Application of WiMAX to aviation communications

Abstract

The US military is evaluating the capabilities of emerging technologies based on IEEE 802.16 standard as a potential commercial off-the-shelf solution to support the communication requirements of the future war. In the last few years, development in military and telecommunication industries have focused on an intensive use of broadband systems, which are characterized by high quality features. In order to use broadband systems, new technologies with high transmission abilities have been designed. Broadband wireless access has become the best way to meet escalating military and business demands for a rapid internet connection and integrated communication. Based on IEEE 802.16 standard, WiMAX allows for an efficient use of bandwidth in a wide frequency range, and can be used as last miles solution for broadband access. NCW (Network Centric Warfare) is the most important system in the recent military environment. All assets should be interactively combined in real time, especially ground and aviation forces like infantry, UAV (Unmanned Arial Vehicle), Attack Helicopters. This thesis gives an overview of WiMAX standard and studies the performance of WiMAX over multipath fading channels. The complete physical layer of WiMAX is created in Simulink, and the bit error rate performance in various time-varying fading channels is simulated. It also explores application of WiMAX to aviation communications.