilities is

used in addition to the a posteriori information, knowledge known after, associated with

the channel assumptions and received symbol [31] [32] [33].

𝑃(𝒔𝑚 )𝑝(𝒓|𝒔𝑚 )
𝒔̂ = gm x (3.7)
1≤𝑚≤𝑀 𝑝(𝒓)

Equation 3.7, shown above, utilizes the a priori symbol set information and a posteriori

information to determine what symbol was most likely received and is known as the

Maximum a posteriori probability (MAP) detector, which is considered optimal [31] [32]

[33]. In the above equation, 𝒔̂ is the estimated or most likely received symbol, 𝑃 is the

symbol set probability mass function (pmf), 𝑝 is the channel probability density function

(pdf), 𝒓 is the received symbol, and 𝒔𝑚 is the mth symbol from the symbol set vector 𝒔

[31, 33]. If 𝑝(𝒓) is independent for all m, then the 𝑝(𝒓) term becomes constant and

Equation 3.7 becomes [31] [33]:

 61

𝒔̂ = g m x 𝑃(𝒔𝑚 )𝑝(𝒓|𝒔𝑚 ) (3.8)

1≤𝑚≤𝑀

Equation 3.8, can also be further simplified if each symbol in the symbol set is random,

the case assumed for eDME, and has equal probability [31] [33]. This results in the

Equation 3.9, below, that is referred to as the Maximum Likelihood (ML) decision rule,

which is also optimal if the symbols are equiprobable [31] [33]. For the Gaussian noise

channel, the ML rule chooses the symbol that is nearest to 𝒓 with respect to the squared

Euclidean distance, ‖𝒓 − 𝒔̂‖2 [3 ] [33].

𝒔̂ = g m x 𝑝(𝒓|𝒔𝑚 ) (3.9)
1≤𝑚≤𝑀

The application of the MAP and ML rules will be discussed in Chapter 4 for determining

the most likely sequence that is composed of many symbols in addition to likelihood

ratios.

3.7 Propagation Channel

The medium that the signal must pass through to transfer information from the

transmitter to the receiver is called the channel [31] [32] [33]. The channel is composed

of multiple error sources and propagation phenomenon that add noise to the signal and

distort its corresponding information. This distortion leads to symbol errors that must be

corrected by using the aforementioned channel coding.

To robustly combat channel errors, knowledge of the channel characteristics is

desirable since mitigation schemes can be tailored to the error sources so that

performance is minimally impacted. This results in the channel characteristics driving the

design of the underlying digital communication blocks [31, 32]. Some of the channel

factors are free-space loss and thermal noise, which are inherent to any channel, however,
 62

other effects such as certain pulsed interference sources and the impact of other onboard

avionics systems are unique to the DME channel [31] [32] [43].

3.7.1 Free-Space Loss and Thermal Noise

Free-space loss and thermal noise are two ubiquitous factors that must be

considered during the link-budget analysis for any system [31] [32] [43]. The free-space

loss determines the received signal power 𝑃𝑟 as a function of the transmit power 𝑃𝑡 ,

signal wavelength 𝜆, distance between the transmitter and receiver 𝑅, transmitter antenna

gain 𝐺𝑡 , and receiver antenna gain 𝐺𝑟 [31] [32] [43].

𝜆 2
𝑃𝑟 = 𝑃𝑡 𝐺𝑡 𝐺𝑟 ( ) (3.10)
4𝜋𝑅

The free-space loss equation (Friis Transmission Equation), above, only takes into

account the independent environmental property of line-of-sight (LOS) distance between

the transmitter and receiver, but in reality there are many other propagation phenomenon,

such as signal absorption, reflection, refraction, and diffraction, that also impact the

signal [31] [32] [43].

The second inherent channel factor is thermal noise that is caused by the

movement of electrons and is therefore always present unless the device is at absolute

zero Kelvin [44]. This makes thermal noise the limiting factor at low signal levels where

the noise masks the signal. Although ever present, thermal noise is relatively well

behaved for linear devices that are not near absolute zero and are below 1 THz [44]. With

these assumptions, thermal noise power can be calculated using:

𝑁 = 𝑘𝐵 𝑇𝐵 (3.11)
 63

m2 kg
where 𝑘 is the Boltzmann constant that is equal to 380 488 × 0−23 [ ], 𝑇 is the
2 K

noise temperature in units of Kelvin, and B is the signal bandwidth in units of Hertz [32]

[44]. The temperature used in Equation 3.11 is commonly set to 290 K, since it is the

reference temperature as defined by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

(IEEE), but an actual system may have a different effective temperature [32] [44].

The behavior of thermal noise is fortunately easy to approximate and model since

it statistically follows a Gaussian Distribution [31] [32] [33] [44]. If we consider a simple

channel that is only impacted by Gaussian thermal noise, then the channel is defined as

Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) channel that is modeled by:

𝒓 = 𝒔𝑚 + 𝒏 (3.12)

where 𝒓 is the recieved signal vector, 𝒔𝑚 is the signal vector, and 𝒏 are independent and

identically distributed (i.i.d.) zero-mean Gaussian random variables [31] [32] [33].

The noise pdf is then defined by:

𝑀
∑𝑀
𝑗=1
2
𝑗
𝑝(𝒏) = ( ) ex (− ) (3.13)
√2𝜋𝜎 2 2𝜎 2

where 𝜎 2 is equal to the noise variance or noise power, and 𝑗 is the jth noise component

from ≤ 𝑗 ≤ 𝑀 where M is the total number of signals in 𝒔𝑚 [31] [32] [33].

3.7.2 RF Propagation Phenomena

RF propagation phenomena are other environmental factors that affect the signal

as it passes through the channel. Typical RF phenomena are summarized by absorption,

reflection, refraction, and/or diffraction of the transmitted signal [31] [32] [43]. Multipath

can be seen as a general term that encompasses the above and is effectively the reception
 64

of a delayed and possibly attenuated version of the direct signal [31, 32]. Since multipath

is defined by a delay and attenuation factor, the multipath channel can be characterized as

a linear time-variant filter with the addition of AWGN [31].

𝑟(𝑡) = (𝑡) ∗ 𝑐(𝜏; 𝑡) + (𝑡) (3.14a)

∞
(3.14b)
= ∫ 𝑐(𝜏; 𝑡) (𝑡 − 𝜏)𝑑𝜏 + (𝑡)
−∞

This can be approximated as a sum of 𝐿 attenuated signals plus AWGN [31, 32]:

𝑟(𝑡) = ∑ 𝑎𝑘 (𝑡) (𝑡 − 𝜏) + (𝑡) (3.15)

𝑘=1

In addition, a phase term is implied in the above equation, but it is not explicitly added

since the dummy variable 𝜏 can be modified to adjust the phase of the multipath

components.

3.7.3 Pulsed Interference

Pulsed interference is another error source that is present within the DME

channel. This pulsed interference is due to a variety of sources and is observed as

transient bursts that can be high-powered. As such, pulsed interference can heavily distort

the pulse if the interference magnitude is near or above the magnitude of the desired

signal. This type of distortion must be treated differently than noise because it could

cause the receiver to falsely think that a strong signal was received and cause the channel

coding to fail. This failure would occur because many channel coding schemes expect

AWGN. As a result, additional steps must be added to the demodulation and decoding

process to mitigate pulsed interference. This is further discussed in Chapter 4 and 6.

 65

CHAPTER 4: FORWARD ERROR CORRECTION AND ERROR DETECTION

Noise is present in every communication system and at low SNR levels noise will

cause frequent data symbol errors that, if left unmitigated, would make it highly unlikely

that an error free message would be reliably received [32] [33]. The DME channel is no

exception but fortunately the field of information and coding theory has generated a vast

array of coding schemes that are able to consistently mitigate channel errors when certain

conditions are met [33]. These correction schemes are typically categorized as Channel

Coding schemes and are referred to as Forward Error Correction (FEC) codes.

The origins of Channel Coding and FEC can primarily be traced to Claude

Shannon who determined that it is theoretically possible to transmit a limited amount of

information across an AWGN channel with an arbitrarily low error rate [33] [34] [45]

[46]. The limit to the amount of information, or Capacity C, that can be reliably

transmitted was found to be a function of signal power S, noise power N, and bandwidth

W [33] [34] [45] [46]:

𝑆
𝐶 = 𝑊 log 2 ( + ) (4.1)
𝑁

However, Shannon did not provide a means of attaining this limit, which became known

as the "Shannon Limit," and as a result the quest for finding a coding scheme that could

meet said limit was started [46]. Decades of research since Shannon’s landmark paper,

[45], have led to the creation of many codes of which only some will be covered in this

thesis. The arguably most well-known practical codes that will be covered are Bose-

Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem (BCH), Reed-Solomon (RS), Turbo, and LDPC codes [33]

[46].
 66

4.1 General Principles and Terminology

In some form, all forward error correction (FEC) schemes add redundant

information to a data sequence to facilitate error correction [32] - [34]. For a block code,

the coding scheme leverages a mathematical algorithm that maps an alphabet of k

information symbols to an n symbol FEC codeword such that only certain codewords are

valid [33]. If the original 𝑘 information symbols are explicitly present in the output and

remain unchanged, then the code is called a “systematic” code and otherwise a

“nonsystematic” code [33]. During encoding, a good FEC algorithm structures the

codewords so that they are evenly separated from one another in order to maximize the

number of symbol errors that are required to transform one codeword into another

codeword [33]. This separation distance is referred to as the minimum distance,

commonly denoted by 𝑑𝑚𝑖𝑛 , of a code and is determined by comparing the minimum

Hamming Distance (HD) between all codewords [33]. The HD is defined by the number

of elements in which two codewords differ, as shown in Table 8 for a binary codeword

[33]. In the table below, 𝐶1 and 𝐶2 differ at positions 3, 6, 8, and 9 which results in the

two codewords having an HD equal to 4.

Table 8: Hamming Distance Example

Codeword #1 𝑪𝟏 = {𝟎, 𝟏, 𝟏, 𝟏, 𝟎, 𝟎, 𝟏, 𝟎, 𝟏}

Codeword #2 𝐶2 = {𝟎, 𝟏, 𝟎, 𝟏, 𝟎, 𝟏, 𝟏, 𝟏, 𝟎}
 67

In general, the minimum distance of a code is a good predictor of a code’s ability

and it is desirable to find a code that can simultaneously pack the most codewords into a

limited space while maximizing minimum distance [33]. It is also important that the code

be efficiently decodable in order for it to have any practical use. This challenge of finding

a code that both maximizes minimum distance while remaining computationally feasible

to decode is an open problem that has been the goal of the Channel Coding field since the

release of Shannon’s paper [46].

Ideally, a FEC decoder would be able to search through all valid codewords of a

code until the closest codeword, i.e. the codeword with the smallest HD compared to the

original codeword, was found. This approach is referred to as ML decoding and is

optimal in the sense that it always finds the nearest codeword, although, the ML process

can be very computationally expensive and subsequently impractical for longer

codewords [33]. Instead, many decoding algorithms effectively eliminate unlikely

codewords from the search which reduces complexity while still providing good decoder

performance [33]. This elimination process typically leverages some inherent structure of

the code and/or “soft” reliability information to make better decisions [33].

4.2 Hard and Soft Decisions and Likelihood Ratios

When a symbol is detected and demodulated, there is soft-information that can be

exacted by comparing how the received symbol differs from nominal symbol. The MAP

detector, previously shown by equation 3.7, computes the probability of each symbol

within the symbol set for the received symbol measurement and then stores the

probability of the most-likely symbol as a “soft-decision” [33]. If this soft-information is

 68

discarded, then the detector must decide immediately which symbol was received and

therefore a “hard-decision” is made and the decoder only stores which symbol in the

symbol set is closest, with respect to Euclidean distance, to the received symbol [33].

Similarly, if the receiver knows that a symbol error occurred then an erasure can be

flagged which is significant because a symbol erasure has a smaller impact compared to a

symbol error [33].

Assuming that the detector makes soft-decisions and that the underlying FEC

symbols are binary, a likelihood ratio represents the probability that the received bit was

a zero divided by the probability that the received bit was a one. Mathematically this is

represented by [33]:

P (𝑏 = 0|𝑟 = (𝑥, 𝑦))

𝐿(𝑏) = (4.2)
P (𝑏 = |𝑟 = (𝑥, 𝑦))

where 𝑥 and 𝑦 represent the in-phase and quadrature measurements. If the channel

symbol is non-binary, then the likelihood ratio for each bit is computed by summing the

probability of all symbols that contain a zero in that bit position divided by the

corresponding probabilities associated with a one [33]. The non-binary channel symbol

likelihood ratio is then [33]:

2
∑𝑠𝜖𝑆0 ex (− 𝜎 2 [(𝑥 − 𝑥)
2
+ (𝑦 − 𝑦) ])
𝐿(𝑏) = 2 (4.3)
∑𝑠𝜖𝑆1 ex (− 𝜎 2 [(𝑥 − 𝑥)
2 + (𝑦 − 𝑦) ])

where (𝑥, 𝑦) is the channel measurement and ( 𝑥 , 𝑦) is the coordinate of the ideal

symbol. However due to the numerical instability that can arise if either the numerator or

denominator is close to one, the logarithm of the likelihood ratio or simply log-likelihood

ratio (LLR) is typically used and is computed from:

 69

P (𝑏 = 0|𝑟 = (𝑥, 𝑦))

𝜆(𝑏) = log ( ) (4.4)
P (𝑏 = |𝑟 = (𝑥, 𝑦))

Effectively, the likelihood ratio calculates the reliability of a bit so the decoder can place

more trust in the bits with larger likelihood magnitudes [32] [33]. This also means that if

𝜆(𝑏) < 0 then the decoder perceives that bit to likely be a one and 𝜆(𝑏) > 0 equates to

the bit likely being a zero [32] [33]. If an erasure occurs, then 𝜆(𝑏) is set to zero to

indicate that it could be equally likely that the bit is a one or zero [32] [33]. A final

benefit of decoding with LLRs is that it removes need to constantly renormalize between

likelihood ratio updates [33].

4.3 Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem Codes

BCH codes are a class of cyclic linear block codes that were developed by Bose,

Chaudhuri, and Hocquenghem and published in 1959 and 1960 [32] [33] [46]. BCH

codes are one of the more commonly used linear block codes due to the fact that they can

be efficiently encoded, decoded, and have some of the largest minimum distance values

of any known binary linear block code for certain lengths [32] [33] [47]. These attributes

make BCH codes very attractive; however, typically hard-decision decoders are used for

BCH codes since they are much less complex than their soft-decision counterparts, which

limits performance [33].

For any cyclic code, any valid codeword can be used to generate another valid

codeword by cyclically shifting the original codeword to the right [33]. This property

allows for the aforementioned efficient encoding and is also leveraged by the common

hard-decision decoders, which typically implement the Berlekamp-Massey algorithm

 70

[33] [46]. The overall distance properties of the BCH codes are also easily computed by

the following equation when the code is a primitive narrow-sense BCH code:

𝑑 = 2𝑡 + (4.5)

if = 2𝑚 − and 𝑘 ≥ − 𝑡, where t is the error correcting capability of the code, is

the codeword length, 𝑘 is the number of data bits, and is the order of the “big”

polynomial field [33] [46]. As a result, decoders know how many errors that the code can

correct and if the decoder is a bounded distance decoder, then a decoding failure is

flagged if the received and decoded codeword differ by more than 𝑡 symbols [33]. If

erasures are present during the decoding process, then the number of errors and erasures

that can be corrected, assuming that a bounded distance decoder is used, is [33]:

2𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑜𝑟 + 𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑠𝑒 < 𝑑𝑚𝑖𝑛 (4.6)

In addition, this knowledge of 𝑡 and subsequent research that has found that the weight

distribution of primitive narrow-sense BCH codes can be approximated by the binomial

distribution also allows the undetected codeword error rate (UCWER) to be analytically

calculated [48]. The ability to calculate the BCH UCWER is very useful for determining

if additional error detection is or is not necessary for a given primitive narrow-sense BCH

code and will be discussed later in this chapter.

Finally as a result of the binary nature of the BCH codes over Galois Field (GF)

of order 2, GF(2), BCH codes are well suited for situations when symbol errors are

equally likely to occur and are separated from one another. However, if a consecutive

string of bits are in error, referred to as a “burst” error, then the BCH code will perform
 71

poorly [33]. If burst errors are present, then a non-binary code such as a RS code is more

applicable or an interleaver is necessary to spread the bit errors over multiple codewords.

4.4 Reed-Solomon Codes

RS codes are a non-binary class of BCH codes and therefore share many of the

same properties [33] [46]. This relationship between RS and BCH codes was not known

at the time of discovery since the two codes were independently discovered; however,

both sets of codes have been found to be useful [33] [46]. Although, RS codes have

received much more attention and use because the non-binary symbols are able to

efficiently correct burst errors as long as the burst error is contained within a FEC symbol

[33]. This makes RS codes very good for channels prone to burst errors and is why RS

codes have been extensively used in magnetic tape and disk storage applications, e.g.

compact discs, and have played important roles in NASA space based missions [46].

Due to the construction of RS codes, it has been found that the RS codes meet the

singleton bound with equality and are therefore a class of Maximum Distance Separable

Codes (MDS) [46]. This means that the minimum distance of the code is equal to:

𝑑= −𝑘+ (4.7)

In addition, RS codes can also correct:

𝑑−
𝑡=⌊ ⌋ (4.8)
2

symbol errors, which due to the non-binary nature of RS codes means that log 2

consecutive bit errors, i.e. a burst error, can be corrected 𝑡 times [46]. The knowledge of

the weight distribution properties of RS codes is also a major strength since it allows the

probability of an undetected codeword error to be analytically calculated, as discussed in

 72

[49]. Overall, RS codes share many of the same properties of BCH codes which allows

the BCH decoding algorithms to also be used on RS codes [46].

4.5 Turbo Codes

Turbo codes are class of iteratively decoded soft-decision codes that are made up

of two or more simple systematic codes that exchange data with one another by passing

data through an interleaver [46]. This interleaver effectively makes the inputs to both

decoders independent of one another, if the memory of the encoders is relatively short

compared to the length of the interleaver [33]. Subsequently, the strength of the code is

greatly increased by the use of an interleaver while decoding complexity still remains low

due to the simplicity of the two encoders/decoders [46]. A common Turbo code encoder

is shown below in Figure 11 that utilizes two recursive systematic convolutional encoders

(RSC) encoders [46].

Figure 11: RSC Turbo Encoder

The output of the encoder is natively a 1/3-rate code since the first output bit is

the systematic bit and the following two bits are parity bits from each encoder. If desired,
 73

A code can then be punctured, i.e. have parity bits removed, to achieve different code

rates [33]. For example, if a 1/2-rate code was desired then the encoder would alternate

between discarding parity bits that are output from the 1st and 2nd encoder, respectively

𝑢1𝑘 and 𝑢2𝑘 in Figure 11 [33].

To decode the turbo code, two decoders are used that leverage the received data

as well as feedback data provided by the other decoder [33]. This feedback process that

utilizes past system outputs to improve code performance is similar to an automotive

turbo, which is how turbo codes got their name [33]. The information that is exchanged

between the two decoders is referred to as “extrinsic” information and is calculated from

the received sequence and prior information minus the information from the systematic

(0)
bit, 𝑟𝑡 in Figure 12, shown below [33]. The other two inputs to the decoder are

comprised of the “systematic” and “prior” probability values where the systematic

probability is the probability related to the systematic bit and the prior probability is

provided by the associate parity bit, also known as the intrinsic information [33]. Figure

12, below, summarizes the turbo decoder process that was discussed above and in [33]. In

the figure, 𝜆𝑠,𝑡 , 𝜆𝑒,𝑡 , and 𝜆𝑝,𝑡 respectively represent the systematic, extrinsic, and prior

(intrinsic) information at time 𝑡 [33]. The decoded codeword in Figure 12 is labeled as

𝜆(𝑥𝑡 |𝒓) and is collected after the turbo code stopping criteria is met.
 74

Figure 12: Turbo Decoder

In general, the turbo decoder is known for its ability to achieve impressive coding

gains at relatively short block lengths, however, these gains come with inherent error

floors that occur around FER of 1e-6 [33] [50]. The error floors are mostly a function of

the Turbo code’s minimum distance, which is a function of its interleaver design, and the

number of states in the encoder [46]. The turbo decoder can also be made more robust to

channel estimation errors and interference by modifying the MAP detector algorithm that

uses the approximation [33] [51] [52]:

l (∑ 𝑒 𝑥𝑖 ) = m x 𝑥𝑖 (4.8)
𝑖
𝑖

Specifically, the max-log-MAP algorithm does not require knowledge of the noise

variance which greatly improves robustness [51] [52]. Later in this thesis, the max-log-

MAP algorithm is used to decode DVB-RCS Turbo codes, which are classified as 8-state

duo-binary turbo codes (DBTC) [53].

 75

4.6 Low-Density Parity Check

Low-Density Parity Check (LDPC) codes are another set of iteratively decoded

FEC that were investigated because they are known to approach the Shannon Limit at

very long block lengths while remaining computationally efficient to decode [33] [46].

