This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been
fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI
10.1109/JSAC.2014.2361089, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications
IEEE JOURNAL ON SELECTED AREAS IN COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. *, NO. *, * 2014
Aeronautical Central Cognitive Broadband
Air-to-Ground Communications
Chao ZHANG, Member, IEEE, Yaxin ZHANG, Jialuo XIAO, Junzhou YU
Abstract—Due to the typical features of Air-to-Ground (A/G)
communications, such as the dominant requirement for safe-
ty, as well as the high speed mobile and three-dimension
macro cells, etc., traditional terrestrial Cognitive Radio (CR)
communications schemes cannot be directly transplanted. In
particular, the scheme of spectrum decisions only depending on
spectrum sensing in the mobile terminals, i.e. the aircrafts in
A/G communications, should be abandoned because of safety
requirements. A novel central cognitive structure for broadband
A/G communications is established in this paper. Meanwhile, the
Interference Cognition Table (ICT) is maintained in the database
of the Central Management Station (CMS) with Electro-Magnetic
(EM) computation and modified strong tracking Kalman filtering
of the spectrum sensing result. With the prior computation based
on ICT, the potential harmful interference to the primary user is
avoided and the safety is guaranteed. In addition, a fast channel
assignment scheme with low complexity and the corresponding
Non-Continuous Interferometry Orthogonal Frequency Division
Multiplex (NCI-OFDM) transmission are highlighted for improv-
ing the system capacity and transmission efficiency.
Index Terms—central cognitive, aeronautical communications,
cognitive radio, ray-tracing, Kalman filtering
I. I NTRODUCTION
OGNITIVE Radio (CR) can automatically change its
C transmission parameters by active monitoring of the
factors in the radio environment, such as a radio frequency
spectrum shared with the licensed users [1]. Within the past
decade, some standardization activities, such as IEEE 802.22,
ECMA 392, IEEE SCC41, and IEEE 802.11af, have contribut-
ed to achieve communication based on CR [2]. Moreover,
its use has been further considered in other heterogeneous
networks, such as wireless metropolitan networks, radar net-
works, military networks and related applications [3]. In Air-
to-Ground (A/G) communications by civil aircraft, a licensed
VHF band is utilized to transmit realtime data for Air-Traffic
Control (ATC) and Air-Traffic Management (ATM) [4], i.e., a
118MHz-137MHz band with 25kHz or 8.33kHz per channel.
Statistically, the spectrum utilization in VHF band by ATC and
ATM is usually less than 5% [5][6]. On the other hand, new
data services for Airline Operation Communications (AOC)
and Aircraft Passenger Communications (APC) are expected
to be the major motivation for broadband A/G communications
due to the high transmission rate requirement. Therefore, CR
can also be adopted in aeronautical A/G communications
to provide broadband services for AOC and APC [7][8].
Flexible data transmissions can be obtained, which efficiently
The authors are with Labs of Avionics, School of Aerospace En-
gineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, P. R. China, e-mail:
zhangchao@tsinghua.edu.cn.
Manuscript received January 5, 2014; revised May 9 and July 19, 2014.
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breaks through the narrow-band limitations of traditional A/G
communication systems [9].
Spectrum cognition is the fundamental method in CR com-
munications, which is periodically utilized by secondary users,
i.e. cognitive users. However, there still exists a chance that the
secondary user has already interfered with incoming primary
users before they are detected. This fact is tolerable in ter-
restrial communications because a little interference does not
affect normal mobile communications and TV broadcasting.
For example, in IEEE 802.22, the signal of the frame header
will periodically interfere with the primary users within their
frequency bands. As we know, this occasion is absolutely for-
bidden in aeronautical communications due to the considerable
high safety requirement.
For aeronautical A/G communications, critical services such
as ATC and ATM are included. The interference tolerated in
terrestrial communications may lead to a catastrophic fault
in an aircraft’s aeronautical communications. Thus, the tra-
ditional spectrum cognition scheme cannot be directly trans-
planted into aeronautical CR communications. In order to
avoid any interference between primary and secondary users,
a central station of the spectrum management is established
[7]. Spectrum sensing is carried out in each cell and reported
to the central station. After that, the available spectrum will
be issued to secondary users. In fact, in the event that the
central station is connected to a network of primary users,
spectrum sensing is not necessary if the frequency usage
information is directly and automatically announced by the
Ground Stations (GS) of the primary users. The interference
can be simply estimated by the number of adjacent cells. In
order to strictly guarantee non-interference with primary users,
the threshold of the number of adjacent cells should be defined
in a conservative manner, e.g., 3 cells with a distance of more
than 1500km. Such a coarse spectrum cognition scheme in [7]
degrades the capacity and the expected spectrum efficiency of
aeronautical CR communications.
In order to handle the above issues and finally establish a
reliable broadband CR communications for civil aircrafts, an
interference estimation using Electro-Magnetic (EM) compu-
tation can be employed. For example, in [10] and [11], the
ray-tracing method can be used to estimate the path loss with
a digital map. However, the difficult issue about ray-tracing is
the unsatisfied accuracy, e.g., the 3dB error is reported for the
path loss prediction in terrestrial communications with ray-
tracing [12], which will definitely result in a large error in the
estimation of the interference distance and area in aeronautical
communications. Therefore, whether or not we can find a
method to provide an EM interference estimation with high
accuracy becomes the key problem.
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In this paper, the EM interference estimation is based on channels by conservatively blocking the assigned channels,
the Interference Cognition Table (ICT) which is maintained no matter whether the channels within this area are actually
with EM wave emulation on the Three Dimensional (3D) interfered with or not. Compared with the spectrum cognition
digital map and the Spectrum Sensing Reports (SSRs) from in IEEE 802.22, the proposed spectrum assignment scheme
the aircrafts. Meanwhile, SSR contains not only the spectrum can guarantee the absolute non-interference between PAs and
sensing results from cognitive users, but also the navigation CAs within the cognitive period, i.e., the time period between
information. The more reports of SSR are received, the higher the consecutive time instants of the spectrum cognition.
the accuracy of the cognition results in. The method of ICT ab-
solutely does not cause any interference that affects the safety
of the primary users. Furthermore, it can report the necessary
upcoming interference occasions. Moreover, the novel channel
assignment scheme is designed to make a reasonable spectrum
allocation to each secondary user with the greatest possible
capacity and fairness. In order to make an efficient channel
mapping from the link layer to physical layer, the scheme of
Non-Continuous Interferometry Orthogonal Frequency Divi-
sion Multiplex (NCI-OFDM) is highlighted [13]. Compared
with the literature [7], besides the great improvement in the
capacity and spectrum efficiency, the strict safety is guaranteed (a) Architecture of the proposed system.
in aeronautical communications.
In the remaining of the paper, Section II shows the ar-
chitecture of the proposed central cognitive broadband A/G
communications. Section III gives a detailed illustration of the
ICT construction and maintenance. Section IV and Section V
provide the channel assignment scheme and the corresponding
NCI-OFDM transmission. The performance is evaluated in
Section VI and the conclusion is drawn in Sect. VIII.

