Communications & IT
AEROSPACETESTINGINTERNATIONAL.COM // DECEMBER 2019 53
he principal protocol for online
communications is Internet Protocol.
This set of rules is foundational in
how the internet works. But despite
its widespread use throughout the world, until recently
IP has played little part in communications within the
aviation sector.
Recently there has been a push at the international
level to migrate air traffic communications to an Internet
Protocol (IP)-based system, referred to generally as the
Internet Protocol Suite (IPS).
The drive for change came initially from ICAO but
more recently has been spearheaded by the standards
agencies for aviation technology, most notably the
European Organisation for Civil Aviation Equipment
(EUROCAE) and the Airlines Electronic Engineering
Committee (AEEC).
Migrating to IPS is a central component of the larger
scale project of modernizing air traffic management
(ATM), which is being undertaken in Europe under the
EU’s Single European Sky joint project known as SESAR
and in the USA under the FAA’s NextGen program.
Eurocontrol, which oversees ATM within the EU,
underlined its commitment to IPS in a report released in
April in which it called for “a strong internet protocol
backbone in order to support connectivity.”
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