This decoding efficiency, even at large block lengths, is possible due to sparseness of the

parity check matrix and graph structure of the code that results in decoding complexity

that only grows linearly with block length [33]. Specifically, the graph structure allows

for decoding by means of message passing algorithms (MPA) that traverse the graph and

commonly include the Sum-product algorithm (SPA), also known as Belief Propagation

(BP), or the min-sum algorithm (MSA) [33]. The MPAs effectively perform a similar

function as the turbo decoder since both schemes propagate probabilities associated with

the systematic, extrinsic, and intrinsic information, which is unsurprising because it has

recently been understood that both LDPC and turbo codes can both be represented by

graphs [54]. However, LDPC and Turbo codes still use different decoding algorithms

since Turbo codes perform significantly worse when decoded using BP [54].

The graph nature of LDPC codes allows them to be visualized by means of

several methods, of which one is the bipartite graph or factor graph, shown below [33].
 76

Figure 13: LDPC Bipartite Graph

The bipartite graph in Figure 13 describes an example arbitrary LDPC code that can be

broken into two main groups: the variable nodes (circles) and check nodes (squares) [33].

During a single decoding iteration, a MPA typically propagates reliability information in

a two-step process where all variables nodes are updated and then the new variable node

values are passed to the check nodes and all check nodes are updated [33]. Once the

iteration is complete, the values of the check nodes are inspected and if all check nodes

are satisfied then it is assumed that a codeword is found and decoding is stopped [33].

This check process is equivalent to checking [33]:

𝒄𝐻 T = 𝟎 (4.9)

where 𝒄 is the received codeword vector, 𝐻 is the parity check matrix, and 𝟎 is the null

zero vector [33]. If the graph that is being decoded is cycle free, then the SPA will

conduct ML decoding and find the optimal codeword since SPA computes the exact

marginal probability for each variable node if there are no cycles [33]. Unfortunately, all

real LDPC codes have cycles that degrade performance which can especially be a

problem for shorter LDPC codes [33]. An example of a graph cycle of length 4, which

are known to be extremely detrimental to BP decoding, is highlighted in Figure 13 [33].

 77

Besides short cycles and overall minimum distance, absorbing sets are another

factor that limit performance at higher SNRs in the error floor region [55]. Absorbing sets

are a type of cycle that is formed when there is a small group of unsatisfied check nodes

connected to a group variable nodes [55]. If there are a significant number of absorbing

sets with short cycles, then the decoder is more likely to converge to these sets which

increases the error floor and degrades code performance [33]. The amount of degradation

depends on the specific decoding algorithm and it has been found that the MSA than SPA

when there are many short cycles in the graph [56]. MSA also has the benefit that

channel noise information is not necessary [33].

Finally, the short LDPC codes discussed in [57] are tested in Chapter 6 and 7

since they were found to have excellent UCWER properties. The very low UCWER

could be useful since error detection may not be necessary which would significantly

decrease overhead in short block length codes. If the code cannot natively meet the target

UCWER then LDPC algorithms exist that can reduce UCWER but at the cost of

decreased performance [58]. In Chapter 6, it will be determined if the short block length

LDPC codes in [57] are powerful enough to achieve performance similar to Turbo codes

on the DME Impulsive Channel. This may be difficult since the SPA or MSA decoding

performance of short LDPC, codes with respect to ML decoding, perform significantly

worse compared to long codes.

4.7 Mitigating Channel Interference

For eDME, impulsive channel interference is the primary concern, according to

flight-test measurements, and must be accounted for otherwise FEC performance is

 78

significantly degraded. This degradation is of critical importance for the iterative soft-

decision codes because a symbol that has been impacted by impulsive interference may

appear very reliable to the decoder and as a result it is unlikely that the decoder would be

able to change the decision from a one to zero or vice versa [33]. To mitigate this

reliability threat, the LLR can either be clipped or a non-Gaussian demapper, such as the

one described in [59] or [60], can be used if channel side-information is available. In

addition, detection and exclusion is also a viable method. For this thesis, LLR clipping

and outlier detection and exclusion were implemented to combat interference.

4.8 Error Detection

[61] states that parity bits, checksums, cryptographic hash functions, and CRCs

are common methods of providing error detection capabilities. Important metrics in error

detection evaluation include Hamming Distance (HD), ability to detect changes in the

data order, data dependent performance, burst error coverage, and probability of an

undetected frame error (Pud) [61]. The table below, derived from data in [61], summarizes

these metrics for the aforementioned error detection techniques and illustrates the

differences between the generated Frame Check Sequences (FCS). The variables and 𝑘

that are used in the Pud column respectively represent the total codeword length and FCS

length in bits.
 79

Table 9: Error Detection Properties for Various Methods [61]

Error Detection Can detect Data Burst Error Worse-case

HD
Method data order Dependent Coverage P_ud

Parity Bit 2 No No None 100% at HD

Longitudinal
−𝑘
Redundancy 2 No No None
𝑘( − )
Check (LRC)
Two's
𝑘+
Complement 2 No Yes K
2𝑘 2
Checksum
One's
Complement 2 No Yes K
2𝑘
Checksum
Fletcher
>=2 Yes Yes k/2 Variable
Checksum
Cryptographic Yes
1 Yes None
Hash Function (Theoretically) 2𝑘
Cyclic
Redundancy >=2 Yes No K
2𝑘 −
Check (CRC)

In the Table 9, above, one of the most important observations is that the Pud will

decay very rapidly for the hash and CRC functions as FCS length is increased since their

denominators exponentially increases as a function of FCS length. Although not apparent

from Table 9, Hash and CRC functions also outperform Fletcher Checksums, which do

not have an approximate or exact equation for Pud, and Fletcher Checksums also

typically outperform Two’s and One’s complement checksums and LRCs with respect to

Pud [61]. [61] also discussed how CRCs achieve a smaller P_ud at lower BER compared

to the checksum methods and that CRCs are preferable to hash functions when

cryptographic security is not necessary. A CRC’s ability to achieve excellent Pud at both
 80

low and high BER make them an excellent candidate for error detection and as a result

CRCs were primarily investigated. Although, a brief analysis was also conducted on

Fletcher Checksums and theoretical hash function performance.

In the context of eDME, Pud at a BER of 0.5 is the most important evaluation

criteria for an error detection scheme since it represents the worst case scenario. If this

were the only criteria, then according to Table 9 a Hash function would be the best

candidate. This however isn’t necessarily the case because HD and code mixing

properties also play significant roles in Pud depending on the type of error correction and

BER. Specifically, the HD is important since it determines how many bit errors the code

can always detect [61]. The number of detectable errors is equal to HD − and is of great

importance when the BER is low. For higher BER, data mixing properties are important

since at least one error is likely to occur and performance is impacted by how many bits

in the FCS change as a result of changing a single data bit.

Other parameters like data dependence were considered, but factors like burst

error coverage and computational complexity were not. Burst error coverage was of less

concern since burst errors are not necessarily the worst case scenario and computational

complexity was deemed negligible due to the capabilities of current hardware and the

expected low data rate of the eDME system. Data reordering was also not of concern

since it is expected that an entire eDME message will be transmitted at once so

reordering should not be possible.

Since Pud is an important metric, it makes logical sense to compare the Pud

performance of the candidate codes. Figure 14 shows the performance of an example

 81

120-bit data message when protected by an 8-bit Fletcher checksum, CRC, or hash

function.

-2
Error Detection for 120-bit data message
10
Fletcher 8-bit
CRC 8-bit (0xE7)
Theoretical 8-bit Hash
Undetected Error Rate

-3
10
-3 -2 -1 0
10 10 10 10
BER

Figure 14: Simulated Error Detection Performance for Fletcher Checksum, CRC, and
Hash

Figure 14 shows that with respect to Pud both the CRC and hash functions exhibit

near equal performance at high BER while the Fletcher checksum performs worse. This

is the case since the Fletcher checksum, and checksums in general, have worse mixing

properties compared to CRCs and hash functions [61]. It should also be noted that a hash

function slightly outperforms any CRC of equal length at a BER of 0.5 because the all

zero permutation for a CRC can only be generated from the all-zero codeword [61]. This

is reflected in the CRC Pud equation in Table 9 by minus 1 term in the denominator. One

other important point observation from Figure 14 is that the Fletcher checksum and CRCs
 82

exhibit a decreasing Pud as BER decreases. This is a result of the two codes having a

Hamming Distance that is greater than or equal to 2. The importance of HD will be

discussed further but will be limited to CRCs and hashes since the Fletcher Checksum

exhibits worse Pud performance in the high BER region compared to CRCs and hashes.

The HD properties of CRCs are a significant indicator of Pud performance at low

BER and are rightfully commonly mentioned as a major strength. However, the in-depth

CRC HD analysis in [61] was done for very low BERs and therefore has different

implications. Specifically, a CRC’s ability to detect, for example, 5 or fewer errors (i.e.

HD=6) is useful at low BERs, but becomes irrelevant at the worst case BER of 0.5 since

the probability of 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 errors becomes very small, as shown below in Figure 15

for a 64-bit message. This is mentioned since a commonly cited advantage of a CRC is

that it can always detect at least 1-bit error while a hash function cannot since it has a HD

of 1 [61]. Nonetheless, Figure 15 does illustrate that the probability of only a few errors

occurring drastically increases as the BER decreases and explains why HD performance

is useful at low BER.

 83

0
Probability of N Bit Errors for 64-Bit Msg
10
P(err=1)
-2
10 P(err=2)
P(err=3)
-4
10 P(err=4)
P(err=5)
-6
10
Prob N Errors

-8
10

-10
10

-12
10

-14
10

-16
10

-18
10
0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5
Raw BER

Figure 15: Probability of N errors for a 64-bit Message at High BER

Overall, a CRC is usually the best choice because of its good Pud performance

over the entire range of possible BERs that is a result of its HD >=1 and good mixing

properties. This is the reason why the error detection used by the eDME system to meet

integrity requirements will be a CRC, if it is deemed necessary. When choosing the CRC,

different CRC polynomials should be tested if optimal performance at very low error

rates is desired. Specifically, the interaction between the CRC weight distribution and

overall codeword length impact performance a low BER [61]. Figure 16, shown below,

illustrates this difference for two 6-bit CRCs since the CRC with polynomial 0x21

performs better than the 0x23 CRC for 25-bit data words but worse for 57-bit datawords.
 84

With these considerations in mind, a CRC should always be used for error detection

except when a cryptographic hash function is already necessary for security purposes or

if the marginally better Pud of a hash was able to meet an integrity requirement with fewer

bits compared to a CRC.

-1
CRC Error Detection Performance (10M Iterations)
10
57-Bit | 0x21 (*p)
25-Bit | 0x21 (*p)
57-Bit | 0x23 (*op)
25-Bit | 0x23 (*op)
Undetected Error Rate

-2
10

-3
10

-4
10
-3 -2 -1 0
10 10 10 10
BER

Figure 16: Performance Relationship Between Dataword Length and 6-bit CRC
Polynomial

4.8.1 Error Detection Capabilities Native to FEC Codes

In addition, or in lieu of a CRC, one or more FEC codes could be used to reduce

UCWER and meet integrity requirements since FEC decoders typically have at least one

metric that can be used to detect an error. This error detection capability is code and
 85

decoder dependent, but ideally the main FEC scheme would have sufficient error

detection capabilities to meet integrity without a CRC. If this is not the case, then it is

possible that an additional outer code could be used and that this outer code could

provide error detection and correction properties at an overhead cost that is similar to a

CRC. Admittedly, a CRC is also an outer code that could be used for FEC, although to

the author’s knowledge, using a CRC for FEC is an uncommon practice. Some codes that

are more commonly used for error detection and correction are RS and BCH codes

although Turbo and LDPC codes also have inherent error detection properties.

RS and BCH codes are two examples of codes that have good error detection and

correction properties. These codes can also have their UCWER analytically calculated

when the code is a narrow-sense primitive code and decoded using a bounded distance

decoder [49] [48]. Equations from [49] and [48] were respectively used to calculate the

UCWER values in the table below for primitive RS and BCH codes that are

representative of the potential eDME data block length. In Table 10, a pattern of

significance can be seen by the fact that the UCWER decreases when longer codes of the

same rate and/or lower rate codewords of the same length are used due to the

corresponding increase in hamming distance.

 86

Table 10: Approximate UCWER for Several RS and BCH codes

Code Description Approx. UCWER

RS(31,11) 2.92E-08
RS(31,20) 1.36E-04
RS(63,32) 1.23E-15
RS(63,25) 2.20E-19
BCH(127,64) 1.93E-07
BCH(127,50) 8.65E-11
BCH(255,131) 8.52E-17
BCH(255,99) 1.41E-23

LDPC codes are another class of codes that were investigated and also have good

native error detection properties. Specifically, the parity check matrix that defines an

LDPC code can be used to determine if an error occurred with some degree of certainty.

This property has the potential to meet integrity requirements, but proving that the LDPC

code can accomplish this with certainty may be a problem because error detection

performance is decoder and code dependent and codeword weight is difficult to

determine for non-trivial codes [58]. The fact that the decoder impacts the UCWER does

have the benefit that the decoder can be modified, like in [58], to decrease the UCWER

but at the cost of increasing the SNR operating point. The UCWER performance of the

NASA LDPC(128,64) code on the DME impulsive channel while using MSA decoding is

shown below in Figure 17.

 87

Figure 17: UCWER NASA LDPC(128,64) on Impulsive Channel

The UCWER performance of the NASA LDPC(128,64) is equal to 4.24e-4 for the

MSA decoder which differs significantly from the ~2.3e-5 UCWER for the min-star

decoder found in [57]. This discrepancy between the UCWER values is likely the result

of the two different decoders and channel models that were used and emphasizes that

decoder specific performance should be tested. Although not shown in Figure 17, [57]

found that the LDPC(256,128) code's UCWER is approximately two orders of magnitude

lower than the LDPC(128,64) code, ~2.3e-7, which could allow for the use of a shorter

CRC while still maintaining a short code length.

A fourth class of codes that arguably have inherent error detection are turbo

codes. During turbo decoding, various hard and soft-decision stopping rules can be used

to terminate the decoding process when it is believed that a codeword is found and as a
 88

result useful undetected error properties can be achieved [33]. Three common stopping

rules that are commonly used by turbo decoders are Cross Entropy, Sign Change Ratio,

and Hard Decision Aided Criterion [33]. Of these three, the hard decision stopping

criteria was tested due to its simplicity and comparable error performance compared to

the soft decision stopping methods, as shown in [62]. The resulting undetected error

performance associated with the hard decision stopping rule, and other stopping rules as

well, is decoder and code dependent so the decoding performance results may differ for

the DVB-RCS code permutations that were tested in this thesis compared to the codes

tested in [33]. Nonetheless, the UCWER performance for two DVB-RCS codes were

determined by simulation using the DME impulsive channel, modeled using measured

flight test data, for a max-Log-MAP decoder with a hard decision stopping rule. The

UCWER simulation results are visualized in the figure below and demonstrate that the

UCWER is only reduced by about an order of magnitude even for the DVB-

RCS(1272,424) code even though it is over times longer than the DVB-RCS(384,128)

code. This relatively small reduction in UCWER, compared to the LDPC codes,

illustrates the limited effectiveness of increasing code length to decrease UCWER for

turbo codes.
 89

Figure 18: DVB-RCS UCWER Performance for DME Impulsive Channel

For soft-decision codes in general, stopping rules that utilize an outer FEC code or

error detection code, like a BCH or CRC code, that is checked after every decoder

iteration can also be effective at decreasing UCWER and mitigating error floors [53].

However, an iteratively checked outer code was not chosen for error detection since their

error detection properties are degraded as a function of the number of decoder iterations.

This is the case since after every iteration there is the possibility that the outer code will

experience an undetected error. Equation 4.10, shown below, mathematically describes

how the final undetected error probability is affected.

#𝐷𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑑𝑒𝑟𝐼𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠
𝑃𝑢𝑑 = − ( − 𝑃𝑢𝑑_𝑜𝑢𝑡𝑒𝑟_𝑐𝑜𝑑𝑒 ) (4.10)
 90

Similarly, UCWER is also increased for LDPC/Turbo codes if the number of decoder

iterations is increased.

In conclusion, leveraging the inherent error detection properties of a FEC scheme

can provide data integrity that would allow the CRC length to be reduced and decrease

overhead associated with error detection. Candidate codes like RS and BCH codes were

discussed and have good error detection properties. LDPC codes also have good error

detection properties as code length increases, but UCWER is decoder dependent which

may make certification more difficult. In addition, several DVB-RCS turbo codes were

tested and found to have UCWER properties that were decoder dependent, however, the

UCWER remained relatively static across varying code-lengths and the UCWER

performance was worse compared to the aforementioned codes. The general case of

utilizing an outer FEC code for UCWER reduction during the iterative decoding process

was also discussed and it was noted that the UCWER increases as the number of decoder

iterations is increased, which makes an iteratively utilized outer code less desirable from

an error detection perspective.

 91

CHAPTER 5: FLIGHT-TEST CHANNEL NOISE MEASUREMENTS

The eDME data system design and implementation are heavily dependent on the

channel noise assumptions and as such it is necessary that the general characteristics of

the channel noise are known. To determine these noise characteristics, several flight-test

measurement campaigns were executed in 2012, 2014, and 2015 that resulted in

approximately 26 hours of RF measurements [9] [25] [28] [29]. These campaigns verified

qualitative assumptions, which will be discussed below, and were also used to fit a

statistical noise model that was used to guide design decisions. Overall, this chapter will

cover the possible known noise sources, the channel measurement setup and the

associated channel noise measurements, and channel models.

5.1 Noise and Interference Sources

In addition to ubiquitous AWGN, the DME channel also contains impulsive

noise, or interference, that has the potential to severely degrade data system performance

if left unaccounted. The existence of this impulsive noise is associated with the reception

of other undesired DME pulses and interference from other onboard avionics systems,

according to flight-test campaigns. In addition, there exists the possibility that Link-16

interference and other unknown factors are present but these sources were not directly

observed during the noise analysis.

5.1.1 DME Related Interference

Two of the most prevalent sources of pulsed interference are DME related and

caused by the reception of pulse-pairs from other airborne interrogators and ground

transponders. The interference from other interrogators is referred to as In-Channel Off-

 92

Code Interference and is caused from X-channel interrogations being broadcast on the

same frequency as Y-channel transponder replies. The identification of this type of

interference is straightforward since the X-channel interrogations nominally have a pulse

spacing of 12 µs while the Y-channel transponder replies have a pulse spacing of 30 µs

[15], [16]. An example of overlapping channels is interrogator channel 47X and

transponder channel 110Y that both transmit on a center frequency of 1071 MHz [15],

[16]. Similarly, transponder interference, referred to as Co-Channel Interference, will also

be present at higher altitudes if there is LOS to more than one transponder that is

broadcasting on the same frequency. The transponder related interference can be partially

mitigated by proper channel assignment of nearby transponders, however, there may still

be collisions in parts of the NAS that are densely populated with DME transponders, e.g.

North-East area of the United States.

From an impact perspective, In-channel off-code interference is possibly one of

the most significant error sources, besides thermal noise, because of the high transmit

power associated with DME interrogations and the possibility that the offending aircraft

could be relatively close to the eDME receiver. Specifically, a DME interrogation pulse

can have a peak output power of 2kW that can completely mask the desired transponder

pulse if the two pulses arrive at the receiver at the same time [18]. The probability that

this collision occurs is a function of the interrogator interrogation rate that can be on

average 22.7 ppps for interrogators transmitting at more than 100W [18]. However,

modern interrogators typically transmit less frequently. The probability of interference

for other interrogators is then clearly increased as the number of nearby interrogators is
 93

increased and explains why the In-Channel Off-Code Interference was routinely observed

according to flight-test measurements. The specific interference probability is more

closely analyzed later in Chapter 6.

5.1.2 Onboard Avionics Impact

Besides DME related interference, other avionics systems onboard the aircraft can

also interfere with the reception of transponder pulse-pairs. This interference can be a

result of another avionics system triggering the L-Band Suppression Bus, which

subsequently mutes all L-Band reception, or from an avionics signal in another frequency

band bleeding over into the DME band of interest. Fortunately, the frequency with which

either event occurs is relatively small and the impact can be partially mitigated as

discussed below.

In the first case, triggering the L-Band Suppression Bus could block a transponder

pulse-pair of interest because when the bus is suppressed the DME receiver is

disconnected from its antenna. This disconnection is initiated to protect the receiver from

any damage that could be caused by the reception of a high power signal that is being

broadcast by another onboard avionics system. However since it is known when this

disconnection occurs, the eDME data system can partially mitigate the impact by

inserting a symbol erasure that is associated with blocked transponder pulse-pair.

The second form of interference is associated with spectral leakage from the

transmission from other onboard L-Band avionics that for some reason are not connected

to the Suppression Bus. Specifically, systems like Secondary Surveillance Radar (SSR)

transponder (Mode A/C and Mode S), Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS),
 94

ADS-B (1090-ES and UAT), and other DME interrogators transmit on portions of nearby

spectrum that could leak into the DME band of interest. This is possible since these

devices also transmit high power signals and as a result their sideband components can

still be large enough to potentially have an effect on the transponder signal of interest.