II. A RCHITECTURE OF THE C ENTRAL C OGNITIVE

B ROADBAND A/G C OMMUNICATIONS
A. System structure
Since we focus on aeronautical communications, in the rest (b) Cognition process.
of the paper, if the primary and secondary users are aircrafts 1 ,
we describe them as Primary Aircraft (PA) and Cognitive Air- Fig. 1. System architecture.
craft (CA) respectively. Note that, distinguishing PA and CA
As the architecture illustrated in Fig. 1(a), similar to the
depends on the kind of service data transmitted. If ATC and
terrestrial mobile communications, the GSs are deployed to
ATM service data are transmitted, the aircraft is considered as
generate macro cells for A/G communications. When the
PA. If AOC and APC service data are transmitted, the aircraft
aircraft flies in the region covered by a GS, the VHF data link
is considered as CA. If both of these services are employed,
is established to provide the data service for ATC and ATM.
the aircraft acts as PA and CA simultaneously.
In order to provide the cognitive radio service, the spectrum
As indicated in [7], the CR terminals are networked with
cognition is carried out in the CMS with ICT established by
a centralized monitor for spectrum cognition, called Central
the information reported from all the connected GSs within
Management System (CMS). The CMS contains the informa-
the A/G communications network. Then, CMS broadcasts
tion of the assigned channels of the PAs. Specifically, based
the corresponding ICT information to every GS. After that,
on the navigation information, the geographical locations of
GSs relay the information to CAs. With this information,
PA and CA are obtained. The ICT is maintained by CMS.
each CA can be assigned the available channels for CR
EM computation methods such as ray-tracing are used to
communications. The cognition process is shown in Fig. 1(b).
achieve the initial values for ICT, and SSR is employed
With the geographic location parameters and the information
to improve the accuracy. With ICT, safe channels for CR
of available channels obtained from CMS broadcasting, the
communications are determined. A significant advantage of
optimal channels are assigned for aeronautical CR communi-
employing CMS and ICT for the centralized cognition is the
cations. The optimal assignment messages are sent from CMS
capability to overcome the harm to safety caused by the non-
to CAs via GSs. After receiving the confirmation from CAs,
deterministic nature of the existing primary signals in the
CMS registers these assigned channels within the channel
traditional cognitive radio. In other words, CMS with ICT
assignment table and updates the broadcast information. In
precludes the potential conflict with the existing primary radio
every cognition period, the ICT is updated and the channels
1 The GS can also be the primary user or secondary user when it commu- for CR communications are re-assigned.
nicates with PA or CA The existing VHF Digital Link (VDL) uses a Common

