APAC Workshop on Aeronautical

Surveillance Systems

24-bit aircraft address

management
Jean-Marc LOSCOS
France, ICAO Surveillance Panel

5-6 November 2018 – Bangkok, Thailand

 Contents
• Annex 10 Volume III Chapter 9
– Appendix and special cases
• Regulatory considerations
• Operational Issues
– Europe, United States
– ICAO SURVEILLANCE PANEL
Recommendations

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 ICAO Annex 10 Vol.III CH9
A WORLDWIDE SCHEME FOR THE ALLOCATION, ASSIGNMENT AND
APPLICATION OF AIRCRAFT ADDRESSES

9.1 The aircraft address shall be one of 16 777 214 twenty-four-bit

aircraft addresses allocated by ICAO to the State of Registry or
common mark registering authority and assigned as prescribed in the
Appendix to this chapter.

9.1.1 Non-aircraft transponders that are installed on aerodrome

surface vehicles, obstacles or fixed Mode S target detection devices
for surveillance and/or radar monitoring purposes shall be assigned
24-bit aircraft addresses.

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 ICAO Annex 10 Vol.III Ch9
Appendix to Chapter 9
5. ASSIGNMENT OF AIRCRAFT ADDRESSES
5.1 Using its allocated block of addresses, the State of Registry or common
mark registering authority shall assign an individual aircraft address to
each suitably equipped aircraft entered on a national or international register
(Table 9-1).
Note.— For an aircraft delivery, the aircraft operator is expected to inform the
airframe manufacturer of an address assignment. The airframe manufacturer
or other organization responsible for a delivery flight is expected to ensure
installation of a correctly assigned address supplied by the State of Registry
or common mark registering authority. Exceptionally, a temporary address may
be supplied under the arrangements detailed in paragraph 7.
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 ICAO Annex 10 Vol.III Ch9
5.2 Aircraft addresses shall be assigned to aircraft in accordance with the following principles:
• a) at any one time, no address shall be assigned to more than one aircraft with the exception of
aerodrome surface vehicles on surface movement areas. If such exceptions are applied by the State
of Registry, the vehicles which have been allocated the same address shall not operate on
aerodromes separated by less than 1 000 km;

• b) only one address shall be assigned to an aircraft, irrespective of the composition of equipment
on board. In the case when a removable transponder is shared by several light aviation aircraft such
as balloons or gliders, it shall be possible to assign a unique address to the removable transponder.
The registers 08, 20, 21, 22 and 25 of the removable transponder shall be correctly updated each
time the removable transponder is installed in any aircraft;
• c) the address shall not be changed except under exceptional circumstances and shall not be
changed during flight;

• d) when an aircraft changes its State of Registry, the new registering State shall assign the aircraft a
new address from its own allocation address block, and the old aircraft address shall be returned to
the allocation address block of the State that previously registered the aircraft;
• e) the address shall serve only a technical role for addressing and identification of aircraft and shall
not be used to convey any specific information; and
• f) the addresses composed of 24 ZEROS or 24 ONES shall not be assigned to aircraft.
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 Regulatory considerations
• GLOBAL MONITORING
• In the 1990s, ICAO reminded States of their responsibility in
properly assigning aircraft addresses.
• For each new contracting State, a block was assigned.
• During these years, early implementers of Mode S (Europe, US,
Japan,…) were monitoring the compliance to SARPs in order to
correct possible anomalies.
• As explained in Chapter 9, the aircraft address is also used for the
ATN (SATCOM) and by ACAS (acquisition of short squitters)

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 Operational issues
• EUROPE
• Before Mode S mandate, the assignment of Mode A
codes was very complicated and had to be coordinated
with all neighbours with an overlap of radar coverage
• Thanks to Mode S mandate, Mode A codes are no
longer used for Mode S equipped aircraft (Conspicuity
code 1000) enabling Mode A assignment solely to non
Mode S aircraft

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 Operational issues
• UNITED STATES
• Within the U.S. allocation, most of the available addresses
(over 910,000) are allocated for civil aircraft use; the
remainder are allocated for testing (just over 1,000) and for
use by State aircraft (over 100,000). There are over
350,000 registered civil aircraft in the U.S. and over 10,000
State aircraft.

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 Operational issues
ICAO SURVEILLANCE PANEL
(based on SP3-ASWG8-WP15)
• The 24-bit aircraft address scheme in ICAO Annex 10, Volume III,
Chapter 9 was not designed for the high density of vehicles in an
airspace that is foreseen for small UAS.

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QUESTIONS?

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