Fortunately, the magnitude of this interference can be greatly reduced by filtering, which

is discussed in Chapter 6.

5.1.3 Link-16 Tactical Data Link

Link-16 describes a military tactical data network, also referred to as a Tactical

Digital Information Link (TADIL), that also has the potential to impact eDME. Link-16

is used to disseminate voice and digital information to military personnel in real-time and

also transmits in the same spectrum as DME [63], [64]. This is significant from an eDME

perspective because Link-16 systems also use a relatively high-powered signal that could

degrade eDME data performance if a Link-16 signal and DME transponder pulse are

received at the same time. Therefore, the characteristics of the Link-16 signal and its

general impact on eDME will be briefly discussed.

Currently, there are two Link-16 systems; the 1st generation called the Joint

Tactical Information Distribution System (JTIDS) and the 2nd generation called the

Multifunctional Information Distribution System (MIDS) [63], [64]. Both JTIDS and

MIDS nominally utilize frequency hopping, to make jamming much more difficult, with

frequencies that are contained within the 969-1206 MHz band [64]. Within this spectrum,

JTIDS has 51 channels that are 3 MHz wide which provide the necessary bandwidth for

the Continuous Phase Modulation (CPM) that is used by the Link-16 systems [63], [64].
 95

The resulting transmitted signal is then a 250W CPM burst, which is 6.4 µs long with a

6.8 µs dead-time, that hops frequencies after each burst [63], [64].

Given the above Link-16 parameters, it can likely be assumed that Link-16 will

have a negligible impact on eDME. This is a result of the bandwidth, frequency hopping,

and burst specifications. Specifically with the 3 MHz bandwidth, the 250W signal power

is spread over multiple DME bands that lessens the impact. The frequency hopping

further reduces the impact by decreasing the amount of time that a Link-16 signal is in

the eDME band of interest and the short burst duration allows for only a small temporal

window of interference. These characteristics likely make the Link-16 signal transparent

to eDME and legacy user alike.

5.2 Flight-Test Measurement Setup

To determine the true nature of the DME channel, several flight-test missions in

December 2012, November 2014, and March 2015 were conducted [9] [25] [28] [29].

These measurement campaigns were critical to gaining a better understanding of the

DME channel and also captured the complex signal interactions associated with

transponder multipath, Co-Channel interference, In-Channel Off-Code interference, and

other unknown error sources that would have likely been very difficult to model. The

actual equipment and procedure that was used to collect said channel measurements was

very extensive and will be discussed below with the airborne setup in mind. Further

discussion regarding the transponder hardware is reserved for Chapter 7.

The core components of the flight-test measurement setup can be separated into

four categories: RF recording, truth determination, system calibration associated with the
 96

RF signal chain, and real-time signal monitoring. The RF recording for the airborne setup

utilized a single RF data recorder, specifically the Ettus Universal Software Radio

Peripheral-2 (USRP), to record both the interrogator transmissions and receptions. The

airborne RF Data Recorder, shown below in Figure 19 and labeled "RF data recorder,"

was designed to record both transmissions and receptions so that any biases in the RF

recorder would mostly cancel when the two signals were compared in 2-way ranging

processing.

Figure 19: Ground and Airborne Flight-Test Setup for 2012 Flight Tests [25]

The RF recorder biases would likely cancel out since both interrogation (transmit) and

reply (receive) signals travel through the same RF chain, which is possible due to a RF

switch that is toggled by the "Suppression signal" that is generated by the interrogator
 97

during transmission. Once the RF switch is toggled, the interrogator transmission signal

is tapped-off and mixed with a 63MHz signal to shift the transmission signal frequency to

the same frequency as the reception signal. The shifted transmission signal then passes

through the same RF chain as the received signals and is recorded by the RF data

recorder. In addition, a custom FPGA platform, named Minerva, was used to timestamp

and record the suppression signal as well as the ARINC information provided by the

Rockwell DME-2100 interrogator. The DME-2100 interrogator and Minerva are both

shown below in Figure 20.

Figure 20: Side View (Left) and Front View (Right) of the 2014 Airborne Setup
 98

For the truth setup, the airborne platform utilizes a custom GPS-Rb-IMU solution

in combination with NovAtel© GrafMov RTK positioning data to produce a high-update

rate truth solution that has low noise and is step-free. This truth solution provides precise

airplane position that facilitates the calculation of time and frequency truth information

from common-view GPS time and frequency transfer between the surveyed ground

station and now known aircraft position. Lever-arm corrections are also determined by

using the absolute aircraft attitude information that is calculated from the aforementioned

GPS-IMU solution and the overall outcome of these calculations is a position solution

with dm-level accuracy and sub mm-level noise and a time transfer solution with sub-ns

accuracy and ps-level noise.

The ability to calibrate the measurement setup is the final system component that

allows for extremely accurate and precise measurements. This calibration task is

accomplished by means of both passive and active calibration features. The passive

features pertain to the RF chain design choices that maximize the RF path commonality

between the transmission and reception signals, as mentioned previously, and also by

means of the instrumentation bias calibration procedure. Specifically, the instrumentation

bias calibration involves connecting a low-loss cable, with known delay, between the

interrogator and transponder antenna terminals prior to takeoff and after landing. The

propagation times of pulse-pairs transmitted through the cable are then recorded and the

measured delay is used to calculate and remove biases that are present in the RF chain.

Similarly, active calibration measurements are also taken every second at both the ground

transponder and airborne interrogator by injecting a known 50 s CW burst into the data
 99

recorder. This provides absolute power and relative phase information that is very useful

for both real-time and post-processing analysis.

The aforementioned real-time processing leverages the CW injection

measurements but also provides a wide array of other diagnostic information. This

information includes real-time feedback about the shape and power-level of the received

beat signal and transmitted interrogations as well as the ARINC IDENT decoding status

and frequency domain information. A screenshot from the real-time setup from the 2014

flight-test campaign is replicated below.

Figure 21: Real-time Quality Monitoring of the 2014 Airborne Measurement Setup
 100

5.3 Flight-Test Channel Noise Measurement Results

By leveraging the above flight-test hardware and flight-test aircraft at the

Avionics Engineering Center (AEC), extensive RF measurements were collected. The RF

measurements indiscriminately recorded both desired and undesired signals which

provided a wealth of both signal and noise information to analyze. However, given the

complexity of real-world channel noise and signal characteristics, only the noise portion

of the channel model was analyzed in this thesis.

DME Channel noise distribution measurements were extracted from the airborne

RF data and aggregated so that an accurate analysis could be completed. These

measurements were specifically comprised of many IQ samples with each sample taken

from the nominally empty space before the first pulse of a received transponder pulse-

pair as dictated by the known transponder TOT plus the propagation delay and clock

errors. The results provided below were taken from RF streams that had had a 1MHz 4th

order Butterworth filter applied and should be representative of 1MHz DME noise.

In Figure 22, the aggregate of the 2014 and 2015 1MHz flight-test noise

measurements have been plotted and normalized by the noise expected within the 1MHz

bandwidth. The data sets were combined since both datasets followed the same trend and

the use of additional measurements allowed for a more reliable channel estimate. In

Figure 22, it is clear that there is a significant amount of impulsive noise present in the

DME channel due to the heavy tails and that FL100 is more impulsive than FL35. The

additional noise associated with FL100 is to be expected since at higher altitudes the

interrogator LOS radio horizon is increased.

 101

Figure 22: 2014 and 2015 DME Channel 1 MHz Noise Measurements at FL100 and
FL35

If only the noise region between [-50, 50] from Figure 22 is plotted, as shown

below in Figure 23, then it is clear that for the most part the noise is relatively Gaussian,

which represents the AWGN portion of the channel.

 102

Figure 23: 2014 and 2015 DME 1 MHz Noise Measurements at FL100 and FL35 from [-
50,50]

5.4 Channel Models

Although the anecdotal noise measurements are very insightful, they may not be

representative of the DME channel in other portions of airspace. It is therefore desirable

to try to model the channel to see if any physical variables can be determined which

could be then be used to make generalized conclusions. To accomplish this, the

Symmetric Alpha Stable (S𝛼S) Distribution Model and Middleton Class A noise model

were investigated. Generalized mixture models were also incorporated for simulation

purposes.
 103

5.4.1 Symmetric Alpha Stable Model

The S𝛼S model was chosen since it is based on the assumption that the interferers

can be modeled as a Poisson Point Process (PPP), which should be a reasonable

assumption given the spatial distribution of aircraft and their transmission behavior [65].

Specifically, a PPP is a reasonable assumption since a PPP is applicable to situations

where transmitters and/or receivers move around a large area in a random fashion and

their transmissions are assumed to be asynchronous with one another [66]. The S𝛼S

Model is also attractive since it can be used to predict noise statistics in interference

environments impacted by Rayleigh and Lognormal fading [65]. The simplicity of the

model is also convenient because calculations can be combined to form a single

parameter, 𝛼, that describes the impulsiveness of the channel. This 𝛼 parameter is valid in

the range 0 < 𝛼 ≤ 2, where an 𝛼 of 2 is equivalent to a AWGN channel and anything

less than 2 is equivalent to an impulsive channel (with smaller values of 𝛼 being more

impulsive) [65].

5.4.2 Middleton Class-A Noise Model

The Middleton Class-A noise model is used to describe impulsive noise that is

caused by a single asynchronous interferer [67]. This simple description results in the

Middleton Class-A model being equivalent to a Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM)

comprised of only two distributions. As a result, the Middleton Class-A noise model

represents the case where a channel is corrupted by AWGN and a single asynchronous

impulsive interferer [67]. Mathematically, the Middleton model and general GMM is

represented by [68]:
 104
𝐾

𝑓(𝑥) = ∑ Φi 𝑓(xi ) (5.1)

𝑖

𝐾 (5.2)
∑ Φi =
𝑖

where 𝑓(𝑥) describes the Middleton Model when the GMM is composed of two Gaussian

pdfs.

5.5 Model Channel Estimates

Given the measured channel noise, attempts were made to determine the

appropriate Middleton, S𝛼S, and GMM parameters that most closely matched the data.

The analysis found that the physically tractable Middleton model did not fit the data

which was expected since there is very likely more than one other interferer.
 105

Figure 24: 2015 Measured and Estimated Noise

For the S𝛼S distribution that models a PPP, fitting results were not exact but

followed the general behavior of the measured noise. This lack of agreement is not

surprising since the DME Channel environment is very complex, there are a finite

number of aircraft, and separation and flight-path limitations make the aircraft

distribution non-random. The deviations between the S𝛼S and measured noise can be

seen in Figure 24, above. The figure shows that the medium amplitude impulsive noise is

capture by the S𝛼S but the tails were not. In addition, the S𝛼S was pessimistic at small

amplitude which is a poor indicator for model fit, but indicates a more favorable channel.

The differences between the S𝛼S and measured distribution are more evident in the

figure below which zooms in on the smaller amplitude portion of the graph.
 106

Figure 25: 2015 Measured and Estimated Noise Distributions (Zoomed In)

Figure 25 clearly illustrates that the S𝛼S distribution does not match the

distribution between approximately -50 and 50. This is interesting and significant because

the wider S𝛼S distribution at low amplitudes will cause significantly worse data

performance, which begs the question of whether the DME channel follows the S𝛼S

distribution in high-density environments. Obviously, additional channel measurements

will be necessary to draw an appropriate conclusion.

For the GMMs, Figures 24 and 25 also plot two GMMs that were constructed

from a combination of 12 different distributions. The line labeled “GMM Sim. Pdf” was

the distribution that was used to model the noise for the simulations in Chapter 6 and

“GMM Other pdf” was plotted to exemplify how a GMM can be used to fit an arbitrary
 107

distribution. In both Figure 24 and 25, it can be seen that the GMM simulation pdf is

pessimistic, which was intended in an attempt to emulate a more hostile channel, and

likely indicates why the simulation results were also pessimistic compared to flight test

measurements.
 108

CHAPTER 6: EDME DATA SYSTEM DESIGN

The eDME data system must be designed such that system requirements can be

met while minimally impacting legacy users as well as being robust to noise and

interference. The requirement to maintain legacy compliance is essential, since re-

equipage with eDME avionics by the airlines is costly and will take considerable time.

This effectively freezes the current DME pulse-pair specification, which aptly restricts

signal modulation to schemes that only vary the position and/or the phase of the pulse. If

spectrum requirements could be changed, then more advanced modulation schemes that

can operate below the noise floor, like Direct Sequence Spread-Spectrum (DSSS), could

be used since the advanced signal would be undiscernible to legacy users. However, the

spectrum modification process would be a costly endeavor and is unnecessary since

simpler position and/or phase modulation techniques are shown to be sufficient,

according to the analysis below.

6.1 Data System Requirement Derivation

The data design is driven by many factors and requires that assumptions be made

in order to design and analyze a prospective system. The core design metrics are

associated with system latency, continuity, integrity, coverage, and effective data

throughput. Other metrics like legacy compatibility, hardware constraints, and robustness

are also important, but are more subjective and difficult to derive in general so instead

they will be discussed with respect to each modulation case.

 109

6.1.1 Time-to-Alert, Continuity, Latency, and FER

In Chapter 2, it was stated that the data system must have a TTA window of 5

seconds, a continuity of (1 – 1e-4)/hr, and that at least two messages must be received

within any given TTA window. The data continuity on a TTA window basis,

𝑃𝐷𝑎𝑡𝑎𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑢𝑖𝑡𝑦 , must therefore adhere to:

5
𝑃𝐷𝑎𝑡𝑎𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑢𝑖𝑡𝑦 ≤ (𝑃𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑢𝑖𝑡𝑦 )3600

5 (6.1)
≤ ( − 0−4 )3600

≤ ( − 389 × 0−7 )

For the sake of simplicity, it will be assumed that 𝑃𝐷𝑎𝑡𝑎𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑢𝑖𝑡𝑦 is at least (1 – 1e-7) per

TTA window.

Given the minimum eDME TTA continuity of (1 - 1e-7) and maximum TTA

duration of 5 seconds, a general relationship for message latency and FER can be

determined if certain constraints are met. The first constraint is that each message must

contain a health change indicator and that the indicator can only be toggled back to a

nominal state after a period greater than or equal to the TTA window has elapsed. This

implementation is recommended since it only requires the receiver to successfully decode

one or two messages to maintain continuity, which conversely means that a discontinuity

will occur if all messages or any combination of ( − ) messages fail to be decoded.

The situation where two messages must be successfully decoded captures the corner case

where a change in health status occurs during message transmission such that the
 110

message fails to contain the health alert and that that message is the only message that is

successfully decoded1. This corner case scenario is depicted below in Figure 26.

Figure 26: TTA Fault Corner Case (Rational for Requiring 2 Messages)

The second constraint is that each TTA sliding window has the same number and

type of messages. If the number of messages differs between windows then the minimum

number of messages within any 5 second period should be used since that number

represents the worst case. The relationship between 𝑃𝐷𝑎𝑡𝑎𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑢𝑖𝑡𝑦 , FER, and number of

messages within a TTA frame, , is then:

𝑛

𝑃𝐷𝑎𝑡𝑎𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑢𝑖𝑡𝑦 ≤ − ∑ ( ) (𝐹𝐸𝑅)𝑘 ( − 𝐹𝐸𝑅)𝑛−𝑘

𝑘
𝑘=𝑛−1 (6.2)

≤ − (𝐹𝐸𝑅)𝑛−1 − ( − )(𝐹𝐸𝑅)𝑛

if the messages are independent of one another. From the above equation, allowable FER

has been tabulated below for when 𝑃𝐷𝑎𝑡𝑎𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑢𝑖𝑡𝑦 is equal to (1 - 1e-7) and there are 2 to

8 messages within each TTA window. Max message latency is simply calculated by

1
The decision to require that at least two messages be successfully received represents the most stringent
case, however, it may be overly rigorous depending on the probability that a fault occurs in the first place.
 111

dividing the TTA window by the number of messages, i.e. 5 . These results are

summarized in Table 11, below.

Table 11: Max FER and Message Latency as a Function of Messages per TTA Window
for (1 - 1e-7) Continuity

Number of Max Frame Max Message

Messages Error Rate Latency [sec]
2 5.000e-8 2.500
3 1.825e-4 1.666
4 2.926e-3 1.250
5 1.192e-2 1.000
6 2.795e-2 0.833
7 4.961e-2 0.714
8 7.363e-2 0.625

Table 11 shows that the FER and latency decreases as the number of messages per

TTA window increases and that there are diminishing returns for increasing the number

of messages within a TTA window. This relationship has important implications for FER

since lower latency messages will have shorter length, if the symbol rate is kept constant,

and shorter code-lengths are typically weaker compared to a longer length code of the

same type and rate when the BER is small. As a result, a shorter length code will require

additional parity bits, i.e. lower rate, to operate at the same acceptable FER which will

result in additional overhead and lower data throughput. This makes it desirable to use

the longest code that still meets the TTA and continuity requirements. However from a

practical perspective, at least 3 or more messages will be required to meet TTA

requirements because a FER of 5.000e-8, indicated in Table 11 for a TTA window with 2
 112

messages, will be difficult to meet even for benign channels. It is also unlikely that more

than 5 messages will be acceptable because a data field might have to span multiple

messages and the likelihood of receiving all parts of the data field is severely degraded at

the higher FERs associated with the increased message count.

6.1.2 Message Integrity

The eDME data system’s most fundamental role is to provide the user with

ground station health, identification, and position information so that the eDME signal

can be safely integrated into the navigation solution. Therefore, it follows that the eDME

data system must have an integrity level that is commensurate with its intended

operations. For example, [15] states that RNP 0.3 GNSS integrity should be (1 - 1e-7) per

hour, however, this value is for the entire system so it may be not be necessary for the

data system integrity to meet this value. The ability to use a less stringent integrity

requirement is likely acceptable since GPS and Galileo systems both append a 24-bit

CRC to each navigation message which results in an undetected error rate of ~6.0e-8 per

message [10] [11] [12] [14]. This undetected error rate per message is small but the

overall error rate per hour is much higher since there are hundreds, if not thousands, of

messages within each hour. Nonetheless, it is assumed that an integrity level of ≥ (1 -

1.0e-7) per message is acceptable due to this value being used by GPS and Galileo

navigation messages and the fact that the current DME integrity, according to [16], is

defined as ≥ (1 - 1.0e-7) without a specified time limit. To meet this integrity

specification, error detection and forward error detection, discussed in Chapter 4, must be

used.
 113

6.1.3 Coverage and Data Throughput

In the context of the eDME Data System, the coverage requirement will be

defined as the minimum signal level where data can be reliably transferred while meeting

the continuity, TTA, and data throughput requirements. The data throughput requirement

will be defined as the minimum amount of data that must be transmitted per second to

deliver health information within the maximum TTA duration and station identification

and position information within a time duration that is comparable or better than Time to

First Fix (TTFA) requirements used by other navigation systems. The data throughput

must also account for overhead associated with a message identifier and possibly a CRC

since all necessary data may not fit within a single message and it is respectively

necessary that the receiver know what message it is decoding and that the message is

valid.

These definitions and the earlier statement that eDME must meet or exceed

current DME specifications makes a coverage threshold of -90 dBm appropriate since

this signal level is the minimum receiver sensitivity specified for modern DME

interrogators. However, this value alone does not take into account the receiver link

budget that is a function of various losses which are present in the RF front-end. The

table below summarizes some expected losses that must also be considered.
 114

Table 12: Expected RF Front-End Losses

Loss [dB]
Cable Loss -3 dB
Amplifier Noise Figure -2 dB
Additional Losses (HIRF protection, etc) -4 dB
TOTAL -9 dB

Table 12 shows that there should be at least a 9 dB margin incorporated into the

link budget due to cable loss and receiver noise figure (NF). This brings the effective

signal level down to -99 dBm, which is approximately equivalent to an SNR of 15 dB

within a 1 MHz bandwidth since the 1MHz thermal noise power is approximately equal

to -114 dBm. The SNR target of 15 dB will be the minimum metric that the FEC code

must reach while meeting all other requirements.

The minimum operating point of the system is then at the intersection of 15 dB

SNR and the combination of latency and FER probability, as defined in Table 11, that the

code can meet. In addition to these requirements, the system must also be able to transfer

approximately 100 bits of data that is associated with detailed health information and

station identification, latitude, longitude, and height fields, described in Chapter 2, in a

reasonable amount of time to achieve an acceptable Time to First Fix (TTFF). The

benchmark of 30 seconds for TTFF will be used since this is how long it takes a GPS

receiver to receive the first three subframes of the GPS message that contain the

individual satellite information [10]. Additional channel and modulation information is

required to determine the effective data rate and FEC code-rate, however, intuitively
 115

transferring 100 bits over a 30 second period, with health status in every message, is

easily achievable as shown later in this thesis.