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Signaling Channel (CSC) at 136.975 MHz to transmit the
signaling to establish the connection between the aircraft and
GS with three typical processes [14], i.e., the frequency search
and acquisition process, the link establishment and parameter
setting process, and the subnetwork establishment process. In
the proposed system, the CSC for the conventional services
such as ATC and ATM is kept. One additional CSC can be
utilized to accomplish the connection management for AOC
and APC services in the cognitive communications. Moreover,
Ns CSCs are employed to transmit the SSR from CAs, so that
the ICT can be updated and maintained. The number of CSCs
is designed to satisfy the requirement of SSR data. Since the
bandwidth is 25kHz per channel, totally 25(2 + Ns )kHz VHF
band is reserved for signaling. After each spectrum cognition
process, a CA generates its SSR with the spectrum sensing
information and sends it to GS through CSCs.
B. Transmission scheme with non-continuous OFDM
For aeronautical communications, OFDM has been pro-
posed in the broadband transmission [15]. Similar to IEEE
802.22, Non-Continuous OFDM (NC-OFDM) is also dis-
cussed for the cognitive transmission in aeronautical commu-
nications [5]. In a VHF band, spectrum holes are detected
from the occupied VHF digital link users. NC-OFDM with a
large number of subcarriers can be utilized to integrate all the
spectrum holes into a spectrum pool. However, as revealed in
the literature [5], problems of Peak-to-Average Power Ratio
(PAPR) and out-of-band interference occur. Since employing
Carrier-Interferometry (CI) codes can handle the above prob-
lems and improve the Bit Error Rate (BER) performance, NCI-
OFDM transmission with NCI codes is proposed [13]. In this
paper, an NCI-OFDM transmission scheme corresponding to
the optimal channel assignment is enrolled and analyzed.
III. I NTERFERENCE C OGNITION TABLE
A. Safety of the communications
For civil aircraft, safety is the dominant feature that should
be considered. In the aircraft design, the safety of the entire
aircraft system depends on each subsystem. Quantitatively, the
safety is measured by the probability of a mishap, i.e. an
accident with hazard [16]. Some metrics can be included in the
corresponding metric architecture to assess the safety. Mean-
while, for communication systems, the link outage probability
denoted by pout is restricted to ensure the safety [17], e.g.,
the threshold of pout = 10−6 can be deduced according to
SAE ARP4761 and RTCA DO-254 [18][19]. In the proposed
communication system, the link outage probabilities of the
PAs and CAs are directly affected by the interference between
them. Assume the receiving interference power is denoted as
PI , and the probability density function (pdf.) is denoted by
p(PI ), then the Safe Interference Level (SIL) for evaluation,
denoted by Pev , can be calculated as
∫ +∞
p(PI )dPI ≤ pout (1)
Pev
Usually, the interference is required to be lower than the
sensitivity of the receiver, e.g., if the receiving sensitivity
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is PT = −87dBm, the permitted maximum interference in
ICAO standard Annex 10 is required as Pmax = −92dBm
[17]. Therefore, in order to ensure the safety of transmission
in the proposed communication, Pev < Pmax should hold.
Otherwise, the harmful interference occurs. In this case, the
corresponding frequency points, i.e. channels, can not be
assigned to CAs.
B. Construction of ICT
In our proposed scheme, ICT is a set of four tables, i.e., the
table recording the path loss between any two grid points in the
concerned space, the table of corresponding errors, the table of
the corresponding SIL, and the table of channel determination
in high speed mobile environment. In this paper, the four tables
are referred to as the ICT of path loss, the ICT of errors, the
ICT of SIL and the ICT of determination respectively. Assume
the transmission powers of aircraft are equal, then the ICT of
path loss actually reflects the expectation value of the received
signal between two users (two aircrafts, or one aircraft and
one GS) located in the two grids. If the two users utilize the
proposed aeronautical CR communications, the received signal
by PA or other CA is considered as the interference. Assume
there are Ns grid points in the space and M channels, then the
table with M Ns (Ns − 1) items can be established to record
the path loss between any two grids in the space. Similarly,
the ICT of errors and the ICT of SIL can also be established
with M Ns (Ns − 1) items.
The concept of databases combining radio environment
information with geographical location has been proposed as
Available Resource Map (ARM) or Radio Environment Map
(REM) previously [20][21]. However, both of ARM and REM
only record the measured results at the terminals instead of the
full-area information. The ICT can be regarded as a meshed
map containing the full-area information.
The initial values of ICT can be constructed with an EM
computation method, e.g. ray-tracing [22]. As revealed in
the literature [23], since traditional algorithms such as S-
BR/image have low efficiency, brute force computation should
be avoided. Modern efficient ray-tracing techniques can be
employed to decrease the computation complexity, e.g. the
fast ray-tracing and grid ray-tracing etc. [24]. Moreover, other
methods to further decrease the computation complexity can
also be used, e.g., the compressive sensing scheme in [25].
As indicated in [26], the accuracy of ray-tracing can be
improved with more grid points in space. However, if so,
the computation complexity and consumed time also increase.
Therefore, the trade-off should be adjusted between accuracy
and computation complexity.
With ray-tracing, the ICT of path loss and the ICT of errors
are established. The initial value of the ICT of errors comprises
the value of average error of the receiving power, e.g., -6dB in
the literature [27]. If only the intra-interference is taken into
account, the pdf. of the received power of the interference PI
can be approximately considered as Gaussian distribution, then
the average error can be expressed by the standard deviation
denoted by σ. According to Eq. (1), the SIL denoted by Pev
can be calculated. Then the ICT of SIL is obtained. With
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the item in the ICT of SIL, the safe transmission can be
selected with the judgement of whether or not Pev < Pmax
holds. This feature handles the problem that the ray-tracing
emulation result has an error and cannot strictly guarantee the
safety requirement (PI < Pmax ). Moreover, in the following
subsection, the dynamic ICT updated with realtime SSR from
each cognitive user is carried out to enhance the accuracy of
the ICT of the path loss and decrease the installed “error” in
the ICT of error. Usually, the higher cognitive capacity can be
obtained with lower error.
Different from terrestrial cognitive communications net-
works, the high speed mobility is a typical feature in aero-
nautical communications system, e.g., the civil aircraft can fly
enroute at 1000km/h. The scenario of the interference changes
rapidly. In our scheme, the neighborhood region is defined as
the area that the aircraft can fly within the interval between two
adjacent cognitions in CMS, i.e., the cognition period denoted
by Tcog . For instance, if the maximum speed is 1000km/h and
the cognitive period is 100 seconds, the neighboring region is
a bubble with a radius of about 27.8km. Note that, this bubble
is only valid for the mobile user rather than the immobile GS.
For the GS, the radius of the bubble can be considered as 0.
As shown in Fig. 2, in order to guarantee that the interference
cognition result is effective during the cognition period, the
interference level should be selected according to the nearest
points between two neighboring regions, e.g., the points A
and B between two aircraft, the points C and D between
the aircraft and the base station. The ICT of determination
is constructed with SIL between the nearest points in the
neighboring regions. As illustrated in Fig. 2, the two aircrafts
utilize the SIL of A and B as the value of the item in the
ICT of determination. Also, for the aircraft and GS, the SIL
values of C and D are utilized. In other words, only the item
in the ICT of determination will be used as reference for the
channel cognition and assignment.
Fig. 2. ICT of determination calculation with neighborhood region.
The ICT maintenance process is shown in Fig. 3. After the
initialization with ray-tracing, the realtime SSR is employed to
update the ICT of path loss and error, which gradually yields
the higher accuracy and cognition capacity.
C. Dynamic ICT updating
As shown in Fig. 1(b), the information of navigation and
spectrum sensing should be sent from the CA and through the
GS to the CMS for ICT updating. The navigation information
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Fig. 3. ICT maintenance.
is used for tracking the detailed item in ICT. The spectrum
sensing information is obtained within each CA and its cor-
responding GS, which is denoted as Psi for the ith channel.
This information is used to make a data fusion with the item
in ICT and to produce the updated item2 . There are three
typical features in the filtering process, i.e., 1) there may be
a noticeable difference between the original item in ICT and
the measured value with CA and GS; 2) with the change of
environment, the filtering result should closely track the true
value; 3) the filtering process is carried out for the specific
item in ICT. Each SSR data from CA can only provide one
step filtering for each item in ICT according to the specific
pair of transmission and receiving grid points in space. These
three features motivate us to modify the Strong Tracking
Kalman Filtering (STKF) in the space domain rather than the
commonly used Kalman filtering in the time domain [28].
Establishing the state space as the following.
{
X(k + 1) = F(k)X(k) + V(k)
(2)
Z(k + 1) = H(k)X(k + 1) + W(k + 1)
where X comprises the state variables as the items in ICT, F
denotes the state transition matrix, V and W are noises, H is
the observation matrix and Z is the observation vector.
For STKF, the iteration process is carried out by
X̂(k + 1|k) = F(k)X̂(k|k) (3)
P(k + 1|k) = λ(k + 1)F(k)P(k|k)FT (k) + Q(k) (4)
P(k + 1|k)HT (k)
K(k + 1) = (5)
H(k)P(k + 1|k)HT (k) + R(k + 1)
γ(k + 1) = Z(k + 1) − H(k)X̂(k + 1|k) (6)
X̂(k + 1|k + 1) = X̂(k + 1|k) + K(k + 1)γ(k + 1)(7)
P(k + 1|k + 1) = [I − K(k + 1)H]P(k + 1|k) (8)
where P is the correlation matrix of filter state error, γ is the
innovation of Z, K is the gain matrix of Kalman filtering. The
2 The aircraft does not always happen to be at the exact grid point when
the spectrum cognition is carried out. Instead, it might be anywhere in a cube
region determined by 8 nearest grid points as the corners. In the ICT updating,
the spectrum sensing information is utilized for the 8 corner points, and all
items related to these 8 points are updated. Since GS has a fixed grid point,
8 items are updated if it involves one channel between an aircraft and a GS.
Moreover, 8 × 8 = 64 items are updated if it involves one channel between
two aircraft.
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co-variance matrices of noise can be defined as Mathematically, assume there are N users (PAs and CAs)
T and M channels, the graph-based algorithm can be used to
R(k) = E{W(k)W (k)} (9)
initialize the channel assignment, e.g., Color-Sensitive Graph
T
Q(k) = E{V(k)V (k)} (10) Coloring (CSGC) [29]. Usually, four matrices are defined as
and λ(k + 1) ≥ 1 is defined as fading factor, which is the 1) Available channel matrix L, i.e., L =
typical difference from the traditional Kalman filtering. {l |l
nm nm ∈ {0, 1}}N ×M , where lnm = 1 denotes
In order to make E[γ(k + 1 + j)γ T (k + 1)] = 0, where the fact that the user n can use the channel m. On the
k = 0, 1, 2, · · · , and j = 1, 2, · · · , set the fading factor as contrary, lnm = 0 denotes the user n can NOT use the
channel m.
tr[N(k + 1)] 2) Interference matrix C, i.e., C =
λ0 = (11) {cijm |cijm ∈ {0, 1}}N ×N ×M , where cij = 1 denotes
tr[M(k + 1)]
{ the interference occurred between the user i and user j
λ0 λ0 ≥ 1 in channel m. Otherwise, cij = 0 denotes there is no
λ(k + 1) = (12)
1 λ0 < 1 interference.
where 3) Utility matrix B, i.e., B = {bnm |bnm > 0}N ×M , where
bnm denotes the utility when the user n utilizes the
N(k + 1) = S0 (k + 1) − H(k)Q(k)HT (k) − βR(k + 1) (13)
channel m.
M(k + 1) = H(k)F(k)P(k|k)FT (k)HT (k) (14) 4) Channel assignment matrix A, i.e., A =
{
γ(1)γ T (1) k=0 {anm |anm ∈ {0, 1}}N ×M , where anm = 1 denotes
S0 (k + 1) = [ρS0 (k)+γ(k+1)γ T (k+1)] (15) the channel m has been assigned to the user n.
1+ρ k≥1
Otherwise, anm = 0. Actually, the restriction of no
and 0 < ρ ≤ 1 is the forgetting factor, e.g. ρ = 0.95. More- interference can be expressed as aim ajm cij = 0, where
over, β is a weakening factor making the state expectation ∀i, j = 1, · · · , N, m = 1, · · · , M .
smoother. Usually, 15 ≥ β ≥ 1 can be selected [28]. Briefly According to [29], the following objective function can
speaking, there are four steps in the algorithm. i.e., make the efficiency maximum while maintaining the fairness.
1) Step 1: Let k = 0 and set the initial values of X̂(0|0), ( M )
P(0|0). Select a weakening factor β. ∑N ∑
U (A) = log anm bnm (16)
2) Step 2: According to the aforementioned equations,
n=1 m=1
calculate X̂(k + 1|k), γ(k + 1), S0 (k + 1) and λ(k + 1).
3) Step 3: According to the aforementioned equations, The channel assignment becomes the optimal problem as
calculate P(k + 1|k), K(k + 1) and X̂(k + 1|k + 1)
4) Step 4: k + 1 → k and go to Step 2. A∗ = arg max U (A) (17)
A

