Method for diversity site group operations in air/ground communications
First Claim
1. In an air/ground communication environment in which a control site communicates with a plurality of aircraft via a plurality of ground stations, wherein each of the plurality of aircraft is in radio communication with at least one of the plurality of ground stations, and the plurality of ground stations and the plurality of aircraft share a common air/ground communication channel, a method of allocating transmission time slots to the plurality of ground stations, the method comprising:
- (a) building a transmission time slot schedule containing a transmission time slot allocation for at least one of the plurality of ground stations; and
(b) distributing the transmission time slot schedule from the control site to at least one of the plurality of ground stations;
wherein a ground station that receives a time slot allocation assumes management over use of transmission time slots allocated to the ground station by the transmission time slot schedule, andwherein the transmission time slot schedule allocates VDL management time slots.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Shortcomings in conventional Very High Frequency (VHF) Digital Link Mode 3 (VDL-3) communication techniques for implementing air/ground (A/G) diversity site group (DSG) communication are identified and resolved. Beacon schedules are used to coordinate the use of VDL-3 TDMA management slots. Limited autonomy local address management techniques are used to distribute blocks of unique addresses to the ground stations (GS'"'"'s) of a DSG from a common base of local addresses maintained at a control site, thus assuring that the respective ground stations assign a unique local identifier to each aircraft supported by the DSG. Aircraft supported by a DSG are polled to obtain time of arrival (TOA) and signal quality information used to: intelligently select the transmit ground station and the receive ground station used for communication between an specific aircraft and the control site; and, intelligently manage contiguous communication handoffs of aircraft from one ground station to another ground station of the DSG.
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Citations
24 Claims
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1. In an air/ground communication environment in which a control site communicates with a plurality of aircraft via a plurality of ground stations, wherein each of the plurality of aircraft is in radio communication with at least one of the plurality of ground stations, and the plurality of ground stations and the plurality of aircraft share a common air/ground communication channel, a method of allocating transmission time slots to the plurality of ground stations, the method comprising:
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(a) building a transmission time slot schedule containing a transmission time slot allocation for at least one of the plurality of ground stations; and (b) distributing the transmission time slot schedule from the control site to at least one of the plurality of ground stations; wherein a ground station that receives a time slot allocation assumes management over use of transmission time slots allocated to the ground station by the transmission time slot schedule, and wherein the transmission time slot schedule allocates VDL management time slots. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5)
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6. In an air/ground communication environment in which a control site communicates with a plurality of aircraft via a plurality of ground stations, a method of scheduling air to ground data communication from the plurality of aircraft to the control site, the method comprising:
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(a) receiving at the control site an inbound data slot request from one of the plurality of aircraft via one of the plurality of ground stations; (b) storing in an information base at the control site information received in a plurality of inbound data slot requests; (c) assessing at the control site information stored in the information base received in the plurality of inbound data slot requests; and (d) transmitting, based upon the assessment, an inbound reservation from the control site to a specific aircraft via one of the plurality of ground stations that identifies a time slot that the aircraft is permitted to use to transmit data to the control site via the plurality of ground stations, wherein the information base contains information pertaining to each inbound data slot request received, the information including at least one of; a unique identifier of the aircraft making the request; and a priority associated with the data to be transmitted. - View Dependent Claims (7)
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8. An air/ground communication system that supports communication with a plurality of aircraft, the system comprising:
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a plurality of ground stations, wherein each of the plurality of aircraft is in radio communication with at least one of the plurality of ground stations and wherein the plurality of aircraft share a common air/ground communication channel with the plurality of ground stations; a control site, in communication with the plurality of ground stations, that allocates a plurality of time slots used by the plurality of ground stations to share the common air/ground communication channel and to support communication between the plurality of aircraft and the control site, wherein the control site maintains an information base containing a plurality of unique aircraft addresses and status information associated with each of the plurality of unique aircraft addresses; wherein the control site delegates authority to assign at least one of the plurality of unique aircraft addresses to at least one of the plurality of ground stations; and wherein the control site updates the status information associated with each of the plurality of unique aircraft addresses based upon information contained in a message received from at least one of the plurality of ground stations. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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14. An air/ground communication system that supports communication between a control site and a plurality of aircraft, the system comprising:
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a plurality of ground stations, wherein each of the plurality of aircraft is in radio communication with at least one of the plurality of ground stations and wherein the plurality of aircraft share a common air/ground communication channel with the plurality of ground stations; wherein the control site, in communication with the plurality of ground stations, allocates a plurality of time slots used by the plurality of ground stations to share the common air/ground communication channel and to support communication between the plurality of aircraft and the control site, wherein at least one of the plurality of ground stations sends a poll response report to the control site upon receiving a poll response from an aircraft wherein the poll response report contains a time of arrival (TOA) of a poll response at the ground station; and wherein a ground station receives a handover command from the control site based upon an assessment of TOA values contained in the poll response reports received. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17, 18, 19)
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20. An air/ground communication system that supports communication with a plurality of aircraft via a plurality of ground stations, wherein each of the plurality of aircraft is in radio communication with at least one of the plurality of ground stations and wherein the plurality of aircraft share a common air/ground communication channel with the plurality of ground stations, the system comprising:
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a control site, in communication with the plurality of ground stations, that allocates time slots used by the plurality of ground stations to share the common air/ground communication channel and coordinate communication between the plurality of aircraft and the control site, wherein the control site receives from at least one of the plurality of ground stations a message that includes at least one of a ground station identifier, a unique aircraft identifier, a unique message identifier, a signal time of arrival (TOA) at the receiving ground station and signal quality information as determined by the receiving ground station; and wherein the control site selects a preferred ground station for use by the control site to transmit a signal to or to receive a signal from a specific aircraft based upon the information received, and wherein the control site selects a preferred ground station based upon TOA and incoming signal quality information to forward an incoming signal received to a control site communication switch. - View Dependent Claims (21, 22, 23, 24)
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Specification