6.1.4 eDME Legacy Impact

The eDME system must be designed to fulfill data requirements while minimally

impacting legacy users. For DME, the legacy impact is associated with the number of

transponder reply slots that become unusable to legacy users due to modifications

associated with the data system. These modifications could either block the legacy DME

pulse-pair entirely or distort it so that the pulse-pair no longer adheres to transponder

specifications and as a result is discarded by the legacy interrogator. Regardless, the

legacy impact must be quantified by some model that accurately represents the number of

pulse-pairs potentially utilized by the data system, according to the aforementioned

definition, to ensure compliance. The model must also take into account the impact of

legacy pulse-pairs interfering with one another to determine the total legacy system

performance, which is typically represented by the Reply Efficiency (RE) quantity.

However, this is arguably a non-trivial task since there is some disagreement between a

previously known reply efficiency model, the expected physical model, and the

transponder reply specification. An analysis of possible DME capacity will therefore be

conducted to improve upon the existing models for incoming interrogations that are

Uniformly or Poisson distributed. The inverse relationship between reply efficiency and

incoming interrogations without data will be discussed first, followed by models without

the effects of data and then models with the effects of data.
 116

The transponder reply efficiency decreases as the number of interrogations

increases. This relationship is due to the DME/N interrogation/reply procedure that states

that once a valid interrogation is decoded, the transponder must wait before replying to

any other interrogations [15] [16] [17]. This waiting period is defined by the transponder

dead-time and by definition is triggered by decoding the second pulse, as shown in Figure

27 (top) for DME/N Y-Channel with 36µs pulse spacing and 60µs dead-time [15] [16]

[17].

Figure 27: DME/N Y-Channel Dead-time Behavior (Top), Effective DME/N Dead-time
Behavior (Bottom)

However, it is more intuitive to think of the dead time as effectively starting after

the 1st pulse, as shown in Figure 27 (bottom), as this better illustrates that the 1st pulse of

a subsequent pulse-pair, indicated as the blue pulse-pair in the above figure, can fall

inside the original dead-time window and still be decoded as long as the 2nd pulse falls

outside of the dead-time window. The exact duration of this dead-time window is

important since a longer window is more likely to receive a valid interrogation and as a

result reply efficiency decreases because the transponder cannot reply to the received
 117

pulse-pair. The probability of this reception occurring is also dependent on how the

incoming interrogations are distributed and will be discussed below since the type of

distribution has a significant impact on reply efficiency but is seldom discussed in

literature.

The first DME/N reply efficiency, or capacity, model assumes that incoming

interrogations are uniformly distributed and was described in [17] as the " 'free time' to

'total time' ratio" and is mathematically represented by:

Re l Efficie c = 𝑅𝐸 = (6.3)
+ 𝜆𝜏

where 𝜆 is equal to interrogation load, or the number of interrogations received by the

transponder per second, and 𝜏 is the transponder dead time. The description of "free time"

to "total time" is not elaborated on in [17], but it appears that Equation 6.3 describes the

number of transponder replies divided by the quantity which represents the initial

interrogation pulse-pair that triggered the reply plus the average number of interrogation

receptions that would be expected in a pulse-pair slot. This appears to be the case since

𝜆𝜏 is the expected value of the binomial distribution for a system with probability 𝜏 over

𝜆 discrete intervals. If this is true, then the expected equation should be:

Re l Efficie c = 𝑅𝐸𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚 = (6.4)

+ (𝜆 − )𝜏

since the remaining number of interrogations should not include the initial interrogation

that triggered the transponder reply. To test the correctness of this modification and the

original model, a simulation was conducted that assumed that exactly 𝜆 uniformly

distributed interrogations, generated via the MATLAB rand function, were received by
 118

the transponder per second and that the interrogations did not constructively nor

destructively interfere with one another, i.e. only their time of reception was considered.

The reply efficiency was then calculated by counting the number of pulse-pair slots, with

width 𝜏, that contained only one pulse-pair. This simulation was then run for 220,

approximately 1e6, iterations and the results showed that the model represented by

Equation 6.4 was slightly more accurate than Equation 6.3, which indicates that logic

underlying both models is correct.

A second DME/N capacity model could assume that the interrogating aircraft

form a Poisson Process and that the incoming interrogations follow the Poisson

Distribution. The Poisson model is appropriate since it is commonly used to model the

message arrival statistics of communication systems that are comprised of unrelated

users, i.e. interrogators in the context of DME [32]. In addition, [17] has stated that the

arrival time of interrogations can be assumed to follow a Poisson Distribution with

known average rate. The average rate property is significant because this allows the

number of interrogations per interval to change which is more realistic than the uniform

model that assumes constant interrogation rate. To determine the reply efficiency for the

Poisson Model, the expected value of a reception slot containing exactly one pulse-pair

over the entire interval divided by the number of expected interrogations in the total

interval needs to be determined. For the Poisson distribution, the expected value is [68]:

𝐸[𝑋𝑃𝑜𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑜𝑛 ; 𝜆] = 𝜆 (6.5)

and the probability of a slot containing exactly one pulse-pair, 𝑃1𝑝𝑝 , for DME is [68]:

𝑃(𝑋 = ) = 𝑃1𝑝𝑝 = 𝜆𝜏𝑒 −𝜆𝜏 (6.6)

 119

The expected value of each slot containing exactly one pulse-pair over all slots, where

there are a total of 𝜏 slots, is then given by the expected value of the binomial

distribution [68]:

1 𝜏
⁄𝜏 𝑥 (1 𝜏)−𝑥
𝐸[𝑃(𝑋 = )𝐴𝑙𝑙𝑆𝑙𝑜𝑡𝑠 ] = ∑ 𝑥 ( ) (𝑃1𝑝𝑝 ) ( − 𝑃1𝑝𝑝 )
𝑥
𝑥=0 (6.7)

= ( ) 𝑃1𝑝𝑝 = ( ) 𝜆𝜏𝑒 −𝜆𝜏 = 𝜆𝑒 −𝜆𝜏

𝜏 𝜏

The resulting reply efficiency for the Poisson Distributed interrogations is then calculated

by using Equations 6.5, 6.6, and 6.7:

𝐸[𝑃(𝑋 = )𝐴𝑙𝑙𝑆𝑙𝑜𝑡𝑠 ] 𝜆𝑒 −𝜆𝜏

𝑅𝐸𝑃𝑜𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑜𝑛 = = = 𝑒 −𝜆𝜏 (6.8)
𝐸[𝑋𝑃𝑜𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑜𝑛 ; 𝜆] 𝜆

A simulation was also conducted using MATLAB to determine the validity of Equation

6.8. The simulation generated Poisson Distributed interrogations for each of the 𝜏 slots

by using the MATLAB poissrnd function with rate 𝜆𝜏 and the reply efficiency was

determined by counting the number of slots that contained exactly one pulse-pair divided

by the sum of the pulse-pairs in all slots. The results from the simulation show that

Equation 6.8 is accurate to within approximately 0.001% over all reasonable 𝜆 and 𝜏

values.

When comparing the Uniform and Poisson models, significant differences are

self-evident by comparing Equations 6.4 and 6.8. These differences are even more

obvious when they are visualized across a wide range of interrogation rates, as shown

below in Figure 28 and Figure 29.

 120

DME Reply Efficiency for Poisson and Uniform Models (60s Window)
1
Poisson
Uniform
0.9
70% RE

0.8
Reply Efficiency

X: 7144
Y: 0.7
0.7
X: 5945
Y: 0.7

0.6

0.5

0.4
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000
Number of Incoming Interrogations
Figure 28: DME/N Uniform and Poisson Reply Efficiency Models
 121

DME Reply Efficiency for Poisson and Uniform Models (60s Window)
6000
5500 X: 7144
Y: 5001
5000
Number of Transponder Replies

4500
4000 X: 5945
Y: 4161
3500
3000
2500
2000
1500 Poisson
1000 Uniform
70% RE
500
50% RE
0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000
Number of Incoming Interrogations
Figure 29: DME/N Interrogations vs Replies for Uniform and Poisson Models (60µs
Dead-time)

The above figures show that for the nominal dead-time duration of 60µs,

mentioned in [17] [69], the Uniform and Poisson models start to diverge from one

another at around 3000 ppps and that the Poisson distribution performance degrades to

the 70% RE specification at 5945 ppps while the uniform distribution intersects with the

specification at 7144 ppps. The slow divergence at lower interrogation rates, which have

historically been observed to be less than 3370 ppps [33], may be the reason why the

impact of different interrogation distributions hasn't been investigated. However, at

higher interrogation rates near the 70% RE the 1199 ppps gap between the Uniform and

Poisson model is significant and must be considered. Consequently, the Poisson Model

will be leveraged for the remainder of this thesis since it is the more challenging case and
 122

is also likely more accurate since the DME aircraft meet the general assumptions for a

PPP and therefore the DME interrogations should also follow the Poisson distribution.

According to the LA Basin 2020 model in [6], DME stations in the vicinity of

high occupancy airports could experience upwards of 260 aircraft within a 50 nmi radius.

Such a prediction would mean that a transponder could have to service 7800 ppps if the

interrogation rate per aircraft is assumed to be 30 ppps, as stated in [15] [16] [17]. This

interrogation rate poses a problem since according to Figure 29, above, a transponder

cannot support 7800 ppps with a 70% RE when a 60us dead-time is used. This leaves

three options that could involve either decreasing the interrogation rate, decreasing the

transponder dead-time, reducing the transponder RE specification to 50%, or a

combination of the above. If the transponder RE cannot be changed, then the dead-time

must be reduced to 45µs or lower to meet 70% RE at 7800 ppps, as indicated by the plot

below, which may be unacceptable due to propagation concerns.

 123

Number of Incoming Interrogations vs Reply Efficiency for Poisson Model (45 s Dead-time)
0.900
0.875 Poisson Model (45 s Dead-time)

0.850
0.825
Reply Efficiency

0.800
0.775
0.750
0.725
0.700
X: 7926
0.675 Y: 0.7

0.650
2400 3000 3600 4200 4800 5400 6000 6600 7200 7800 8400
Number of Incoming Interrogations

Figure 30: Number of Interrogations vs Reply Efficiency for Poisson Model (45µs Dead-
time)

If the last option of reducing the transponder RE to 50% is acceptable, then this

likely leaves sufficient capacity for DME data since Figure 29 shows that there is a wide

margin between the Poisson Model with a 60us Dead-time and 50% RE. Fortunately, it is

highly conservative to assume that interrogators interrogate at 30 ppps since modern

scanning (multi-channel) interrogators interrogate at 5 ppps per channel. So even if

commercial aircraft are equipped with 3 DME interrogators, the total interrogation rate

per aircraft will average around 15 ppps.

To determine how data impacts the capacity model, another statistical model can

be implemented. Within the model, there are two main types of data pulse-pairs: priority

and non-priority. Priority pulse-pairs could require a dead-time both before and after a

data pulse-pair to ensure that the data is always transmitted while a non-priority scheme
 124

might only introduce a dead-time in the event that the data pulse-pair was transmitted.

This dead-time associated with a data pulse-pair will be denoted by 𝜏𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎 and similarly

the data symbol rate will be denoted 𝜆𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎 . Therefore, the priority case utilizes two pulse-

pairs slots, 2𝜏𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎 , and the non-priority case utilizes one pulse-pair slot, 𝜏𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎 . This may

seem overly detrimental to capacity, however, it will be shown that the actual capacity

impact is only a fraction of the number of data pulse-pairs.

If it is assumed that the data pulse-pairs are uniformly distributed and independent

of the incoming interrogations, then the expected impact can be calculated. The

calculations will assume that the legacy interrogations follow a Poisson distribution and

the RE will be calculated by considering the probability that exactly one legacy pulse-

pair is received and that this pulse-pair does not overlap with a pulse-pair window. The

probability of receiving exactly one legacy pulse-pair is represented by Equation 6.4 and

the probability that the legacy pulse-pair does not overlap with a data pulse-pair is

represented by:

𝑃(𝑋𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎 = 0) = 𝑃𝑁𝑜𝐷𝑎𝑡𝑎 = ( − 𝜏𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎 )𝜆𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎 (6.9)

Combining Equation 6.6 and 6.9 and calculating the expected value results in:

𝐸[𝑃(𝑋𝑙𝑒𝑔𝑎𝑐𝑦 = )𝑃(𝑋𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎 = 0)]

= 𝐸[𝑃1𝑝𝑝 𝑃𝑁𝑜𝐷𝑎𝑡𝑎 ]

1 𝜏
⁄𝜏
= ∑𝑥(
𝑥
) (𝑃1𝑝𝑝 𝑃𝑁𝑜𝐷𝑎𝑡𝑎 ) [( − 𝑃1𝑝𝑝 )( − 𝑃𝑁𝑜𝐷𝑎𝑡𝑎 )]
(1⁄𝜏)−𝑥
(6.10)
𝑥
𝑥=0

= ( ) 𝑃1𝑝𝑝 𝑃𝑁𝑜𝐷𝑎𝑡𝑎 = ( ) (𝜆𝜏𝑒 −𝜆𝜏 )(( − 𝜏𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎 )𝜆𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎 )

𝜏 𝜏

= 𝜆𝑒 −𝜆𝜏 ( − 𝜏𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎 )𝜆𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎

 125

where 𝜆 is the average legacy interrogation rate and 𝜏 is the transponder dead-time. The

overall reply efficiency is then calculated by dividing Equation 6.10 by the expected

value of the average interrogation rate:

𝐸[𝑃(𝑋𝑙𝑒𝑔𝑎𝑐𝑦 = )𝑃(𝑋𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎 = 0)]

𝑅𝐸𝑃𝑜𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑃𝑙𝑢𝑠𝐷𝑎𝑡𝑎 =
𝐸[𝑋𝑙𝑒𝑔𝑎𝑐𝑦 ; 𝜆]

𝜆𝑒 −𝜆𝜏 ( − 𝜏𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎 )𝜆𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎 (6.11)

=
𝜆

= 𝑒 −𝜆𝜏 ( − 𝜏𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎 )𝜆𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎

Conveniently, the cancelation of terms in Equations 6.10 and 6.11 allows additional

factors, like monitor pulse-pairs, to be added by simply concatenating the corresponding

probability. If the monitor pulse-pairs are assumed to be uniformly distributed,

independent of data and legacy interrogations, and follow a non-priority scheme then the

reply efficiency equation becomes:

𝑅𝐸𝑃𝑜𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑜𝑛,𝐷𝑎𝑡𝑎,𝑀𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑜𝑟 = 𝑅𝐸𝑃𝑜𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑃𝑙𝑢𝑠𝐷𝑎𝑡𝑎 ( − 𝜏𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑜𝑟 )𝜆𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑜𝑟

(6.12)
−𝜆𝜏 ( )𝜆𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎 ( )𝜆𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑜𝑟
=𝑒 − 𝜏𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎 − 𝜏𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑜𝑟

where 𝜆𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑜𝑟 is the monitor interrogation rate and 𝜏𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑜𝑟 is the dead-time associated

with the monitor pulse-pairs.

The Poisson Model with data was then simulated to determine how accurately it

modeled the Poisson distributed interrogations combined with the Uniformly distributed

data. The simulation showed that after 100,000 trials the model, given by Equation 6.11,

was always within ±0.5 pulse-pairs of the expected reply efficiency value when a 𝜏 of

60µs and 𝜆 from [1,9000] pulse-pairs was used with 120 monitor pulse-pairs and 500

data pulse-pairs. Figure 31, shown below, illustrates that the simulation effectively
 126

matches the model for all cases since the simulation and model lines fall on top of one

another and for this reason the simulation lines will be removed henceforth to reduce

clutter.

Reply Efficiency vs Number of Interrogations for Poisson Model with Monitor (120) and Data (500)
1
Pois+Mon
Pois+Mon+NPData
0.9 Pois+Mon+P Data
Sim: Pois+Mon
Reply Efficiency

Sim: Pois+Mon+NPData
0.8
Sim: Pois+Mon+PData

0.7

0.6

0.5
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000
Number of Incoming Interrogations

Figure 31: DME/N Reply Efficiency vs Interrogation Rate for Poisson Model with
Uniform Data (500 ppps) and Uniform Monitor (120 ppps)

The cases that were tested to generate Figure 31 were Poisson distributed

interrogations with Monitor pulse-pairs ("Pois+Mon"), Poisson distributed interrogations

with Monitor and Non-Priority Data ("Pois+Mon+NPData"), and Poisson distributed

interrogations with Monitor and Priority Data ("Pois+Mon+PData"). The impact of data on

reply efficiency is approximately linear, with respect to priority and non-priority

according to Figure 32, shown below, since the figure shows that the reply efficiency
 127

lines are shifted to the left by an amount equal to the number of data pulse-pairs, which is

500 ppps in this case.

Reply Efficiency vs Number of Interrogations for Poisson Model with Monitor (120) and Data (500)
0.72
Pois+Mon
0.7 Pois+Mon+NPData

0.68 Pois+Mon+PData
Reply Efficiency

0.66

0.64

0.62
500 ppps
0.6
500 ppps
0.58

0.56
5750 6000 6250 6500 6750 7000 7250 7500 7750 8000
Number of Incoming Interrogations
Figure 32: DME/N Reply Efficiency vs Number of Interrogations for Poisson Model with
Uniform Monitor and Data Pulse-Pairs

In Figure 32, the Priority line, "Pois+Mon+PData", is shifted by twice the amount

of the Non-Priority line, "Pois+Mon+NPData", since the Priority Data consumes two slots

before and after the data pulse-pair, while a Non-Priority pulse-pair only consumes one

slot after the data pulse-pair. The exact legacy RE impact at the target interrogation rate

of 7800 ppps, which is equivalent to 260 aircraft interrogating at 30 ppps, is respectively

1.84% and 3.62% for Non-Priority and Priority data schemes when compared against the

nominal Poisson Model with monitor pulse-pairs. This translates to the 500 ppps Non-
 128

Priority and Priority schemes respectively utilizing 143.5 and 282.4 ppps, with respect to

the available reply pulse-pairs, which is only a fraction of the face-value usage.

For the eDME data system, the above equations and models can be used to

calculate the expected impact on capacity since the simulations showed that the equations

accurately represented the modeled assumptions. It was also discussed that the Poisson

Distribution is likely a more accurate representation of the incoming interrogations

compared to the Uniform Distribution, however, further analysis will be required in the

future to verify this assumption. Nonetheless, the derived equations provide a good

starting point and illustrate the non-linear impact of the data system on legacy capacity,

which results in only a portion of the data pulse-pair rate impact being realized. The

overall data rate, while capable of being calculated, is still difficult to determine since the

current transponder RE specifications will have to be changed to meet expected capacity

challenges regardless of data. Therefore, this thesis will conservatively assume that

allocating approximately 500/250 ppps for Non-Priority/Priority data will be acceptable.

Table 13 summarizes the overall impact of data modulation on DME capacity for various

optimizations. All permutations assume a dead time of 60 µs and a transponder monitor

interrogation rate of 120 ppps.

 129

Table 13: Impact of Data Broadcast on DME Capacity

# AC ppps / AC Total Monitor Priority / Total RE

interr ppps non reply
ppps priority ppps
data ppps
260 30 7800 120 0/0 4885 62.6%
260 30 7800 120 250/500 4706 60.3%
260 22.4 5830 120 0/0 4081 70%
260 20.5 5325 120 250/500 3727 70%
388 15 5830 120 0/0 4081 70%
355 15 5325 120 250/500 3727 70%
128 30 3857 120 0/0 2700 70%
111 30 3358 120 250/500 2700 70%
257 15 3857 120 0/0 2700 70%
223 15 3358 120 250/500 2700 70%

6.1.5 Transponder Hardware Constraints

The hardware constraints involving signal modulation and demodulation are the

primary concerns for the data system since it is expected that the computational burden of

FEC and error detection will be minimal given the expected low data rate and

computational capabilities of modern hardware. For PSK signal generation, timing,

phase, and frequency stability are important while for PPPM only timing stability is

significant. The timing is critical for both modulation schemes because there is a window

where a data pulse-pair is considered valid and if the pulse-pair falls outside the window

then the symbol will be missed. The size of this window should be as close to nominal for

PSK and should be variable for PPPM and tuned for best results, as discussed below in

Section 6.2.1. Quantitatively, the current DME/N pulse spacing tolerance of ± 0.25 µs,

should be sufficient for both modulation schemes since nominally the power lost from
 130

sampling a single pulse within this 0.25 µs window is less than 0.1 dB, as shown below

in Figure 33 for a 250kHz 4th order Butterworth filter applied to a nominal DME pulse.

The frequency and phase stability parameters, which are important for PSK, are primarily

a function of the transponder oscillator and the pulse-envelope modulator/amplifier

performance and will be discussed further in Chapter 7.

4th Order 250kHz Butterworth Power

0

-0.1
Power [dB]

-0.2

-0.3

-0.4
-0.5 -0.4 -0.3 -0.2 -0.1 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
Time [s]

Figure 33: Power Lost from Sampling Offset of Single DME/N Pulse with 250kHz 4th
Order Butterworth Filter

6.2 eDME Modulation/Demodulation

In Chapter 3, possible modulation schemes were discussed that were compatible

with the legacy DME system. PPPM and PSK were two methods that were found to be

viable. These systems are analyzed below to determine their suitability for the eDME

data system.
 131

6.2.1 Pulse-Pair Position Modulation/Demodulation

PPPM is one potential modulation scheme for eDME due to the fact that PPPM

leaves the pulse shape and pulse-pair spacing parameters intact since only the position of

the pulse-pair in the time domain is used to encode data. For example, a PPPM system

with modulation order M would have M locations in the time-domain where the pulse-

pair could be transmitted but only one of these locations would be occupied per

transmission period. Within the PPPM scheme, there are three potential implementations

that will be referred to as Non-Priority, Partial-Priority, and Full-Priority PPPM and will

be discussed below.