IV. C HANNEL A SSIGNMENT
A. Assignment principle and structure
For aeronautical CR communications, the traditional chan-
nel assignment in terrestrial mobile communications cannot be
directly utilized due to the high speed mobile in space. Similar
to IEEE 802.22, the cognitive period is defined for the life-time
of one cognition process. In each cognitive period, a channel
assignment is processed before data transmission and the ICT
table is updated. As traditional channel assignment algorithms
are of high complexity, an incremental algorithm (named as ∆
algorithm) is proposed to mitigate the computation complexity,
so that the channel assignment can be processed periodically
with high efficiency. Since the interference environment is
changing, the cognitive period should be carefully selected
to guarantee the relative stability of the interference scenario
within one period. Therefore, the following requirements for
the channel assignment should be emphasized.
1) The channel assignment algorithm should have low com-
putation complexity and be launched synchronously with
the cognitive period, i.e., making the channel assignment
in each period.
2) The spectrum management for the arrival and departure
of the PA and CA should be carefully designed to
guarantee the efficiency and fairness of the CA.
Literature [30] proposes a criterion, i.e. Proportional Fair-
ness (PF) criterion, as
∑
N −1 ∑
M −1
F (A) = log10 an,m · bn,m (18)
n=0 m=0
When the PF function reaches the maximum, the rate of
each user reaches its maximum. Literature [30] proves that a
proportional fairness of distribution for all users is a solution
to maximize the value of the utility function in the network.
The above channel assignment algorithm is a static method
and cannot directly meet the requirement of the high speed
mobility. Thus a new scheme with ∆ algorithm is proposed.
1) Give the initial value of the channel assignment by the
algorithm in Eq. (17).
2) Within the cognitive period (Tcog ), the following proce-
dures must be carried out.
Case 1: Arrival of PA. In the case of a new PA applying
for the channel, the corresponding channel should be
immediately deleted from L and A, i.e., set “0” to
the corresponding elements and the CAs release the
corresponding channels.
Case 2: Departure of PA. In the case of a PA releasing
the occupied channels, L and C are updated with the
released channels. These channels will be assigned in