The primary benefit of Non-Priority PPPM is that it has the smallest impact on

legacy capacity, compared to the other forms of PPPM, and that the core transponder

operation does not need to be modified to solicit data transmission. The reason for the

small legacy impact is that no data slots are reserved in Non-Priority PPPM, which means

that the data has the same priority as legacy interrogations. This results in the data pulse-

pair occupying one dead-time slot since transmitting the data pulse still triggers the dead-

time gate. The overall legacy impact associated with Non-Priority PPPM is calculated by

using Equation 6.12 with the appropriate 𝜏𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎 and 𝜆𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎 values. Nonetheless, a benefit

of this equal treatment of pulse-pairs is that a data pulse-pair can be transmitted by

"pinging" the transponder at a specific time and is the reason why the transponder does

not need to be significantly modified. The ability to transmit from a largely unmodified

transponder has significant benefits from a cost and complexity perspective, however,

system performance will be degraded since it is possible that zero or more than one data
 132

pulse-pair will be transmitted in a symbol period which would introduce an ambiguity

and force the receiver to discard the symbol, i.e. insert an erasure. If the performance

degradation associated with Non-Priority PPPM is too high, then either Partial-Priority or

Full-Priority schemes could be used since they are capable of mitigating some of the

performance limiting factors.

Partial-Priority PPPM is the second PPPM scheme that can achieve better data

performance than Non-Priority PPPM but at the cost of increased transponder complexity

and heightened legacy impact. The differences between the two schemes are a result of

how Partial-Priority PPPM reserves or allocates data transmissions. Specifically, Partial-

Priority PPPM introduces a dead-time before and after the target data slot, which results

in dead-time duration that is twice that of the Non-Priority scheme. This additional dead-

time ensures that the data pulse-pair can be transmitted but also blocks the reception of

any legacy interrogations, which is why legacy impact is increased. The associated

impact is also calculated by Equation 6.12 that was used for Non-Priority PPPM except

that 𝜏𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎 is set to twice the Non-Priority dead-time. Although reserving the target slot

greatly reduces erasures, it does not completely eliminate the erasure problem because it

is still possible that one or more legacy interrogations land in one or more of the other

nominally empty data slots which would cause a false data pulse-pair to be transmitted.

If the performance of Partial-Priority is still insufficient, then the Full-Priority

scheme could be used. The Full-Priority scheme expands on the Partial-Priority scheme

by not only reserving the target data pulse-pair but also the (M-1) remaining data slots.

Ideally, this eliminates the possibility of erasures if the impact of noise, multipath, and
 133

interference is ignored, but at the cost of increased legacy impact. Fortunately, the impact

associated with reserving the (M-1) slots is rather small since only a short duration, equal

to the decoding window size, needs to be reserved for each data slot. The effect of the

additional data slot allocations on capacity can be calculated by concatenating an

additional term to Equation 6.12 to account for the (M-1) other data slots that are

reserved; this results in the following equation:

𝑅𝐸𝐹𝑢𝑙𝑙𝑃𝑟𝑖𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑦 = 𝑒 −𝜆𝜏 × ( − 2𝜏𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎 )𝜆𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎

× ( − 𝜏𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎𝐷𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑑𝑒 )𝜆𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎 (𝑀−1) (6.14)

× ( − 𝜏𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑜𝑟 )𝜆𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑜𝑟

where 2𝜏𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎 , represents the dead-time both before and after the target data pulse-pair

and 𝜏𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎𝐷𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑑𝑒 is the decoding window size. The number of additional slots reserved by

Full-Priority PPPM, equal to 𝜆𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎 (𝑀 − ), may make it seem like Full-Priority is

prohibitively expensive, but this is not the case because the decoding window size is

typically only a few microseconds long, according to the analysis conducted below,

which makes the effective impact relatively small.

While there are several forms of PPPM, as discussed above, they all face

significant challenges during Ident because a pulse-pair can only be modulated during the

"key-up" portion of IDENT to maintain legacy compatibility. This limits data

transmission times to either between the dots or dashes within a Morse code character or

in-between characters. However, given that there is only one dot between dots/dashes that

are within a character, it is unlikely that an entire message could fit in this region.

Technically, it would be possible for a Priority scheme to transmit symbols in-between

 134

dots/dashes because the Ident period would be known and controllable, but for a Non-

Priority scheme this would not be possible because the Ident is not controlled and could

change ± 1 second according to the FAA. The assumption for this thesis will be that

messages can only be transmitted in-between characters so that the Non-Priority and

Partial-Priority schemes can be analyzed under the same conditions. The Full-Priority

scheme will not be analyzed because simulating the effects of multipath and interference

would be outside the scope of this thesis.

The assumption that PPPM messages must be transmitted in-between characters

results in the Morse Code sequence "JJJ", "QQQ", "YYY", or any three character

sequence comprised of 'J', 'Q', or 'Y' being the worst case scenario that limits message

design. Therefore, the Non-Priority scheme must take into account any of these possible

sequences as well as the possible maximum and minimum Morse code dot durations that

are allowed by the current transponder specification. In the maximum case, the nominal

duration of a dot can be 160 ms, a dash can be 480 ms, the space between dots/dashes

within a character can be one dot ± 10%, or 176 ms, and the space between characters

can be three dots ± 10%, or 528 ms. These timings are illustrated below in Figure 34 and

show that there is one 528 ms and one 216 ms transmission block, respectively indicated

by the red blocks with durations 𝑑2 and 𝑑4 in the figure, where a message can be

transmitted.
 135

Figure 34: Maximum Dot Duration IDENT Sequence for "JJ"

As pictured in Figure 34, the 5 second TTA window cuts into the second block which is

the reason for the shorter 216 ms period. Similarly if the shortest Ident sequence is

constructed, then the sequence below in Figure 35 is created.

Figure 35: Minimum Dot Duration IDENT Sequence for "JJ"

Figure 35 shows that the minimum dot duration of 100 ms results in a 270 ms

window in-between characters, which is depicted as the green block with duration 𝑑7 .

The combination of these extremes then results in two transmission blocks that are 216

ms long since the longer 528 ms block would not fit in the minimum duration sequence

and the 270 ms block in the shorter sequence would not fit in the 216 ms block within the

longer sequence.
 136

Given the assumption that there are two 216 ms blocks available for message

transmission, a potential coding scheme can be constructed. For the Non-Priority case,

the Ident sequence cannot be controlled so it is possible for a misalignment to occur and

subsequently cause the loss of one message within each block. This likely makes a

configuration where there are two messages per block infeasible since a misalignment

would result in only two messages being available, which would require a FER of at most

5.000e-8 according to Table 11 in Section 6.3. Adding an additional message per Non-

Priority block so that there are nominally six messages solves this problem because a

misalignment results in four available messages that would only require a FER of 2.926e-

3 per message, as shown previously in Table 11. In the Priority case, the Ident can be

controlled and message misalignment should not be possible so longer messages can be

constructed. This additional control allows a Priority scheme to use two messages per

block for a total of four messages that will also require a FER of 2.926e-3. However, it

should be noted that using the Non-Priority block constraints are sub-optimal in the

Priority case since the priority Ident sequence can be optimally timed to maximize "key-

up" time during a 5 second period.

With the FER constraint of 2.926e-3, the feasibility of PPPM hinges on a FEC

scheme that is capable of mitigating both erasures and errors since erasures will

statistically always be present in the Non-Priority and Partial-Priority schemes and errors

are also likely to occur at lower SNRs. The FEC scheme must also be able to support

multi-bit symbols due to the aforementioned timing limitations and coding overhead.

Given this criteria, a Reed-Solomon code would be a suitable choice as well as easy to
 137

analyze since a RS code is able to meet the Singleton Bound with equality, which allows

𝑛−𝑘
the code to correct 𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑜𝑟 = ⌊ ⌋ errors or detect 𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑠𝑒 = ( − 𝑘) erasures or a
2

combination of the two as long as 2𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑜𝑟 + 𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑠𝑒 < 𝑑𝑚𝑖𝑛 , which was discussed earlier

in Chapter 4 [33]. In addition, RS codes have inherent error detection properties, as

discussed in Chapter 4 and shown in Table 10, that could eliminate the need for

additional error detection. If the assumption of acceptable capacity utilization of 500/250

ppps is used then a 31 symbol RS code would be suitable for both the Non-Priority and

Priority scenarios since this would equate to 431 ppps and 288 ppps, respectively. The

corresponding code-rate would then have to be determined and for this thesis a

simulation was constructed to accomplish this task.

The simulation was based on a basic statistical model and was designed to

determine the impact of legacy interrogations, received by the ground transponder, on

PPPM transmissions and the impact of thermal noise on PPPM decoding at the airborne

interrogator. Effectively, this simulation encompasses situations where: 1) one or more

incoming legacy interrogations prevents the desired PPPM data pulse from being

transmitted by the transponder, 2) one or more incoming legacy interrogations are

received by the transponder within a nominally empty PPPM data slot which results in

the transmission of an erroneous PPPM pulse-pair, and 3) thermal noise results in the

TOA of a PPPM pulse-pair falling outside the data slot decoding window. These

scenarios are a basic representation of the PPPM system, however, many other factors

like multipath and interference exist but were not included.

 138

The simulation implementation for approximating PPPM, within the context of

the above scenarios, was accomplished by modeling the airborne aircraft using a PPP,

which has previously been used to model the reception of DME interrogations in [17] and

was also discussed in Chapter 5. The PPP model results in reception times that are

Poisson distributed and are assumed to be sufficiently accurate for this simulation. As

stated earlier, it is assumed that the reception of overlapping pulse pairs has no effect on

decoding, therefore, only the probability of zero or more than one pulse-pair being

received is of importance. The equation representing the reception of zero pulse-pairs,

given a Poisson distribution, is:

𝑃(𝑋 = 0; 𝜆𝜏) = 𝑒 −𝜆𝜏 (6.16)

and one or more pulse-pairs is then:

𝑃(𝑋 ≥ ; 𝜆𝜏) = − 𝑒 −𝜆𝜏 (6.17)

where 𝜆 is the incoming interrogation rate and 𝜏 is either the transponder dead-time or

decoding window duration, which will be respectively denoted as 𝜏𝑑𝑒𝑎𝑑 or 𝜏𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑜𝑤 .

Equations 6.16 and 6.17 are then used to determine if a pulse-pair landed before a PPPM

slot that would block the slot and if a pulse-pair landed in the PPPM slot that would cause

a false PPPM symbol to be transmitted.

The second part of the simulation tests the impact of noise on the pulse-pair TOA

that has the possibility to cause a decoding failure. This probability is modeled using a

Normal Distribution that is represented by the following probability density function

(pdf) [68]:

−(𝑥−𝜇)2
𝑝𝑑𝑓 = 𝑓(𝑥) = 𝑁(µ, 𝜎) = 𝑒 2𝜎2 (6.18)
𝜎√2𝜋
 139

The mean, , and standard deviation, 𝜎, for the pulse-pair TOA Normal Distribution were

obtained from [25] for SNRs between 15 and 45 dB. [25] utilized flight test

measurements as well as Monte Carlo simulations to determine the impact of thermal

noise on 1MHz pulse-pair TOA for pulses that had very little or no timing offset, i.e. zero

mean. The results of the measured and simulated TOA errors are replicated in the figure

below. The Ground-to-Air performance is for a nominal 2.5 µs rise time transponder

pulse, which is representative for this thesis. The Air-to-Ground traces depicted in this

picture are for a 1.5 µs interrogator pulse, which is considerably more steep than nominal

and therefore has better noise performance.

Figure 36: Half-Amplitude TOA Measurement Noise as a Function of SNR

Using the above distribution and probability information, a PPPM simulation was

executed for a codeword of length with transmission symbol size 𝑀 The simulation
 140

process effectively generated symbols that each had 𝑀 data slots, determined if an

erasure, error, or neither occurred for each symbol, and recorded the number of errors and

erasures that were observed over the entire codeword. For each symbol, the following

calculation was used for each of the 𝑀 data slots:

𝑆𝑙𝑜𝑡𝑂𝑐𝑐𝑢𝑝 𝑒𝑑 = (𝑈(0, ) ≤ 𝑃𝑝𝑜𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑜𝑛 (𝑋 = 0; 𝜆𝜏𝑑𝑒𝑎𝑑 ))

∧ (𝑈(0, ) ≤ 𝑃𝑝𝑜𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑜𝑛 (𝑋 ≥ ; 𝜆𝜏𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑜𝑤 )) (6.19)

𝜏𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑜𝑤
∧ (|𝑁(0, 𝜎𝑆𝑁𝑅 )| ≤ )
2

where 𝑈(0, ) is used to describe a sample from the uniform distribution over the range

[0,1], ⋀ represents a logical AND, 𝜆 is the interrogation rate impinging on the

transponder, 𝜏𝑑𝑒𝑎𝑑 is the transponder dead-time, and 𝜏𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑜𝑤 is the decoding window

duration. If the implications for each line of Equation 6.19 are analyzed line by line from

top to bottom, it can be interpreted that Line 1 represents the case where no legacy pulse-

pairs are received immediately prior to the data slot, which results in the data slot being

available for data transmission, Line 2 represents the case where one or more legacy

interrogations are received in a data symbol window, and Line 3 represents the case

where the 1st pulse of the data pulse-pair, if it was transmitted, is decoded within the

decoding window when noise is taken into account for the current SNR. After generating

𝑀 slots, it is determined if a symbol erasure occurred by checking if zero or two or more

pulse-pairs were decoded over all data slots, a symbol error occurred by checking if one

pulse-pair was decoded but it was in the incorrect slot, and neither a symbol erasure nor

error occurred by checking if a pulse-pair was decoded in the correct slot.

 141

For the PPPM analysis, 12 simulations were run for the Non-Priority and Partial-Priority

PPPM schemes that tested the performance of 4, 5, 6, and 7-bit symbols with

interrogation rates of 2700, 5000, and 7000 ppps impinging on the transponder that had a

60 µs dead-time. The SNR and corresponding TOA noise sigmas were varied according

to the values given in Table 14 below, which were read from Figure 36, and the decoding

window size was varied from 0 to 3000 ns in 37.5 ns increments for the 2700 ppps case

and 0 to 2400 ns in 30 ns increments for both the 5000 and 7000 ppps cases. Each

simulation was then run for 220 trials on a NVIDIA GeForce GTX980 GPU.

Table 14: TOA Thermal Noise Sigma Values as a Function of SNR [25]

SNR [dB] 15 20 25 30 35 40 45

TOA Noise 100.0 55.0 32.0 17.5 10.5 6.0 4.0

Sigma [m]

The codes that were simulated were a 15 symbol RS code over GF(16) and a 31

Symbol RS code over GF(32), GF(64)2, and GF(128)1, which were all matched to the

corresponding transmission symbol size. Note that the target symbol rate, or ppps, was

500 ppps for Non-Priority and 250 ppps for Priority PPPM, however, the actual pulse-

rate differs according to the RS code length and minimum number of messages per key-

up window, which can be calculated by:

2
In practice, the 31 symbol RS codes over GF(64) and GF(128) codes would be respectively implemented
as shortened 63 and 127 symbol RS codes.
 142

S mbol 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑀𝑠𝑔 × #Me ge 𝑘𝑒𝑦𝑈𝑝

= (6.18)
𝑡𝑘𝑒𝑦𝑈𝑝

where 𝑡𝑘𝑒𝑦𝑈𝑝 was set at 0.216 seconds according to the earlier analysis. Accordingly, the

actual pulse-pair rate and number of message per key-up window for Non-Priority PPPM

is (487 ppps, 7 messages) and (431 ppps, 3 messages) for the 15 and 31 symbol RS code,

respectively. For Partial-Priority PPPM the same analysis results in actual pulse-rate and

number of key-up message quantities of (209 ppps, 3 messages) and (288 ppps, 2

messages) for 15 and 31 symbol RS codes, respectively.

Finally, the simulation was carried out for all SNR and decoding window

permutations and then the optimal code-rate that met the 2.926e-3 FER was found by

choosing the decoding window size that minimized the minimum distance given by

Equation 4.5. The general simulation results indicate that Non-Priority PPPM

experienced significantly more erasures than Partial-Priority PPPM, shown in Figure 37

below, and that these erasures are caused by the Non-Priority data pulse-pair being

blocked in combination with no other data slots being occupied.

 143

20
Number of Errors and Erasures vs SNR (31 Symbols. 5-bit, 2 Trials)
20 20
19 Erasures 19
18 Non-Priority 18
17 Erasures 17
Priority
16 Errors 16
15 Non-Priority 15
14 Errors 14

Number of Erasures
Priority
Number of Errors

13 13
12 12
11 11
10 10
9 9
8 8
7 7
6 6
5 5
4 4
3 3
2 2
1 1
0 0
15 20 25 30 35 40 45
SNR [dB]

Figure 37: Number of Errors and Erasures vs SNR for Non-Priority and Partial Priority
PPPM with 31 5-bit Transmission Symbols and 2.926e-3 FER

Figure 37, also shows that the number of transmission symbol errors is kept very

low regardless of SNR. This is expected and a result of the decoding window size being

optimized to minimize the sum of the errors and erasures quantity, described in Equation

4.5. The graphical representation of the code-rate for the optimal window size at a

specific SNR is shown below in Figure 38 for the 5-bit 2700 ppps case.
 144

20
Max code-rate and Window Size vs SNR (31 Symbols, 5-bit, 2 Trials)
3000 1.000

2625 0.875

2250 0.750
Window Size [ns]

1875 0.625

Code-rate
1500 0.500
Code-Rate
Non-Priority
1125 Code-Rate 0.375
Priority
Window Size
750 Non-Priority 0.250
Window Size
Priority
375 0.125

0 0.000
15 20 25 30 35 40 45
SNR [dB]

Figure 38: Maximum Code-Rate and Optimal Decoding Window Size vs SNR for Non-
Priority and Partial-Priority PPPM with 31 5-bit Transmission Symbols and 2.926e-3
FER

The simulation for the 5-bit 2700 ppps case, summarized above in Figures 37 and

38, found that while there could be several optimal window sizes, the number of errors

and erasures was always constant. This information and the previous observation that

there are many more erasures than symbol errors results in the conclusion that erasures

are the primary limiting factor for PPPM and that PPPM and FEC schemes that minimize

erasures are desirable. However, if there were multiple combinations of error and erasure

values that attained the same code-rate, then the window size with more erasures should

be chosen since erasures can always be detected while errors cannot if the capability of

the code is exceeded. Another benefit to maximizing the number of erasures and

eliminating errors is that the channel then becomes an q-ary erasure channel and newer
 145

more powerful non-binary LDPC codes exist that can approach theoretical block error

limits while remaining computationally feasible if and only if the channel is an erasure

channel, i.e. no errors are present [70]. If there are one or more errors then the decoder

described in [70] will fail or perform poorly and a more complex decoding algorithm,

such as the one described in [71], will have to be used.

The necessary code-rate that was derived from the simulation is summarized in

the table below for the 24 simulation permutations given the priority scheme, the

transponder load from interrogations, and the number of bits per FEC symbol at 15 dB

SNR with a FER of 2.926e-3. Table 15 shows that it is unlikely that Non-Priority PPPM

will be able to perform at higher transponder loads and second, that Partial-Priority

PPPM should be robust to higher transponder loads since there is no degradation in

Partial-Priority PPPM performance when transponder load is increased from 5000 to

7000 ppps.
 146

Table 15: Code-rate, Necessary CRC, and Symbol Rate for 4/5/6/7 bit Symbols at
2700/5000/7000 ppps Transponder Load (For 15 dB SNR and 2.926e-3 FER)

4-bit 5-bit 6-bit 7-bit

Non-Priority PPPM 487 ppps 431 ppps 431 ppps 431 ppps
2700 ppps RS(15,3) RS(31,11) RS(31,7) --
12 bit CRC No CRC No CRC --
5000/7000 ppps -- -- -- --
Partial-Priority 209 ppps 288 ppps 288 ppps 228 ppps
PPPM
2700 ppps RS(15,11) RS(31,20) RS(31,15) RS(31,9)
22 bit CRC 11 bit CRC No CRC No CRC
5000/7000 ppps RS(15,9) RS(31,17) RS(31,11) RS(31,4)
20 bit CRC 10 bit CRC No CRC No CRC

In addition, the throughput, 𝑇𝑏𝑝𝑠 , can be calculated from the code-rate and symbol

rate information in Table 15, if the key-up time during Ident is fixed and there is no

message truncation3.