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the next period rather than coming into effect in the

current period.
Case 3: Arrival of CA. In the case of a new CA Update the interference matrix C
applying for channels, the matrices L and C are enlarged Compute the changing matrix of interference: P Ck  Ck 1
Find the potential interference: check elements in matrix P
to N × M and (N + 1) × (N + 1) × M dimensions.
Some waiting channels can be temporarily assigned to
the new CA until the next period. No
pi , j ,m 1
Case 4: Departure of CA. In the case of a CA releasing
the occupied channels, L and C are updated with the Yes
released channels. These channels will be assigned in Find the collision channel: check elements in matrix A
the next period.
3) At the end of cognitive period, the channel assignment
algorithm with low computation complexity is launched No ai ,m 1
a j ,m 1
to make an incremental updating rather than calculate
the entire channels with Eq. (17). The realtime property Yes
is obtained with this algorithm within the high speed §M M
·
mobile aeronautical environment. In the following sub- n arg max ¨ ¦ ai ,m , ¦ a j ,m ¸
section, the “∆ algorithm” will be discussed in detail.
i, j
©m 1 m 1 ¹

Release channel for CA n: an,m 0

B. Assignment algorithm
In the proposed ∆ algorithm, define the average transmis-
No
sion rate Rk for the kth cognitive period and the minimum All elements in P checked?
required transmission rate is denoted by Rmin .
1) Step 1: Make Ck − Ck−1 and check the “1”s in the re- Yes
sult. The “1” item indicates the new coming interference. Create an empty set U and add new CAs to it
Therefore, we should release the interfered channels.
Among the interfered users, the user who has the higher Update matrix L,C,B and A for coming and leaving CAs
total transmission rate will release the channel. This step Estimate averaged transmission rate R for CAs in U
ensures that there is no interference among the old users.
2) Step 2: Add the columns and rows in the matrix L, C, B R  Rk 1 No
and A for the arriving CAs. Otherwise, delete the
corresponding columns and rows for the departing CAs. Yes
All the CAs requesting channels are indicated with a set
Find the CA with the highest transmission rate
denoted by U. Then, check the corresponding rows for
Release its channels
new users in L. If the average transmission rate is less
than Rk−1 , the old users should release the occupied
channels. Check Ck and find the interfered user who Process channel assignment algorithm for CAs in U
has the highest transmission rate. Recursively release the Update channel assignment matrix A and averaged
channels one by one from such user each time until the transmission rate Rk
available channels equal Rk−1 for each new CA.
3) Step 3: Assign the available channels to the new arriving
Set old CAs with transmission rates less than Rmin
CAs with the algorithm in Eq. (17).
as new CAs to attend the next channel reassignment
4) Step 4: In order to prevent the successive decreasing of
the transmission rate of each user, the user who has a
transmission rate of less than Rmin will be considered
as a new comer and attend the channel reassignment in Fig. 4. ∆ algorithm with low complexity.
the next cognitive period.
The flow chart of the ∆ algorithm is shown in Fig. 4.
In the ∆ algorithm, L, C, B can be updated with the CAs N , i.e. the number of iterations is approximately equal
ICT. Specifically, L and C can be updated with ICT of to M N . In each iteration, the sorting operation of length
determination, B can be updated with ICT of path loss. From M is processed for each user to find its optimal utility,
the resultant A, the channel assignment table is updated and of which the complexity is O (M log M ). As a result, the
confirmed by each CA. total complexity for an iteration
( is O (M N) log M ) and the
The complexity of the ∆ algorithm can be compared with complexity of CSGC is O M 2 N 2 log M . Comparatively,
that of the traditional algorithms, e.g. CSGC. According to in the proposed algorithm, the computation complexities for
[29], for CSGC algorithm, the number of iterations scales Step 1 and 2 are bounded by O (M0 ) and O (M0 N0 ),
linearly with number of channels M and the number of where M0 is the average channels can be assigned to

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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI
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IEEE JOURNAL ON SELECTED AREAS IN COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. *, NO. *, * 2014 7

( N0 CAs. Also,
the new ) the complexity for Step 3 and 4 25kHz and the subcarrier interval is 25kHz, then one subcarrier
is O M02 N02 log M02 . Therefore,
( the whole complexity for ) is mapping with one channel. However, if the subcarrier
the proposed algorithm is O (N0 + 1) M0 + M02 N02 log M0 . interval is 8.33kHz, three subcarriers are mapping with one
Assume M( = 760, N )= 100, (M0 = 40 )and N0 = channel. Thus, the index vector is defined for SAP as
5, (then O M 2 N 2 log M = )O 1.66 × 10
( 10 . However,
) p = (p0 , p1 , · · · , pi , · · · , pN −1 ) (19)
O (N0 + 1) M + M0 N0 log M0 = O 9.69 × 104 . The
2 2

complexity decreases drastically in the proposed algorithm. where 0 ≤ i ≤ N − 1, and

{
1, ith subcarrier activated
pi = (20)
V. NCI-OFDM T RANSMISSION 0, ith subcarrier deactivated
A. Mapping scheme with channel assignment In the cognitive communication, the activated and deac-
NCI-OFDM system can aggregate all the spectrum holes tivated subcarriers are changeable, i.e., the availability of
within the system bandwidth, i.e., the sub-carriers within the sub-carriers is dynamic. Therefore, in real applications, self-
spectrum holes can be activated and the sub-carriers out of adaptive metrics should be employed to construct NCI codes
the spectrum holes are deactivated [5]. Figure 5 shows the with a variable length, which further yields the NCI-OFDM
structure of NCI-OFDM system in VHF band, in which Fig. system with adaptive NCI codes. The NCI codes can be
5(a) and Fig. 5(b) present the structure of the transmitter and generated with the index vector p according to [13].
receiver correspondingly. On the transmitter side, the user data
pass the Serial to Parallel (S/P) module and form the K rows of B. Maths model of the transmission
parallel data. According to the spectrum holes, the Subcarrier (NCI)
Assume the NCI code for data di as Ci =
Activation Pattern (SAP) is defined, that indicates which sub- (i) (i) (i)
(α0 , α1 , · · · , αN −1 ). In Fig. 5(a), the “subcarrier activated”
carriers are activated and deactivated. Since the number of
module can produce the transmitted signal with SAP as
the total sub-carriers is N and the number of the activated
sub-carriers is K, where N ≥ K, thus, the number of the ∑ N∑
K−1 −1
deactivated sub-carriers is N − K. The N rows of the parallel s(t) =
(i)
Eb di αk cos(2πfk t + θk ) (21)
data are input into the IFFT module. In the receiver side, with i=0 k=0
the output of FFT, the N rows of the parallel are matched by where Eb is the energy of data, fk and θk are the frequency
the SAP. There are K rows of data input into the Parallel to and phase in the kth subcarrier.
Serial Transfer (P/S) module. Then the user data is available. In the receiver side as shown in Fig. 5(b), with the “sub-
The NCI-OFDM system focuses on the subcarrier activated carrier match” module, the received signal is
module and subcarrier match module, which is driven by the
∑
N −1 K−1
∑ N∑−1 ( )∗
SAP according to the frequency band occupation. (i) (j)
ξ = ωm Eb dj αk αk ρk,m
m=0 i=0 k=0
Guard Interval

N∑−1 ∑
N −1
Subcarrier

User
Activated

Data K N to RF + ω m · nm + ωm · Im
S/P IFFT D/A
m=0 m=0
= S + IOS + ISO + IICI + η + I (22)
where “*” denotes conjugate, S denotes the effective signal,
IOS denotes the interference within subcarrier from the data of
(a) The structure of transmitter.
other users, ISO denotes the self-interference between differ-
ent subcarriers, IICI denotes the interference from different
Guard Interval

N∑−1
Subcarrier

User
Remove

From RF N K subcarriers and other users, I = ωm · Im denotes the

Match

Data
A/D FFT P/S m=0
interference from the co-channels in other cells. Moreover,
∫ Ts [ ]
1
ρk,m = ak cos 2π (fk − fm − ε) t + θk − θbm dt
Ts 0
(b) The structure of receiver. (23)
where ε denotes the frequency shift, ak is fading coefficient
Fig. 5. System structure of NCI-OFDM.
of the channel k, θ̂ denotes the phase estimation. In Eq.
(22), assume the Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE)
In aeronautical CR communication systems, NCI-OFDM combination weight for the m-th subcarrier is
is applied as the basic transmission scheme. If the number { am
of all the sub-carriers is N , the index vector of whether or N , mth subcarrier activated
ωm = Ka2m + 20
not the subcarrier being activated should be mapped with the 0, mth subcarrier deactivated
corresponding assigned channels. Since the subcarrier of NCI- (24)
OFDM overlaps the traditional VHF channels, the subcarrier N∑−1

and channel can be considered as equivalent terminology in then η = ωm · nm denotes the noise. The aforementioned
m=0
this instance. For example, if the primary VHF channel is S, IOS , ISO , and IICI can be calculated as follows.

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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI
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IEEE JOURNAL ON SELECTED AREAS IN COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. *, NO. *, * 2014 8

1) In case j = i and k = m, S can be obtained as sensing results by CAs and GSs are sent to CMS as SSR
−1 to update the contents of ICT. In order to decrease complexity
sin (πN ε) ∑
N
S = Adi · ωm am (25) in space, we only consider the grids in the region around the
πN ε m=0 flight path with the width of 10km and the height as 1km.
Since the positions of GSs are fixed as a priori knowledge,
where ε̄ represents the normalized Doppler frequency
shift, the phase estimation is θbk = −πN ε + θk mod 2π.
the exact spatial coordinates of GSs are included in the grids
of GSs. Assume the pdf. of the received interference power
2) In case j ̸= i and k = m, IOS can be achieved as
PI , i.e. p(PI ) in Eq. (1), as Gaussian distribution, where the
K−1 N −1
sin (πN ε̄) ∑ ∑ ( )∗ σ is initialized with -6dB in the ICT of errors.
(i) (j)
IOS = Eb dj ωm am αm αm
πN ε̄ TABLE I
i=0,j̸=i m=0
S IMULATION PARAMETERS .
(26)
3) In case j = i and k ̸= m, ISO can be obtained as Carrier frequency 128MHz
Subcarrier interval 25kHz
∑
N −1 ∑
N −1 ( )∗ FFT Length 1024
(i) (i)
ISO = Eb di · ωm ak αk αk ζm,k (27) Modulation scheme QPSK and 16QAM
m=0 k=0,k̸=m Primary user type VDL mode 2
Bandwith of primary user 25kHz
where The number of GSs 42
sin (πN ε) Transmit power 20W
ζm,k = cos (θm − θk ) . (28) Channel model Rice as in [32]
π (m − k + N ε) Cognitive period 100s
Flight height 8000m
4) In case j ̸= i and k = ̸ m, we get the Inter-Carrier Grid interval 300m
Interference (ICI) IICI as Available channels in VDL (M ) 760
Maximum activated subcarriers 760
∑
K−1 ∑
N −1 ∑
N −1 ( )∗ Parameters of modified STKF α = 0.95, β = 2
(i) (j)
IICI = Eb dj ωm ak αk αk ζm,k CSC for the connection (ATC and ATM) 136.975MHz
i=0,j̸=i m=0 k=0,k̸=m CSC for the connection (AOC and APC) 136.950MHz
(29) CSCs for SSR (Ns = 8) 136.925MHz, 136.900MHz,
136.875MHz, 136.850MHz,
Therefore, the resultant Signal to Interference and Noise 136.825MHz, 136.800MHz,
Ratio (SINR) is denoted as ΓSINR as 136.775MHz, 136.750MHz

PS
ΓSIN R = (30)
POS + PSO + PICI + Pη + PCO
Zhangjiakou

where PS , POS , PSO , PICI , Pη and PCO denote the power

Beijing
of S, IOS , ISO , IICI , noise and co-channel interference Tangshan
Tianjin
correspondingly. With the Gaussian approximation, the BER GS