𝑇𝑏𝑝𝑠 = ( ) 𝑁𝑚𝑠𝑔𝑃𝑒𝑟𝐼𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡 (𝑘𝑀 − 𝑐𝑟𝑐 )

𝑡𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑜𝑑
(6.12)
𝑡𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑜𝑑 − 𝑡𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑟𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑠
+( )( ) (𝑘𝑀 − 𝑐𝑟𝑐 )
𝑡𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑜𝑑

where is the number of codeword symbols, 𝑘 is the number of data symbols, 𝑀 is the

FEC symbol size, 𝑐𝑟𝑐 is the number of bits required for CRC to meet 10-7 Pud

requirement, 𝑟𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑠 is the number of pulse-pairs allocated for data, 𝑡𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡 is the entire

3
The message truncation is not necessary per sec but it simplifies the throughput analysis.
 147

duration of ident, and 𝑡𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑜𝑑 is the between ident sequences. With a key-up time of 216

ms, equating to 72 ms per dot and 216 ms per dash, Ident duration, 𝑡𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡 , is 4.392

seconds in the worst-case4. The time between ident sequences, 𝑡𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑜𝑑 , is assumed to be

30 seconds since this is the specification in [16]. By using Equation 6.12 and Table 15 the

overall throughput after FEC and CRC overhead is calculated and tabulated below in

Table 16.

Table 16: Non-Priority and Partial-Priority PPPM Effective Throughput for 4/5/6/7 bit
Symbols at 2700/5000/7000 ppps Load (For 15 dB SNR and 2.292e-3 FER)

4-bit 5-bit 6-bit 7-bit

Non-Priority PPPM
2700 ppps 0 bps 669 bps 511 bps --
5000/7000 ppps -- -- -- --
Partial-Priority
PPPM
2700 ppps 268 bps 723 bps 731 bps 512 bps
5000/7000 ppps 195 bps 609 bps 439 bps 113 bps

Table 16 shows that Non-Priority and Partial-Priority PPPM are viable eDME

modulation schemes that are able to meet SNR, TTA, FER, and message integrity

requirements, but that Non-Priority PPPM fails at higher transponder loads. Specifically,

Non-Priority was found to be incapable at reliably transmitting data at transponder loads

of 5000 and 7000 ppps, however, at 2700 ppps Non-Priority PPPM achieved an

4
Ident with four Morse Code characters that are either ’J’, ‘Q’, or ‘Y’ is worst-case.
 148

impressive throughput of 669 bps with 5-bit symbols. This indicates that Non-Priority

PPPM can operate in lower density areas but that Partial-Priority PPPM would be

necessary if higher transponder loads were expected.

For Partial-Priority PPPM, reliable data transmission was achieved and was found

to be robust at high transponder loads since there was no degradation when moving from

5000 to 7000 ppps. At the higher interrogation rates, data throughput was found to reach

609 and 439 bps for 5 and 6 bit symbols, respectively, which indicates that 5 bit symbols

should be used. However, Partial-Priority PPPM at 2700 ppps reached a maximum

throughput of 723 bps and 731 bps for 5 bit and 6 bit symbols respectively that at first

inspection would indicate that 6 bit symbols are best. This is probably unwise given the

significant performance penalty experienced when changing from 5 bit to 6 bit at higher

interrogation rates and likely makes 5 bit symbols the best choice to increase robustness

for all interrogation rates. Although, additional analysis and real-world measurements

need to be conducted to verify these conclusions since results were based on a rather

basic simulation.

6.2.2 Phase-Shift Keying

Phase-shift keying is the second modulation scheme that is applicable to eDME.

In the context of eDME, PSK encodes information by using the phase of one or both

pulses within a pulse. This method of PSK modulation leaves the pulse envelope intact

and results in the data modulation being transparent to legacy interrogators, which makes

PSK suitable for eDME. However, PSK does require that the transponder be modified

and is a priority system, therefore, a symbol rate of 250 ppps will be set for PSK to
 149

remain consistent with the PPPM analysis. The PSK analysis will also provide a more in-

depth description of eDME PSK and then a brief feasibility analysis.

An eDME PSK implementation will differ from a normal PSK system in signal

modulation, synchronization, and demodulation due to the uniqueness that arises from

piggybacking onto the legacy DME signal. Specifically, eDME PSK will utilize sparse

non-periodic symbol transmissions that encode data onto a high power Gaussian shaped

pulse-pair. These operating conditions introduce significant challenges with respect to

synchronization and demodulation that have fortunately been solved with a modified

PLL, in [9] and [22], and the eDME Beat signal [28].

PSK modulation schemes also require additional phase and frequency stability,

compared to PPPM, since demodulation requires knowledge of the carrier frequency and

phase contains the symbol information. This statement is especially true for DME since

the pulse envelope is not coherent with the underlying carrier phase and as a result a

frequency offset will cause demodulation error for PSK and the unknown phase offset

will also not cancel out like it normally would for DPSK. From a transponder

perspective, this requires a stable oscillator and a pulse-envelope modulator/amplifier that

has linear phase, or can be corrected/pre-distorted to achieve linear phase, throughout the

pulse. Approximate oscillator and pulse amplifier requirements were not derived for the

transponder, but anecdotally the 2012 flight-test, [24], analysis found that a

telecommunications grade oscillator with a legacy transponder was capable of robust

DPSK transmission.
 150

For the airborne interrogator, requirements for DPSK data demodulation are less

strict compared to the transponder since once the beat signal is acquired the oscillator

must only be stable over the duration of a pulse-pair for DPSK. Accordingly, the DPSK

demodulation phase error is nominally a function of the quantity ∆𝑓∆𝑡, where ∆𝑓 is the

frequency drift, comprised of doppler, ground clock drift, and air clock drift, and ∆𝑡 is the

pulse-pair spacing. The short term oscillator stability, which is representative for the

small pulse-pair sparing, should be easily attainable for many compensated/controlled

crystal oscillators since these oscillators are known to have an Allen Deviation of 10-8 or

less over a 1 second period [72]. This is equivalent to an approximate 0.0025 radian 1𝜎

phase error, if there is no frequency estimation error and no modulation phase error.

Two demodulation methods are possible for PSK: coherent and non-coherent

demodulation. For coherent demodulation, which will be referred to as PSK, a PLL is

necessary to generate a local carrier replica to resolve the phase offset associated with the

received signal. The information output by the eDME carrier phase tracking PLL is from

a functional perspective identical to the aforementioned PLL so coherent demodulation

can theoretically be easily implemented, however, experimentally it was found that the

PLL output was not optimal for instantaneous phase estimates. More specifically, the

PLL averages the received noise and propagation-induced phase variations over its time

constant, thereby potentially de-correlating the instantaneous phase of the PSK-

modulated from the average PLL-produced phase. Multipath is likely common between

the two pulses of a pulse pair, which is an advantage to DPSK. However, multipath can
 151

be significantly different between an instantaneous phase measurement and the average

phase from a PLL, which is a significant disadvantage of PSK.

Non-Coherent demodulation does not require the phase reference that is necessary

for coherent demodulation and as a result does not require a PLL. Instead, the data

portion of the signal is compared to a reference within the same signal that cancels out

the common phase offset between the two signals [32]. For eDME, DPSK is a natural

modulation choice since the first pulse can act as the reference and the second pulse can

be modulated with data. The aforementioned DPSK demodulation phase error ∆𝑓∆𝑡

introduced by the frequency offset ∆𝑓 combined with pulse-pair spacing ∆𝑡 needs to be

compensated for to achieve optimal DPSK demodulation performance. The eDME PLL

is capable of generating the average ∆𝑓 frequency offset estimate with negligible error

which absolves any frequency estimation concerns for DPSK [22] [27].

Both PSK and DPSK have their advantages. For PSK, the coherent generation of

a reference removes noise by a factor of √𝑁, where 𝑁 is the number of independent

measurements used to generate the phase reference. This differs from DPSK because

there is no coherent summing of the signal so the full noise of both the differential

reference and data signal impact the demodulation. The noise reduction associated with

PSK is significant for both the AWGN and Impulsive Channel, however, in practice it

was found that the eDME PLL could not provide sufficiently accurate instantaneous

phase measurements. Figure 39, demonstrates the significant gains that can be achieved

by PSK in comparison to DPSK when a perfect noiseless phase reference is used for PSK

and when a perfect frequency estimate is available for DPSK.

 152

Figure 39: DPSK and PSK Demodulation for Impulsive and AWGN Noise

In the figure above, two major observations can be made: 1) significant gains can

be obtained from using PSK over DPSK and 2) there are major differences between the

AWGN and impulsive channel. The simulation results for PSK and DPSK on both

channels follow similar behavior since both PSK and DPSK lines are separated by a

significant amount near 0 dB, 3 dB and 5 dB for the AWGN and Impulsive channel

respectively, and then start to converge at higher SNRs; although, only weakly for the

Impulsive channel and only until approximately 10 dB. The reason for the 3 dB gain for

PSK for the AWGN is because DPSK demodulation has twice the amount of noise

compared to PSK since DPSK utilizes two noisy pulses [32]. For the initial 2 dB
 153

discrepancy between channels, the cause is not exactly known since normal noise

estimation techniques do not result in the 5dB value for the non-Gaussian distribution.

Regardless, the two channel models still have the same general characteristics, with

respect to the convergence of PSK and DPSK at lower SNRs, which demonstrates that

the impulsive channel performance is dominated by AWGN in this region, i.e. less than

~10 dB. While at higher SNRs the impulsive nature of the impulsive channel limits

performance for both PSK and DPSK. Since it is desirable to emulate the behavior of the

impulsive DME channel, only the Impulsive Channel will be considered henceforth.

Due to the concerns associated with instantaneous phase accuracy and anecdotal

evidence from flight-tests that indicate unstable PSK performance, DPSK was chosen for

the phase related modulation scheme. This decision is based around the fact that DPSK is

more robust to estimation errors since there is no phase reference that needs to be

estimated.

To determine the feasibility of DPSK, a FEC simulation was conducted that

utilized the noise distribution measured during the flight-test campaigns. Both the 2014

and 2015 noise distributions were simulated, however, only the simulation results from

pessimistic GMM of the 2015 noise distribution, discussed in Chapter 5, are shown

below. The simulation results for appropriate BCH and RS codes, which were decoded

using a hard-decision bounded distance decoder based on the Berlekamp-Massey

Algorithm, are depicted in Figure 40. The figure demonstrates that BCH and RS codes

modulated using DPSK on an Impulsive channel can meet the target 15 dB SNR, TTA,

and throughput requirements for modulation orders less than 4 (i.e. less than 16-DPSK).
 154

A summary of the important quantities from Figure 40 and parameters of the simulated

codes are tabulated below in Table 17.

Figure 40: FER for Hard-decision Codes Using DPSK over Impulsive Channel
 155

Table 17: DPSK Modulation and Code Parameters for FER Simulation Shown in Figure
40

BCH(250,166) BCH(250,166) RS(125,19) RS(312,48)

DPSK Modulation 2 4 8 16
Order
Transmission 1 bit 2 bits 3 bits 4 bits
Symbol Size
FEC Symbol Size 1 bit 1 bit 6 bits 8 bits
Interleaver Depth 0 1 0 0
Message Latency 1 sec 1 sec 1 sec 2.5 sec
TTA FER 1.192e-2 1.192e-2 1.192e-2 5e-8
SNR at TTA FER 10.6 dB 14.0 dB 14.9 dB 21.5 dB
Nominal 166.0 bps 332.0 bps 114.0 bps 121.6 bps
Throughput5
Average 221.3 bps 442.7 bps 152.0 bps 204.8 bps
Throughput with
Ident6

The code parameters in Table 17 help illustrate why certain codes were used and

that leveraging Ident pulse-pairs increases data throughput by approximately 33.3%.

Specifically, the BCH(250,166,2-DPSK) code was used for the binary (2-DPSK)

modulation without interleaving, indicated by an interleaver depth of 0, because the

transmission symbols are assumed to be impacted by uncorrelated interference. This

assumption is made because the transmission symbols are temporally separated by at

least 160 µs, due to the eDME Beat signal design [28], and it is unlikely that a single

interference event from any of the error sources described in Chapter 5 will span this time

5
All codes natively provide adequate error detection.
6
Based on eDME Beat Signal design in [29], there are worst-case 10146 pulse-pairs per 30 second
sequence (Ident “SSS”) when a symbol rate of 250 ppps is used. The average data throughput, 𝑇 calculation
10146
is then: 𝑇𝑎𝑣𝑔 = floo ( ) 𝑇nominal
Transmission Symbols per Message Group
 156

duration. As such, each transmission symbol and corresponding FEC symbol are

nominally impacted by uncorrelated noise and interference, which is the assumption

made by the FEC decoder.

For the BCH(250,166,4-DPSK) code, the FEC scheme is still binary but the

transmission symbol size is not and instead each transmission symbol contains two bits

that are correlated. This correlation will cause poor code performance if left unmitigated

so instead two codewords are transmitted, indicated by the interleaver depth of 1, that

each utilize one bit within a transmission symbol and as a result a symbol error appears

uncorrelated to the FEC decoder.

The RS(125,19,8-DPSK) and RS(312,48,16-DPSK) codes are both non-binary

FEC schemes that have a symbol size of 6 bits and 8 bits, respectively. However since the

two codes are modulated onto 3 bit and 4 bit transmission symbols, both codes utilize two

transmission symbols to transmit each FEC symbol. This is sub-optimal since if either

transmission symbol contains an error then the FEC symbol will also contain an error,

which limits performance and explains why both RS codes perform poorly and why even

the strong RS(312,48) code cannot meet requirements. Ideally, there would be a one-to-

one mapping between the two symbol types, but unfortunately this is not possible since

the 3 and 4 bit RS codes, respectively 7 and 15 symbols long at most, are too short to

provide meaningful performance.

In summary, the feasibility analysis for the hard-decision BCH and RS codes

demonstrated that acceptable performance could be attained for the impulsive DME

channel. In addition, it was shown that lower order modulation schemes of 2-DPSK or 4-
 157

DPSK were favorable to 8-DPSK and that 16-DPSK is likely not possible with hard-

decision bounded-distance decoders7. The simulation also showed that the BCH codes

experienced error flares that started around a FER of 1e-5 that may require further

attention if the worst-case noise scenario is actually more impulsive than the noise used

in the simulation. This may be a concern because the error flare would be pushed to a

higher FER by the more impulsive noise, which may make it harder to meet TTA

requirements, however, the error flares can be mitigated by using a lower rate code,

according to simulation. Finally, the feasibility analysis demonstrated that RS codes are

poorly suited for the impulsive channel due to the combination of high SER for larger

DPSK modulation orders and the inevitable mismatch between transmission and RS FEC

symbol sizes.

6.2.3 eDME Modulation Decision

The PPPM and PSK analysis showed that Priority PPPM and PSK are both viable

modulation schemes for the expected high interrogation rates. PPPM was theoretically

capable of a higher data rate, but will have trouble below the pulse-detection threshold

since pulse detection is necessary for PPPM demodulation. In addition, it is unknown

how PPPM will performance in a real-world environment which is primarily why PSK

was chosen for further analysis and implementation. Another reason for choosing PSK is

that it can be used at much lower SNRs due to the eDME Beat signal in combination with

eDME carrier phase that can track below the pulse-detection threshold. This would likely

make the operation of PSK more robust than PPPM, which is the more important

7
It can be shown that 16-DPSK is impractical because the theoretical coding bound requires a (250,4) code
that uses 4-bit symbols, i.e. 16 bps, to meet the eDME SNR and TTA requirements [47].
 158

criterion at this point since both schemes have sufficient data throughput. The availability

of real-world noise statistics also makes PSK analysis more realistic and interesting and

further solidifies the PSK modulation choice.

6.3 Demodulation and Detection

Efficient and robust demodulation is necessary to facilitate good DPSK

performance. As a result, it is desirable to eliminate as much out-of-band noise and

interference as possible while maximizing the available signal strength. This is typically

accomplished by using a Matched Filter (MF) that convolves a signal with its time-

reversed conjugate and then the peak sample from the filtering operation is selected [31]

[32]. The specific MF template that was used for this analysis was a time-reversed

Gaussian pulse with a 2.5 s rise-time. In addition to the MF, a 4th order Butterworth

Filter was also tested since it had been used successfully in previous eDME analysis

efforts. Figure 41, below, illustrates the performance gains for the MF and 4th Order

Butterworth filter in the presence of AWGN.

 159

Figure 41: D-BPSK Gaussian Pulse Demodulation with 4th Order Butterworth and
Matched Filter with AWGN

The figure shows that significant gains, with respect to the 1 MHz bandwidth, can be

made by filtering and that the 1 MHz MF template outperforms the Butterworth Filter by

approximately 0.1 dB. This gain is minimal so it is difficult to say whether a MF or

Butterworth filter should be used by looking at Figure 41.

However, if the frequency response of the MF filter and 4th Order Butterworth

Filter are evaluated then it can be seen that the Butterworth filter has significantly better

asymptotic performance with respect to out-of-band signal rejection. These frequency

response characteristics are shown below in Figure 42 and were calculated using the

MATLAB function freqz.

 160

Figure 42: Frequency Response of 4th Order Butterworth Filter and Matched Filter
(Gaussian Template)

Since the DME channel is expected to have many sources of interference that are

out-of-band, frequency rejection is very important to improve system robustness.

Therefore, the 250kHz 4th Order Butterworth is the recommended filter to be used prior

to demodulation. However, since the flight test results presented in Chapter 7 utilize a 1

MHz 4th order Butterworth bandpass filter8 the remainder of this thesis assumes a 1 MHz

filter.

6.3.1 Detection/Demapper

Several methods to compute the LLR of the received signal were considered.

These methods consisted of log-MAP demappers, non-Gaussian demappers [59] [60], or

LLR clipping, and were combined with a simple interference detection and exclusion

8
The post processing of the flight test results has been optimized for DME ranging performance rather than
for data decoding performance.
 161

algorithm. For the simulations, a log-map demapper with LLR clipping was chosen since

LLR clipping is very consistent and robust across channel noise that might be

encountered by DME.

Specifically, [59] showed that LLR clipping performs approximately 0.25 dB

worse for both the impulsive Cauchy9 channel and Gaussian channel when compared

against the corresponding non-Gaussian and Gaussian demappers. While the Gaussian

demapper performed ~3.9 dB worse when used on the Cauchy channel and the Cauchy

demapper performed about 0.75 dB worse when used on the Gaussian channel [59]. This

makes the LLR clipper the most robust and consistent choice of the three options for

moderately impulsive channels. The LLR clipper also does not require side-channel

information to estimate the SNR and is another reason why the LLR clipper was chosen.

When implementing the LLR clipping demapper, the modulation scheme must be

considered since different bits may have different error probabilities. Specifically, it is

desirable to ensure that nominally less reliable bits in a symbol still appear less reliable

after clipping. Scenarios where such clipping precautions are necessary are illustrated in

the figure below.

9
The Cauchy Distribution is equivalent to a S𝛼S distribution with 𝛼=1.5
 162

Figure 43: BER for Individual Bits for 2-DPSK, 4-DPSK, 8-DPSK, and 16-DPSK

Figure 43 shows that bits within the 2-DPSK and 4-DPSK symbols have the same

BER with respect to other bits in the symbol, that bit #3 BER differs from bits #1 and #2

for 8-DPSK, and that bits #4 and #3 BER differ from each other and also differ from bits

#2 and #1 for 16-DPSK. As a result, care must be taken when clipping the 8-DPSK and

16-DPSK LLR. In Figure 44, below, the LLR results from 8-DPSK demodulation on the

impulsive DME channel are shown. Figure 44 illustrates that the third bit is less reliable

then bits #1 and #2 of 8-DPSK because it has a lower maximum LLR. However, this
 163

value should still be clipped to improve performance and for bit #3 the clipping threshold

was set at ±1.5 and for bits #1 and #2 the clipping threshold was set at ±5.5. The rational

for deciding these values was based on simulations.

8-DPSK Log-Likelihood Ratio for Normalized Impulsive Channel

35000
Bit #1
31500
Bit #2
28000 Bit #3
Number of Occurances

24500
21000
17500
14000
10500
7000
3500
0
-9 -8 -7 -6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Log-Likelihood Ratio (LLR)

Figure 44: 8-DPSK LLR After Max-log-MAP Demodulation on Impulsive Channel

6.4 Forward Error Correction and Detection

Four main classes of FEC were analyzed, BCH, RS, LDPC, and Turbo codes,

however only results for BCH, LDPC, and Turbo codes are provided below since the

PSK feasibility analysis showed that RS codes were a poor choice for eDME PSK.

Qualitatively, it is expected that the soft-decision codes will able to perform much better

than the hard-decision codes, as such, Turbo and LDPC codes should outperform the
 164

BCH code. It is also expected that Turbo codes will perform very well in the low-SNR

region when a low-code rate is used since Turbo codes are a class of capacity

approaching codes. For LDPC codes, a very long code should outperform a Turbo code,

but a very long code is not possible in the eDME case so instead a short code must be

used. This poses a problem for LDPC because LDPC decoding depends on there being

minimal cycles in the graph, which is difficult to adhere to for short codes [33].

In general, the FEC analysis attempted to determine two sets of codes that were

either very robust, i.e. operated at lower SNRs, and codes which maximized data

throughput while still meeting requirements. A comparison of 1 second long Turbo,

LDPC, and BCH codes are shown below in Figure 45 for the robust region.

Figure 45: FER Performance of 1 second BCH, Turbo, and LDPC Codes on Impulsive
Channel
 165

Specifically, Figure 45 illustrates that the duo-binary Turbo code (DBTC), which

was sourced from the IEEE 802.22 standard [73], performs significantly better than the

LDPC and BCH codes in all categories. Specifically, the DBTC(480, 160) code that uses

4-DPSK modulation achieves a net throughput of 150 bps, i.e. when the overhead of FEC

and the 16-bit CRC used for error detection is considered, at 7.5 dB SNR since this is

where the DBTC code intersects the FER target, which is represented by the black dotted

line. This is significantly better than the LDPC(256,128) code that reaches a throughput

of 125 bps at 7.8 dB. Finally, Figure 45 verifies the earlier claim that soft-decision codes

should outperform hard-decision codes since the BCH code can only attain 118 bps at

approximately 8.6 dB SNR. Similar performance results were found for the Turbo,

LDPC, and BCH codes in the higher SNR region.

Figure 46, below, illustrates the codes that attempt to maximize data throughput.

Again, it is found that the DBTC code performs the best compared to the LDPC and BCH

codes. Specifically, the DBTC code reaches its FER target at approximately 13 dB, i.e.

where the DBTC intersect its FER target of 1.184e-4, while the LDPC and BCH codes

respectively reach their FER target of 1.192e-2, i.e. the solid black line, at approximately

14.0 and 14.5 dB. The effective data throughput at these FER targets is 367 bps, 375 bps,

and 332 bps for the DBTC, LDPC, and BCH codes, respectively. The difference between

the DBTC and LDPC code throughput is relatively small and the additional 1.5 dB gain

provided by the DBTC makes it the more desirable code. Interestingly, the BCH code and

LDPC codes perform similarly and both must use interleavers to mitigate correlated bit

errors. For the DBTC, an additional interleaver is not required because there is already an
 166

interleaver built into the turbo code, although, the interleaver does have trouble at higher

SNRs, which is typically caused by low-weight codewords [33].

Figure 46: High-rate Turbo, LDPC, and BCH Comparison

Although not explicitly present in Figure 46, the reason for the LDPC code’s

lackluster performance is likely the result of the decoder’s sensitivity to improperly

scaled LLR values. Specifically, the LLR scaling and clipping parameters as well as the

MSA normalization coefficient had to be tuned to achieve satisfactory results for the

simulation in Figure 46. It was found that incorrect parameters introduced significant

error floors or reduced the steepness of the code’s “waterfall” curve. Ideally, accurate

side-channel information would be available, however, experimentally the sparseness of

 167

the transmission symbols as well as the impulsive noise made accurate SNR

determinations difficult. Although the LLR sensitively was partially mitigated, LDPC

codes may not be the best choice for eDME.

The above analysis indicates that DBTC codes are likely the best choice due to

the robustness of turbo codes to estimation errors and the internal interleaver that de-

correlates symbol errors. However, if the DBTC parity symbols are punctured then the

interleaver cannot adequately perform its function and as a result DBTC performance is

degraded. The effect of puncturing the DBTC code while using higher-order modulation

schemes is illustrated in Figure 47 for 1.00 second, 1.25 sec, and 1.66 sec DBTC that are

respectively color coded by the red, blue, and green lines. In the figure, the dotted lines

represent the FER target and are associated with the code that uses the same line color.
 168

Figure 47: FER of Several 2/3 DBTC Codes on 4-DPSK

The figure shows that as a result of puncturing premature error floors are

introduced. Figure 47 also illustrates how interleaver design is very important since the

longer DBTC codes actually perform worse than the shorter codes, which should not be

the case. The codes that were simulated in Figure 47 come from the IEEE 802.22

standard, [73], that has additional interleavers, but clearly some are sub-optimal and as a

result the DBTC interleaver should always be tested.

For the most part, DBTC codes that were not punctured, i.e. 1/3-rate codes, or

natively punctured, i.e. 1/2-rate codes, performed the best. This conclusion led to the

simulation of several 1/2 and 1/3-rate codes in an effort to determine a range of FEC

options for eDME. Figure 48, shown below, illustrates some of the good DBTC codes
 169

that were found for 1.0 second (green), 1.25 second (blue), and 1.66 second (red) codes.

Note that the code denoted by the black line in the figure represents the very short

DBTC(288,96) that was implemented during the 2015 flight-tests. Overall, Figure 48

demonstrates that there are three viable groups of codes. The specific performance of

these codes are summarized in the Table below and are color coded to match with Figure

48.

1/3-rate 1/2-rate 1/2-rate

4-DPSK 4-DPSK 8-DPSK

Figure 48: FER of DBTC for 1/3 (Solid Lines) and 1/2 (Dotted) Rate on 4-DPSK and 1/2
(Dashed) Rate on 8-DPSK

In Table 18, the bolded codes represent the best code choice in each group when

evaluated with respect to the SNR at the FER target and FER of 1e-4 as well as the

overall data throughput. The decision to use the 1e-4 FER value was based on the
 170

assumption that a data field may have to span multiple message blocks and consequently

a relatively low FER would be need to reliably receive this data field. In addition, a 1e-4

FER seems to be a commonly used value in the communication field [33].

Table 18: Important Performance and Code Parameters from Figure 48 10

Code Message FER SNR SNR Req. Data

(𝒏, 𝒌) Latency Target @FER @1e-4 CRC Rate
(sec) (dB) (dB) (bits) (bps)
DBTC (288,96) 0.58 s 7.363e-2 7.2 8.9 17 137
1/3 Rate (480,160) 0.96 s 1.192e-2 7.5 8.5 16 150
4-DPSK (576,192) 1.15 s 2.296e-3 7.9 8.5 16 153
(solid) (720,240) 1.44 s 1.182e-4 8.2 8.2 15 156

DBTC (480,240) 0.96 s 1.192e-2 9.5 10.6 15 234

1/2 Rate (576,288) 1.15 s 2.296e-3 9.8 10.4 15 237
4-DPSK (768,384) 1.54 s 1.182e-4 10.5 10.6 15 240
(dotted)
DBTC (720,360) 0.96 s 1.192e-2 12.5 14.0 15 359
1/2 Rate (1152,576) 1.22 s 2.296e-3 12.8 13.4 15 363
8-DPSK (1248,624) 1.66 s 1.182e-4 13.0 13.0 14 367
(dashed)

In summary, the FEC simulations showed that DBTC outperformed LDPC and

BCH codes. This is evident in Figure 49 and Table 19 that summarize the code

throughput, not including Ident, vs SNR for the simulated codes. The best codes in the

figure are the ones that are closest to the top left corner since that portion of the graph

represents the highest throughput at the lowest SNR. The figure clearly illustrates that the

DBTC codes, indicated in red, outperform the LDPC (blue), and BCH (green) codes. The

10
The color of the row shading in Table 18 maps to the color of the line in Figure 48.
 171

DBTC FER performance at 1e-4, represented by the unfilled shapes, is also very good

since the DBTC codes have steeper waterfall curves compared to the other codes. The

DBTC performance is partially due to the code’s non-binary, its resiliency to sub-optimal

LLR scaling, and its native interleaver. This makes the DBTC likely the best choice for

the eDME data system.

Figure 49: Throughput Summary after FEC and Error Detection for Turbo (Red), LDPC
(Blue), and BCH (Green) Codes
 172

Table 19: Code Performance and Parameters for Figure 49

DBTC (Red) LDPC (Blue) BCH (Green)

Cir. Sqr. Dia. Cir. Sqr. Dia. Cir. Sqr.
Code length (n) 480 576 1248 128 256 256 250 250
Code Data bits (k) 160 288 624 64 128 128 118 166
Mod. Order 4 4 8 2 2 8 2 4
Interleaver Depth 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 1
Msg. Latency (s) 0.96 1.15 1.66 0.51 1.02 1.02 1.00 1.00
SNR @ FER (dB) 7.5 9.8 13.0 7.6 8.3 14.5 8.7 14.4
SNR @ 1e-4 (dB) 8.5 10.4 13.0 10.1 9.1 16.1 9.8 15.8
Req. CRC 16 15 14 13 ~0 ~0 0 0
Data Rate (bps) 150 237 367 100 125 375 118 332
 173

CHAPTER 7: EDME DPSK IMPLEMENTATION AND FLIGHT-TEST RESULTS

This chapter presents flight test results of eDME DPSK data broadcast and

decoding using several combinations of FEC and CRC codes.

As stated in the introduction, Chapter 7 includes text that was previously co-

written and published by the author of this thesis. In some cases, this text is copied

verbatim. Explicitly, portions of written material and figures from [29] are replicated in

this thesis.

7.1 eDME Transponder and Broadcast Setup

The eDME ground station setup utilizes a host of components to trigger, generate,

modulate, amplify, filter and transmit the eDME signal. The process and associated

components are discussed below.

7.1.1 eDME Transmit Hardware and Software

The eDME flight-test transponder setup is essentially composed of four

fundamental systems that are responsible for: 1) generating the stable carrier phase, 2)

triggering the beat signal pulse-pairs and phase-modulating the underlying carrier to

achieve DPSK, 3) generating the pulse-pair along with mixing the carrier phase,

amplifying, filtering and transmission of the waveform, and 4) monitoring the signal

output for calibration and real-time validation. Pictorially, this hardware is displayed

below in Figure 50.

 174

Figure 50: Prototype eDME Transponder Setup

For the carrier phase component, frequency accuracy and stability is required and

for the 2014 and 2015 flight tests these characteristics were achieved by using a free-

running Microsemi CSIII Cesium (Cs) oscillator. This oscillator exceeds the

requirements for even the most demanding eDME carrier phase applications, but was

utilized since a very stable oscillator simplifies post-processing. From the Cs oscillator, a

10 MHz output is generated and an Agilent RF signal generator is then used to convert

the signal to 1107 MHz; the carrier frequency that corresponds to DME/N Channel 20Y.

This signal is then passed to the modified Moog MM-7000 DME transponder for use in

the DME/N pulse-pair generation.

In addition to the carrier phase input, the modified MM-7000 has also been

outfitted with an external pulse-pair trigger input and a reply-inhibit input that facilitates

the generation of the eDME priority beat signal. The trigger inputs can then force a beat

signal pulse-pair to be transmitted by enabling the reply-inhibit input 81 μs before every

beat signal pulse pair to ensure that the Moog transponder will not initiate a new reply or
 175

squitter pulse pair. This lead time is chosen to provide the Moog transponder with

sufficient time to finish any pulse pair it was already transmitting as well as the necessary

dead time following that pulse pair. As a result, the transmission of the beat signal pulse

pair is guaranteed. Next, a logic pulse is sent to the pulse pair trigger input, which

initiates the transmission of the eDME beat signal pulse pair. Once the pulse-pair is

transmitted, the reply inhibit is released and the transponder resumes normal distance-

replies and squitter. Note that the Morse-code identification sequence, which is now part

of the beat signal, is broadcast using the same method described for broadcasting

"normal" beat signal pulse pairs but with the exception that the reply inhibit is not

released during the Morse-code ident key-down periods.

A custom-built FPGA platform, “Minerva eDME,” is responsible for actually

sending the pulse-pair trigger and reply inhibit signals as well as configuring the

modulator that controls the PSK symbol generation. The Minerva platform, which runs at

an internal clock frequency of 250 MHz, provides 4 ns timing resolution and is locked to

the Cesium oscillator to guarantee coherence between the beat signal pulse envelope and

the eDME carrier phase. In GPS terms, use of the same oscillator guarantees “code-

carrier coherence.” The absolute TOT of the beat signal is then measured by time-

stamping a GPS 1PPS signal with the same Minerva platform and then achieving it so

that the internal FPGA sample clock can unambiguously be associated with GPS time.

Note that the use of a GPS receiver for absolute timing of the eDME ground station is

only chosen to simplify the prototype setup; it is not necessarily representative for a

potential future eDME system implementation. Although very important and non-trivial,
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the challenge of accurate and robust ground station synchronization is not within the

scope of this thesis.

To facilitate the data broadcast, a Linux server generates the eDME data messages

in real time, calculates the CRC and FEC, and sends this data over TCP/IP to the Minerva

eDME FPGA platform. This FPGA platform then controls an IQ vector modulator that

phase-modulates the L-band carrier that is an input to the high-power pulse modulator of

the Moog transponder. The performance of the resulting DPSK is optimized by a

calibration procedure that consists of an iterative SDR-sampling of the transponder’s RF

antenna signal and subsequent adjustment of the IQ vector modulator settings to

minimize the phase error. This calibration procedure can be performed continuously, but

for the presented flight tests it was deemed sufficient to perform the calibration only

once.

An OU-AEC transport van serves as a temporary shelter for eDME ground setup.

A dB-systems DME-510A antenna is installed on an H-stand antenna base, which

elevates the base of the antenna to a height of about 3 m. The van is parked at the Ohio

University Airport (FAA ID: UNI) next to Ohio University’s experimental Local Area

Augmentation System (LAAS). This temporary site was also used for Ohio University’s

December 2012 eDME flight tests [23]. The exterior and the interior of the shelter van

are depicted in the figure below.

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Figure 51: The Exterior (Top) and the Interior (Bottom) of the Transponder Site

7.2 Flight-Test Demonstration Details

Two flight test campaigns were conducted, in November 2014 and March 2015,

to assess the airborne performance of the eDME setup. The modified transponder was

installed at the Ohio University UNI airport in Albany, Ohio at 39.2132° latitude and -

82.2213° longitude. Ohio University Avionics Engineering’s Center Beechcraft Baron-58

was used as the flight test aircraft. Figure 52 depicts the combined flight paths totaling 26

hours of eDME flight-testing on a Digital Terrain Elevation Database (DTED) terrain

plot. The figure is plotted in a local-level East-North-Up coordinate system, with the

transponder at its origin (0,0).

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Figure 52: Flight-test Flight Paths

The main objective of the flight test campaign was to expose the eDME system to

challenging propagation conditions, to fly the system to the edge of legacy DME/N

coverage and beyond, and to assess eDME and legacy DME/N performance in those

conditions. A “spider-web” pattern was flown to sample cover a large area and sample

many “interesting” propagation phenomena. The 26 flight hours were flown

predominantly at two altitudes: at 10,000 ft MSL (depicted in black on Figure 52) and at
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4,000 ft MSL (magenta). Note that the seemingly erratic pattern at 4,000 ft is the result of

real-time flight-plan adjustments that were necessary to stress the system at the edge of

coverage using the real-time tracking results of the DME2100 interrogator as guidance.

7.3 Transponder and Modulation Performance

Earlier in this thesis, a great deal of analysis was done on the PSK modulation

performance, however, this analysis assumed ideal conditions such as the absence of

phase noise on the transmitted transponder pulse-pairs. For real-world conditions, there is

always phase noise and this noise was measured, analyzed, and shown below. In the

analysis, the impact of ident, the TOT precision and accuracy, the modulator phase noise,

and DPSK demodulation noise are analyzed.

In the DME/N specification, equalizing pulse-pairs can be optionally transmitted 100 s

after the first ident pulse-pair. The transmission of these optional pulse-pairs would

ideally have no impact on the proceeding pulse-pair, however, this was not found to be

the case and instead the phase of next transmitted pulse-pair was distorted. Specifically

Figure 53, below, shows that the noise distribution associated with the ident-equalizing

pulse-pairs was biased by approximately 2 degrees while the non-ident and ident pulse-

pairs expectedly followed a roughly zero-mean Gaussian distribution that is indicative of

thermal noise. The biased distribution of the ident-equalizing pulse-pairs is hypothesized

to be caused by RF chain hysteresis that is associated with transmitting the 1 kW pulse-

pair 100 before the ident-equalizing pulse-pair. Nonetheless, the phase noise for all

pulse-pairs is very low, about 0.8° 1σ according to Table 20, positioned below after
 180

Figure 53, and is credited to the high performance Agilent RF signal generator and 10

MHz Cs oscillator signal.

Figure 53: Phase Noise Associated with Non-IDENT, IDENT, and IDENT-equalizing
Pulse-pairs

Table 20: First Pulse Phase Variation Statistics

Offset Std 99%

No Ident - 0.84° 2.41°
Ident 0.10° 0.77° 1.99°
Ident - eq -1.82° 0.79° 3.74°

Besides perfect phase noise, the earlier PSK analysis also assumed that the eDME

Beat signal was perfectly aligned. This is not representative of practical conditions since

there is noise on the Beat signal TOTs and as a result the demodulation point may be

shifted which reduces the demodulated signal power. Table 21, shown below tabulates

the measured accuracy and precision of the Beat signal. The table shows that the Beat
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signal TOTs are incredibly precise since the 95%, 99%, and 99.99% noise values are

respectively 27.4 ns, 33.5 ns, and 44.3 ns and although not shown the distribution was

also found to be approximately zero-mean.

Table 21 Beat Signal TOT Statistics

Std 14.5 ns
95% 27.4 ns
99% 33.5 ns
99.99% 44.3 ns

To attain the aforementioned TOT accuracy and precision, laboratory

measurements of the Minerva eDME beat signal trigger circuitry latency are combined

with factory-supplied measurements that define the delay between the pulse pair trigger

and the corresponding half-amplitude point of the transmitted pulse pair as measured at

the antenna terminal of the Moog MM-7000. The overall TOT timing is then compared

with respect to the GPS 1PPS and was validated to be accurate within 200 ns according to

the sampling oscilloscope equipment that was available. In previous flight-tests and

bench-test setup, the timing stability of the transmitted beat signal has been analyzed

using the SDR setup, which has a higher fidelity than the sampling oscilloscope but

suffers from an unknown absolute delay due to unknown analog filter delays, SDR

hardware delays, and digital filter delays.

Finally, the phase noise and bias introduced by the IQ vector modulator and

DPSK demodulation is analyzed. Figure 54, below, illustrates how there is a relatively

small deviation for all symbols.

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Figure 54: Measured DPSK Modulation Phase Noise

In Figure 54, all 8 data symbols have an average phase error smaller than 1

degree, and stability similar to the carrier phase noise of 0.8 1σ, presented earlier. This

excellent performance was achieved by using the calibration data measured a day earlier

that removed the majority of the phase errors introduced by the IQ vector modulator and

also provided compensation for the approximately 2.17-degree average phase shift that

the Moog transponder introduces between the phase of the first and second pulse. Table

22, below, tabulates the associated modulation related to the noise statistics.
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Table 22: Measured DPSK Error Statistics of the Transmitted Beat Signal

Symbol [°] Mean [°] Std [°] 99% [°]

0 -0.27 0.84 2.23
45 -0.44 0.84 2.35
90 -0.73 0.85 2.64
135 -0.41 0.84 2.32
180 -0.71 0.86 2.63
225 -0.07 0.83 2.12
270 -0.14 0.83 2.12
315 -0.18 0.83 2.17

It should be noted that the data in Table 22 was obtained by keeping the

transponder at an approximately constant temperature of 20°C. Phase errors exceeding

10° have been observed on the mornings before the flight tests when the ambient

temperature was close to freezing, as illustrated by Figure 55 where the outdoor

temperature was -7.89 degrees Celsius and the internal transponder temperature was 6.94

degrees Celsius. As a result, a thermostat-controlled space heater was added to the

ground station enclosure, which was sufficient to stabilize the system performance to the

presented levels. Nevertheless, a closer look is needed at the temperature sensitivity of

the transponder phase stability to ensure the system operates within its requirements over

the full operational temperature range.

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Figure 55: Transponder Modulation Phase Instability Associated with Low Temperatures

7.4 Forward Error Correction and Error Detection Results

For the November 2014 flight test, the NASA LDPC(256,128) FEC code [57] was

chosen for the eDME data broadcast combined with a 8-bit CRC (polynomial 0xE7).

During this flight test, the 2-DPSK and 8-DPSK modulation schemes were tested

simultaneously by interleaving the symbols with one another: all odd beat signal pulse

pairs were modulated with 8-DPSK, all even pulse pairs with 2-DPSK. This way,

instantaneous channel characteristics would be approximately the same for both the 2-

DPSK and 8-DPSK codewords enabling detailed comparison. In addition, the 8-DPSK

set interleaved 3 codewords to decorrelate the bits within a symbol. However, the actual

implementation used a sub-optimal interleaver that likely degraded performance. Since

both modulation schemes use the same FEC and CRC, the 8-DPSK modulation

implementation provides three times the data rate of the 2-DPSK implementation at the

cost of requiring a significantly higher minimal SNR. The motivation behind this
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implementation is to use the robust 2-DPSK implementation for eDME data, and to use

the high-bandwidth 8-DPSK implementation for auxiliary data that has a less stringent

coverage requirement. For example, the 8-DPSK modulation could be used for GNSS

ARAIM augmentation, and a user would use the closest DME transponder to source this

information. Note that because the two different modulation schemes were interleaved,

they each have a 2.05 second latency instead of 1.025 seconds if only a single modulation

scheme would have been chosen. The information transmitted over the 2-DPSK datalink

consisted of health, course time, mask angle, position, precise time, ident Offset, and

almanac data. The first 6 messages were populated while the almanac was filled with

random data.