can be evaluated as Flight path

Shijiazhuang
∫ ∞ (√ )
Taiyuan

Pe = Q ΓSINR p (ΓSINR ) d (ΓSINR ). (31) North Handan Jinan Weifan

0 Linfen

where ‘Q(•)’ is the Q function [31]. East Jining Linyi

Kaifeng Zaozhuang
Lianyungang
Xian
Suqian
VI. P ERFORMANCE E VALUATION
Huaian
Nanyang
A
A. Simulation parameters Hanzhong
Ankang Shiyan
Fuyang
Yangzhou
Nanjing Nantong
The main simulation parameters are shown in Table I. NCI- Hefei
Wuxi
OFDM is used in the transmission [5]. As shown in Fig. Dazhou
Jingmen
Huzhou
Shanghai
Chengdu Wuhan
6, assume Np PAs randomly fly between GSs. Among these Guangan
Lichuan
Jiujiang Huangshan
PAs, there are Nc CAs can additionally enjoy the broadband Chongqing
Zhangjiajie
CR communications with AOC and APC services and fly Yibin Nanchang
Changsha
along three major routes, i.e., between Beijing and Shanghai,
between Beijing and Chongqing, and between Chongqing and
Fig. 6. Simulation scenario3 .
Shanghai. The primary communication system is VDL mode
2, which takes the frequency band from 118MHz to 137MHz
with 25kHz per channel [14]. Since there are 760 channels in
VHF band for VDL system and we assume there are about B. Spectrum cognition and subcarrier allocation
125 GSs in China, then there are 760/125 = 6.08 VDL The spectrum recognition is carried out in realtime. For
channels for each GS. Here, we assign 6 VDL channels to aircraft, the enroute flying height is set as 8000m and the
each GS. Assume the CMS is set in Beijing and broadcasts 3 Although the domestic scenario in China is utilized here, without loss of
the frequency assignment information to all the enroute CAs generality, the scalability to international deployment and international levels
through connected GSs. At the same time, the spectrum of aircraft density can be obtained if the corresponding data are available.

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IEEE JOURNAL ON SELECTED AREAS IN COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. *, NO. *, * 2014 9

Normalized receiving power spectral density (dBW/Hz)

Normalized receiving power spectral density (dBW/Hz)
-80 -80

-90 -90

0.8

Subcarrier occupation
-100 -100

0.6
-110 -110

0.4
-120 -120

-130 0.2 -130

-140 0 -140
118 120 122 124 126 128 130 132 134 136 118 120 122 124 126 128 130 132 134 136 118 120 122 124 126 128 130 132 134 136
Frequency (MHz) Frequency (MHz) Frequency (MHz)
  

(a) Spectrum of primary users. (b) Spectrum assigned to the CA. (c) Spectrum sensed by the CA.

Fig. 7. Spectrum of the cognitive channel in location “A”.

radius of the coverage is from 100km to 300km. For example, −100

Np = 120 and Nc = 36 are set to show the spectrum Proposed scheme

Average Interference Power (dBW)

cognition result, i.e., there are 12 CAs on each route in Fig. SIED scheme
−105 IEEE 802.22
6. Take the location marked with “A” as an example, which
is 420km away from Shanghai enroute. Trace one CA flying
−110
from Shanghai to Beijing just over this location. Figure 7(a)
shows the spectrum of the primary users in the location A.
−115
The sparsity of the frequency occupation of PAs is outstanding.
Figure 7(b) shows the spectrum assigned to this CA and Figure
7(c) shows the SSR spectrum from this CA to CMS. It can be −120

qualitatively seen that the CA can make use of the spectrum

holes to build up the broadband CA communication. −125

−130
0 200 400 600 800 1000
Maximum total transmission capacity (Mbps)

D (km)
20

Fig. 9. Interference comparison.

15

axis D denotes the distance from Shanghai. The averaged

10
capacity of the proposed scheme is approximately 1Mbps
greater than IEEE 802.22 and 7Mbps greater than SIED. For
5 IEEE 802.22, the detection time for spectrum cognition and the
interference caused by hidden and exposed terminals degrades
the transmission capacity. For the SIED scheme, channels with
0 Proposed scheme low interference but a near distance between PA and CA are
SIED scheme excluded, which decreases the capacity.
IEEE 802.22
-5 Figure 9 depicts the average interference between CAs and
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 PAs. The averaged interference of the proposed scheme is
D (km)  10dB lower than SIED scheme and 20dB lower than IEEE
802.22. The interference of IEEE 802.22 is the largest among
Fig. 8. Capacity comparison.
the three methods because this method occupies the spectrum
hole until it detects the PA. At this time, the interference
has already happened. In SIED scheme, the nearby primary
C. Capacity and Interference spectrum are protected to mitigate interference. However,
In this paper, we refer to the spectrum cognition scheme in when the CA flies near the boundary of the cell, it may still
[7] as “Simple Interference Estimation with Distance (SIED)”. affect the primary aircraft. If the interference threshold is set
Two traditional schemes are compared in the performance as −122dBW, i.e. −92dBm, for safety, we can find that the
evaluation, i.e., the aforementioned IEEE 802.22 and the proposed scheme can strictly limit interference and guarantee
SIED scheme. Figure 8 compares the transmission capacity the safety of aeronautical CR communications.
of ONE CA (flying from Shanghai to Beijing) with three In order to evaluate the total CR communication system
schemes. Assume Np = 120 and Nc = 36. The horizontal capacity, assume Np = 60, 120, 180, and Nc ≤ 60. Thus

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IEEE JOURNAL ON SELECTED AREAS IN COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. *, NO. *, * 2014 10

Total transmission capacity of all CAs (Mbps)

outperforms over the traditional B-VHF, which is a typi-
cal broadband communication scheme proposed by German
600
Aerospace Center (DLR) in VHF band [8]. In the simulation,
the BER for pure data transmission without any channel
500 coding is evaluated for the forward and reverse links with
QPSK and 16QAM modulations. The simulation involves the
400 Rician fading channel with a Rician factor of K = 10. For
the forward link, since NCI codes have better performance in
Inter-Carrier Interference (ICI) cancelation than Walsh codes,
300
NCI-OFDM system has better BER performance than the B-
VHF system. For the reverse link, the NCI-OFDM system
Number of PAs: 60
200
Number of PAs: 120
enjoys a diversity gain compared with the B-VHF system, e.g.,
Number of PAs: 180 more than 5dB gain can be obtained when BER is 10−5 .
100
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 0
10
Number of CAs 

-2
Fig. 10. System capacity of the CR communications. 10

-4
10
the total system capacity is calculated by adding up the

BER
available transmission rates of all the CAs. Figure 10 depicts
-6 Forward link of B-VHF with QPSK
the resultant total system capacity. With the increase of the 10
Forward link of B-VHF with 16QAM
number of CAs, the system capacity is also increased. Note Forward link of NCI-OFDM with QPSK
Forward link of NCI-OFDM with 16QAM
that, usually, any aircraft should be PA but only some of PAs -8
10 Reverse link of B-VHF with QPSK
can be CAs. Therefore, Nc ≤ Np . The simulation in Fig. 10 Reverse link of B-VHF with 16QAM
Reverse link of NCI-OFDM with QPSK
indicates that as long as it holds, the system capacity increases -10 Reverse link of NCI-OFDM with 16QAM
10
with the increasing of CAs. Moreover, the proportional fairness 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20