Table 23: Flight-test Data Message Contents

Description Bits Avg. Update Interval bps

Health 30 1 sec 30
Course Time 60 30 sec 2
Mask Angle 30 30 sec 2
Position & Time (#1) 60 30 sec 2
Position & Time (#2) 60 30 sec 2
Ident Offset 60 30 sec 2
Almanac (information for selection and 30 31/30 sec ~29
acquisition of other stations)/Other Data
TOTAL 69

The aforementioned message contents resulted in the message structure contained

in Table 23, shown above. The messages were constructed such that length of each

message was a multiple of 30 which greatly simplified the data queuing scheme. This
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resulted in 120 bits of data being transmitted along with an 8-bit CRC. The overall

message scheme requires 69 bps which is easily provided by 2-DPSK modulation scheme

that used a LDPC(256,128) code with a 250 ppps symbol rate.

The March 2015 flight-tests evaluated two different FEC and CRC schemes. One

FEC scheme was a DVB-RCS(288,96) code, [53],which was modulated onto 4-DPSK

symbols, and the second scheme was a NASA LDPC(128,64) code, [57], which was

modulated onto 2-DPSK symbols. The DVBRCS FEC was combined with a 17 bit CRC

(polynomial 0x10004) and the LDPC FEC with a 13 bit CRC (polynomial 0x1ABF). To

enable accurate performance comparison, these two modulation schemes were

interleaved in a similar fashion as used for the November 2014 flight test.

The FEC schemes chosen for the two flight test campaigns effectively resulted in

the November 2012 flight-tests examining the performance of approximately 1 second

codes (≈250 symbols) and the March 2015 examining approximately 0.5 second codes

(≈125 symbols).

The decoding settings that were used for both flight-tests are important because

significantly different results are possible depending on the decoder implementation. For

the LDPC codes, a normalized min-sum decoder was used since this decoder is more

resilient to LLR estimation errors as shown by its ability to reduce early error floors [74].

The reason for the poorly estimated LLR values is a result of the sparsity of the eDME

Beat signal pulse-pairs that make it difficult to determine accurate noise power

information, especially in the presence of interference. As a result, the demodulated

symbols are normalized by their absolute value so that a somewhat reasonable LLR value
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can be calculated. A basic outlier detection method is then executed in an attempt to

discard symbols corrupted by interference. To accomplish this, a predefined percentage,

99% according to simulation, is chosen and then the Normally Distributed sigma

corresponding to this percentage is found. Outliers are then detected by comparing the 1st

pulse within a pulse-pair against the set of pulse-pairs that the message is composed of:

𝑆(𝑥𝑖 )𝑑𝐵 ≥ c lc 8(𝑆𝑑𝑏 )𝜎99𝑃𝑐𝑡 (7.1)

where “calc68” represents the 68 percentile value of the set. If the noise was Normally

Distributed, then Equation 7.1 would categorize 1% of pulse-pairs as outliers. However,

since the noise is non-Gaussian, Equation 7.1 may discard additional outliers.

Subsequently, the LLR is computed and the normalized symbols are scaled, by a value

determined by simulation, if higher-order modulation is being used since otherwise the

decoder will not converge. The LLRs of outlier pulses are then set to zero at this stage to

flag those bits as erasures. Finally, the LLR values are passed to the decoder and

decoded. For the DVB-RCS decoder, the same decoding process is executed except that a

max-log-MAP turbo decoder is used instead of a normalized min-sum decoder. The

DVB-RCS LLR values also don’t need to be scaled since the max-log-MAP decoder is

insensitive to SNR [52].

With the decoders details covered, the results of the flight-test measurements will

be discussed. Figure 56 depicts the waterfall curves of the measured FER for the four

different FEC implementations. Only SNRs up to 20 dB are displayed since no frame

errors have occurred at higher than 20 dB SNR for the 26 hours of measurements that

comprise this plot.

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Figure 56: 2014 and 2015 Flight-test FER vs SNR

Table 24, below, summarizes critical parameters of the LDPC and DVB-RCS

codes as well as measured and simulated FER statistics that correspond to the 10% FER

value. While the 10% FER value is not an overly informative performance metric, it does

provide a reference point to compare the measured results against simulations.

Specifically, at 10% FER the FEC schemes typically start their waterfall curve and if the

simulation SNR values at 10% FER are compared to the values in Table 23, it can be

seen that they roughly match each other. However, there is still a significant deviation

between the measured and simulated values which might be a result of the pessimistic

GMM that was used in the simulations.

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Table 24: FEC Schemes Tested for the November 2014 and March 2015 Flight-tests

Campaign Modulation & FEC CRC Frame data rate Msrd. Sim.
date duration after SNR at SNR at
at 250 FEC and 10% 10%
PPPS CRC for FER FER
250 PPPS
Nov 2014 BPSK-LDPC(256,128) 8 bits 1.024 sec 117 bps 6.3 dB 7.8 dB
Nov 2014 8PSK-LDPC(256,128) 8 bits 0.341 sec 351 bps 11.7 dB 13.5 dB
Mar 2015 BPSK-LDPC(128,64) 13 bits 0.512 sec 99 bps 6.5 dB --
Mar 2015 QPSK- 17 bits 0.576 sec 137 bps 5.7 dB 7 dB
DVBRCS(288,96)

Figure 57 shows the total number of frames (dashed) and the number of frame

errors (solid lines) per SNR for all the flight-tested FEC implementations. Figure 58

shows the same plot but then zoomed in from -10 to 20 dB SNR. From these plots it

becomes clear that relative few measurements were made at low SNRs, resulting in a

lower confidence in the measured FER at those SNRs. The plots also show that no frame

errors occurred for SNRs above 20 dB.

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Figure 57: Total Number of Frames per SNR for 2014 and 2015 FEC (Dashed Lines
Represent Total Number of Frames; Solid Lines Represent Frame Errors)

Figure 58: Total Number of Frames per SNR for 2014 and 2015 FEC for SNRs from -10
to 20 dB (Dashed Lines Represent Total Number of Frames; Solid Lines Represent
Frame Errors)
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Figure 58 also shows that the 2-DPSK and 4-DPSK modulated codes have

comparable FER performance while the 8-DPSK modulation performs much worse.

Again, this is to be expected since the overall BER is increased with higher order

modulation schemes and in the case of 8-DPSK this has not been compensated with a

lower rate FEC. Figure 59 also shows that messages can be decoded in the 2 to 3 dB SNR

region, which may be indicate that there are indeed portions of airspace that are at least

temporarily free of impulsive noise since these values are commensurate with an AWGN

channel. The lack of impulsive noise or SNR estimation error must be the case because

the simulations indicate that statistically messages should practically never be

successfully decoded in this SNR region and as mentioned earlier it does appear that the

simulation approximately predicts the actual channel performance.

The above analysis indicates that the aforementioned codes can reliably deliver

data across the DME channel and subsequently it is desirable to confirm this finding by

comparing eDME data statistics against the state-of-the-art DME-2100 legacy

interrogator when it is tracking the signal and is not in memory mode. Table 24, shown

below, summarizes FEC performance for all epochs when the DME-2100 provides valid

ranging output and shows that all codes, except for the 8-DPSK LDPC(256,128) code,

meet their target FER by a large margin. The fact that the LDPC(256,128) code does not

meet its target is of little concern since this code was being considered for auxiliary data

and is not desired to be decoded at the edge of DME/N coverage. All other results

indicate that wherever the DME-2100 has lock, eDME DPSK data decoding is virtually

flawless.
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Table 25: 2014 and 2015 Flight-test Overall FEC Performance

Campaign Modulation & FEC # frames # failures FER Target

date FER
Nov 2014 BPSK - LDPC(256,128) 14,688 3 0.00020 0.00290
Nov 2014 8PSK – LDPC(256,128) 44,061 82 0.01186 -
March 2015 BPSK – LDPC(128,64) 61,765 25 0.00041 0.07363
March 2015 QPSK – 54,707 15 0.00027 0.07363
DVBRCS(288,96)

The flight-test campaigns provided FER measurements but also illuminated

presence of impulse noise as well as flight maneuvers that may cause symbols errors. For

instance, during turns the aircraft can bank towards the transponder which results in the

airframe blocking the signal. This is sometimes the reason why symbol errors and

message errors occur during turns, as shown below in Figure 59 and 60.
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Figure 59: 2014 Flight-test 2-DPSK (Top) and 8-DPSK (Bottom)

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Figure 60: 2015 Flight-test Data Results (LDPC(128,64), 2-DPSK, Top) (DVB-
RCS(288,96), 4-DPSK, Bottom)
 195

In Figure 59 and 60, the magenta dots represent a frame error that occurred when

the state-of-the-art DME-2100 legacy interrogator was unable to track the transponder

signal and the red dots indicates that a frame error occurred while the DME-2100 was

tracking. The latter are the important metric, but, as indicated in Table 25, these events

are extremely rare. It should be noted that a string of message errors is rare and that there

are typically valid messages that are also received in between fault messages within an

error cluster.

One final piece of illuminating information that can be seen in Figure 56 is that

symbols errors are peppered throughout all phases of flight. The symbol error

probabilities in Figure 56 differ between modulation schemes and are typically around

4e-4 to 1e-4. These symbol error value match the D-PSK simulations since the simulation

symbol error values level off at the aforementioned probabilities due to the constantly

present impulsive noise. This indicates that the simulation is roughly accurate.

In conclusion, the 2014 and 2015 flight-tests demonstrated that robust and reliable

data delivery can be accomplished by leveraging the eDME Beat signal and DME carrier

phase to execute DPSK modulation/demodulation. In addition, the practical hardware

constraints were considered and it was found that the distortion caused by the transponder

was minimal as shown by the less than 1-degree phase noise sigma. The NASA

LDPC(256,128) and LDPC(128,64) codes were also tested in addition to the DVB-

RCS(288,96) code. Codes that were modulated on 2-DPSK or 4-DPSK performed

exceedingly well while the 8-DPSK showed lackluster results. Regardless, the

LDPC(256,128) and DVB-RCS(288,96) codes were able to achieve robust decoding

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while providing nominal data throughput of 125 bps and 137 bps, respectively, at SNRs

as low as 7 dB for a 1 MHz receiver bandwidth.

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CHAPTER 8: RECOMMENDATIONS

Depending on the data performance requirements and channel characteristics,

different design choices should be made. The requirements associated with acceptable

complexity are also very important since this constraint determines how much change to

the transponder is acceptable. Other requirements like data throughput, minimum SNR

operating point, and TTA are also driving factors that must be considered in combination

with the level of interference and noise present within the data channel. The aggregate of

these specifications determines which FEC codes can and should be used.

Acceptable system complexity is the first factor that should be discussed since it

determines whether a non-priority or priority system can be implemented. Specifically, if

the DME transponder cannot be modified then non-priority PPPM is the only option.

However if modification is possible then either a priority PPPM or PSK modulation

scheme can be used. The necessity for requiring a priority scheme obviously depends on

the other aforementioned factors, which will be discussed below to provide scenario

dependent recommendations.

Assuming that transponder modification is not possible, non-priority PPPM would

be the only option, however, there are still design choices that must be considered.

Foremost, a minimum SNR operating point of 15 dB must be acceptable since below this

signal level any PPPM scheme will likely be unreliable. If this SNR constraint is met,

then the type of FEC and transmission symbol size must be chosen. For the minimum

symbol size, analysis has shown that 5-bit symbols are optimal since they allow for a

sufficiently strong code to be used while balancing the erasure rate. This recommendation
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consequently results in a non-binary FEC scheme being optimal since the multi-bit

symbols will cause a burst error if the PPPM pulse-pair is corrupted. RS codes are an

excellent choice since they are a class of very strong non-binary FEC codes that have low

encoding and decoding complexity and are widely supported by industry. With regards to

channel noise and interference, non-priority PPPM with an RS FEC should be robust

given that the decoding window size has been optimized, however, additional pulsed

interference will cause additional erasures and therefore a stronger FEC, i.e. lower rate,

will be required. The lower code-rate is not a concern since analysis showed that 669 bps

was possible when using an RS code, conservative channel assumptions, and a

transponder load of 2700 ppps. However, if the transponder loading is above 2700 ppps

then non-priority PPPM will fail and either a priority PPPM or PSK modulation scheme

is recommended.

If a priority modulation scheme is required, then either priority PPPM or PSK is

necessary. The decision between the two is largely predicated on the necessary

robustness and data throughput as well as transponder complexity. Plainly, if a very

robust system is required then PSK is recommended since it can operate below 15 dB,

however, if additional data throughput is required, e.g. above 500 bps, then priority

PPPM is recommended. PPPM is also recommended if transponder phase stability is a

problem since PPPM only requires accurate timing. For priority PPPM, the simulation

showed that the same 5-bit transmission and RS symbols should be used since these

provided the most robust performance with high throughput. The recommendations of a
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lower code rate given higher interference and transponder loading from non-priority

PPPM also applies to the priority scheme.

Given that Priority-PPPM and DPSK can easily provide throughput above the

minimum 50 bps, it is likely that robustness will be more important and therefore DPSK

is recommended since it can operate at SNRs below 15 dB, which is not the case for

Priority-PPPM. Within the DPSK scheme, modulation order is important since a BDPSK

system would be more robust to a phase bias compared to a QDPSK or 8-DPSK scheme.

This means that if the phase bias cannot be calibrated out, which shouldn’t be the case,

then a DBPSK would be preferred over DQPSK or another higher order modulation

scheme. Regardless of the modulation, LDPC codes and DBTC codes are two viable FEC

schemes. However, DBTC codes are recommended since they are more robust to noise

and interference and also perform better at the shorter codeword lengths that are

necessary due to the TTA requirement. This is the case because the nature of LDPC

codes leads to poor performance at short block lengths and the LDPC decoders are also

more sensitive to estimation errors. Conversely, DBTC codes perform very well at short

blocklengths and are robust to estimation errors if a max-Log-MAP decoder is used.

DBTCs also have the advantage that they have an internal interleaver that effectively

combats non-binary symbol errors, allows DBTCs to use DQPSK symbols without the

overhead of an additional interleaver. The strength of DBTC codes at short blocklengths,

decoder robustness, and internal symbol interleaver make DBTC the recommended

choice regardless of the channel noise and interference.

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In summary, if very high data throughput is necessary, transponder load is low,

and the transponder cannot be modified then non-priority PPPM with a 5-bit RS code is

recommended. If transponder load is increased above 2700 ppps then priority PPPM or

DPSK is recommended. The decision between priority PPPM and DPSK is then

predicated on the necessary data throughput and robustness. Specifically, if throughput

above 500 bps is necessary they priority PPPM should be used and otherwise DPSK

should be chosen since DPSK is more robust. Given the choice of DPSK, a DBTC is

recommended due to its excellent performance at low SNR and short blocklengths as

well as its robustness to interference and estimation errors.

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CHAPTER 9: SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

In summary, the projected growth of aviation has necessitated a shift to PBN

based flight operations and currently GNSS, in particular GPS, is the primary enabler of

the high-performance PNT that is required for PBN. Unfortunately, GPS is vulnerable to,

for example, jamming, spoofing, and solar events. To counter this vulnerability, an

Alternative Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (APNT) system is required that meets

the stringent PBN requirements. A modified version of DME/N, specifically eDME, is

one APNT candidate architecture that is capable of providing the advanced functionality

and performance required for PBN and can also be modified to transmit data.

Two types of data modulation are possible within the current DME/N

specifications: Pulse Pair Position Modulation (PPPM) and Differential Phase Shift

Keying (DPSK). With PPPM, data-only pulse pairs broadcast data by varying their

timing relative to a known “beat signal.” The beat signal is a pulse sequence that is

broadcasted at known pseudo-random time intervals. For DPSK, data is broadcast by

modulating the phase of the second pulse relative to the first pulse of a beat signal pulse

pair. Note that PPPM and PSK can be used concurrently. The advantage of PPPM is that

it can be used in a “non-priority” fashion by externally interrogating an existing

transponder. This allows PPPM data functionality to be added to existing infrastructure.

If transponder modification is allowed then a priority implementation of PPPM can be

leveraged that yields significantly higher efficiency and performance. Both non-priority

and priority PPPM are feasible at SNRs of at least 15 dB. Data broadcast using DPSK

needs a “priority” scheme and thereby always requires transponder modifications. The
 202

advantage of DPSK is significantly higher robustness since data decoding is feasible at

SNRs as low as 7 dB at 1 MHz receiver bandwidth. This thesis focuses on DPSK data

modulation.

Forward Error Correction (FEC) is required to repair bit errors caused by noise

and interference in the L-band radio channel. For DPSK, two FEC codes have been

selected: Low-Density Parity Check (LDPC) and Turbo Codes. The short message length

(a few hundred data bits at most) combined with impulse interference forms a

challenging environment for FEC schemes and careful analysis presented in this thesis

shows that it is best dealt with by the Turbo Codes. The downside of LDPC compared to

Turbo Codes is that LDPC requires fine-tuning of the decoder to optimize its

performance to the impulse noise channel whereas a Turbo Code decoder does not

require such optimization. This makes the Turbo Code a more robust solution.

Furthermore, LDPC loses performance with shorter code lengths.

To achieve the desired data integrity, error detection is required. The FEC

algorithms themselves already have inherent error detection, resulting in relative low

Undetected Code Word Error Rates (UCWER), but depending on the FEC used,

additional error correction may need to be added to achieve the required 1E-7 probability

of undetected erroneous data decoding. Various error correction techniques such as

checksums, cryptographic hash functions, and Cyclic Redundancy Checks (CRCs) have

been analyzed and compared in this thesis. The CRC has the most favorable performance

for the intended application.

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Both FEC and CRC performance have been extensively analyzed in simulations.

To achieve representative results, first the radio channel has been modeled using actual

flight test data. The impulse noise present in the channel has been successfully modeled

with a Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM). The GMM parameters have been chosen

conservatively to effectively bound the actual interference present in the channel. The

simulation results are therefore expected to be slightly conservative.

The final system validation has been achieved by extensive flight testing. The

ground setup for this flight test was built around a modified Moog MM-7000 DME

transponder. A custom-built Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) platform took care

of precisely-timed pulse-triggers that caused the MM-7000 to broadcast a beat signal of

250 pulse pairs per second (ppps). Furthermore, the FPGA controlled an IQ vector

modulator that phase-modulated the L-band carrier to achieve the DPSK data modulation

of the beat signal. Precise calibration was achieved by applying a feed-forward correction

using the IQ vector-modulator to cancel the phase-errors introduced by the MM-7000.

The resulting DPSK phase errors were less than 1 degree. The data messages, CRC, and

FEC were generated in real-time. The overall system is a realistic end-to-end

implementation with performance representative of a possible fielded system. The

airborne setup was installed in Ohio University’s Baron-58 flight test aircraft and

consisted of a Rockwell-Collins DME-2100 DME/N interrogator combined with a

precisely-calibrated Software-Defined Radio (SDR) system and an accurate differential

GPS / inertial truth system. The data decoding performance has been assessed by post-

processing of the SDR recordings.

 204

Measurement data has been collected during a total of 26 flight hours flown in

November 2014 and March 2015, which were flown primarily at 4,000 and 10,000 ft

altitude. Part of the flight time was spent at the edge of coverage of the legacy DME/N

system, as indicated by the on-board DME-2100 DME/N interrogator. During the

November 2014 trials a BDPSK-LDPC(256,128) FEC with a 8-bit CRC was interleaved

with a 8DPSK-LDPC(256,128) FEC with also an 8-bit CRC. In March a BDPSK-

LDPC(128,64) FEC with a 13 bit CRC was alternated with a QDPSK-DVBRCS(288,96)

Turbo Code FEC with a 17 bit CRC. These implementations achieved effective data rates

of 117, 351, 99, and 137 bps, respectively. The 8DPSK-LDPC (351 bps) requires

approximately 13 dB SNR to meet the requirements, whereas the other codes require

approximately 7 dB SNR. Of all FEC, the DVBRCS Turbo Code provides the most

robust performance and the highest data rate and is therefore recommended for the

DME/N DPSK data channel. The flight test results were about 1 dB more favorable than

the simulation results, which is explained by the conservative channel model used for the

simulations.

In conclusion, this thesis defined, analyzed, simulated, and successfully flight-

tested data broadcast over DME/N while remaining fully compliant with all existing

specifications and with negligible impact to legacy users. Pulse Pair Position Modulation

is the recommended solution to retrofit existing transponders, but requires at least 15 dB

SNR. Differential Phase Shift Keying offers much more robust performance but requires

transponder modifications. The DVBRCS Turbo Code is the best performing FEC for

DPSK. Addition of a CRC is required to meet the data integrity requirements. Quadrature
 205

DPSK modulation combined with a third-rate QDPSK DVBRCS code delivers robust

performance at 7 dB SNR for a 1 MHz receiver bandwidth, providing an effective data

rate of 137 bps for a 250 ppps beat signal.

 206

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