(PF defined in Eq. (18)) is also illustrated in Fig. 11. With Eb/N0 (dB)

the increasing of CAs, the proportional fairness decreases.
However, our proposed scheme has almost the same tendency Fig. 12. BER performance evaluation.
as the IEEE 802.22 and SIED schemes, which in-depth proves
the validity and efficiency of the fairness of the proposed
When deployed as an overlay system, the signals of the
channel assignment algorithm.
NCI-OFDM system should not interfere with PAs and other
CAs. The cognitive protocol of the frequency assignment
1 guarantees that no frequency conflicts among PAs and CAs.
Proposed scheme However, the side-lobes of the NCI-OFDM spectrum generate
0.95 SIED scheme out-of-band interference to the adjacent channels assigned to
IEEE 802.22 the PAs or the other CAs. Therefore, the interference from
Proportional fairness

0.9
NCI-OFDM to adjacent channels should be controlled. The
out-of-band spectrums of cognitive NCI-OFDM and B-VHF
are compared in Fig. 13 with different number of assigned
0.85
subcarriers. As indicated by the figure, the out-of-band inter-
ference of cognitive NCI-OFDM is about 30dB superior to
0.8
that of the B-VHF system.
In the OFDM system, PAPR is the peak power per OFDM
0.75
symbol versus the average power denoted as ξPAPR , i.e.,
0.7 Pmax
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 ξPAPR = (32)
Number of CAs Pmean

Fig. 11. Fairness evaluation. The average power of OFDM is Pmean = N P0 ,where P0 is
the power of one carrier. For OFDM, (ξPAPR )max = N holds.
Pure signals of NCI-OFDM and B-VHF without any window-
ing technology are simulated. In order to check instantaneous
D. Link performance
PAPR, the complementary cumulative distribution functions
Figure 12 shows the BER performance versus Eb /N0 when (ccdf.) of PAPR with 64, 128 and 256 activated subcarriers
the speed is 750km/h, which indicates that NCI-OFDM system are simulated and shown in Fig. 14.

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Normalized power of sidelobes (dB)
Fig. 13.
-15 VII. A PPLICATION IN THE OTHER F REQUENCY BANDS
-20 NCI-OFDM In order to enlarge the transmission capacity, even without
B-VHF
the formal and official frequency allocation, some broad-
-25 band aeronautical communication systems are designed in the
-30
aeronautical radar bands. For example, L-DACS1 system is
designed with the Distance Measurement Equipment (DME)
-35 spectrum in 960-1215MHz [15]. Naturally, our proposed cog-
-40
nitive scheme in VHF band is also expected to be extended to
L-band. However, the scheme can not be simply adopted and
-45 it is still confronted with some primary problems, i.e.,
-50
1) Besides the PAs with L-DACS1, the DME signals should
be considered as the interference. Therefore, a new table
-55
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
should be added into ICT to record the DME inter-
Number of activated subcarriers 
ference and involved in the channel allocation scheme.
Then, how to design the item of such table in ICT which
Evaluation on the out-of-band interference. fits for DME becomes a major problem.
2) Usually, the radar frequency band above 1GHz has
different propagation characteristics from the VHF band
for aeronautical communications. The result of the at-
1
B−VHF with 64 subcarriers mospheric attenuation of EM should be considered. As
0.9 NCI−OFDM with 64 subcarriers
B−VHF with 128 subcarriers
a matter of fact, ray-tracing process should be modified.
0.8 NCI−OFDM with 128 subcarriers The atmospheric (or weather) cognition leads to another
B−VHF with 256 subcarriers
0.7 NCI−OFDM with 256 subcarriers new ICT table and the new factor to be considered in
0.6
the channel allocation. Then, the problem is how to ef-
fectively manipulate these with an efficient mechanism.
ccdf.

0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0 which results in a new dimension with complexity.
0 5 10
PAPR (dB)
Fig. 14. PAPR of the cognitive NCI-OFDM in VHF band.
E. Signaling overhead
Assuming the cognition result is represented by a 16-bit in-
teger for each channel, with a few bits of navigation message,
the size of each SSR is expected to be about 16 × 750 =
12kbits with all channel cognition results except 10 CSCs. In
other words, about 12kbits data are sent in the interval between
two adjacent cognitions, i.e. 100s cognition period in the
simulation. On the other hand, assume the channel efficiency
is 0.4 with the p-persistent Carrier Sense Multiple Access
(CSMA) protocol, and the data rate of each signaling channel
is 31.5kbps, then the 8 reserved signaling channels for SSR
can provide 8 × 31.5 × 0.4 × 100 = 10.08Mbits transmission
capacity within 100s. Therefore, it can be estimated that no
more than 840 CAs can be served simultaneously with the
totally 10 reserved CSCs (adding the two CSCs for connection
management). Considering the whole 760 channels in VHF
bands, the overhead for the connection management and SSR
.
transmission is 10/760 = 1.3%. Meanwhile, the overhead of
.
SSR is 8/760 = 1%.
3) In L-band, the multi-carrier transmission is introduced
rather than the single carrier in VHF band. If Orthog-
onal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) is
applied for PAs, the sub-carrier within OFDM should
be further identified in the cognition process. Then, the
cognition granularity moves forward to the sub-carrier,
15 20
Above issues become good open questions if the cognitive
communication is applied in L-band with L-DACS1.
VIII. C ONCLUSION
Safety is the foremost requirement in civil aircraft aviation.
In aeronautical cognitive communications systems, the safety
is guaranteed with a strict limitation on interference. In this
paper, a novel scheme is proposed to meet this requirement.
The major innovations can be concluded as: 1) building up
ICT to maintain a strict computation of the interference and
available channels. Meanwhile, ray-tracing is used with a 3D
digital map to provide the initial values of the tables. Modified
STKF in the space domain is used to make data fusion with the
measured SSR; 2) a channel assignment scheme with low com-
plexity is proposed for incrementally updating the assignment
result (∆ algorithm); 3) the NCI-OFDM transmission mapping
the channel assignment is highlighted. The simulation result
confirms the validity and efficiency of the proposed scheme.
Moreover, the extension of the proposed scheme in the higher
aeronautical radar frequency bands, such as in L-band, is still
confronted with some problems which are expected to be
handled in the further research.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Sponsored by Aeronautical Science Foundation, Large Civil
Aircraft Project and 973 Project 2014CB744900 in China.

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