Single sideband technologies for optimization of VHF aerospace communications

The highest priority in air travel operation is justifiably placed on flight safety which is critically linked to the availability of reliable communications and navigation systems. The current aeronautical VI-IF spectrum dedicated to civil aviation communications in the US and the rest of the world is 19 MHz wide. With the 25-kHz commercial AM technology, this band supports 760 radio channels. In the United States, owing to the rise in the number of airplanes in both commercial and general aviation sectors, spectral congestion in the aeronautical VHF band is rapidly becoming a predicament. This article proposes single side band as an alternative technology that enables efficient use of the available spectrum while requiring minimal change in the infrastructure. It is shown that SSB in conjunction the Weaver modulation method presents an economically feasible solution to spectral congestion in VHF aeronautics, with which the system capacity can be increased by a factor of 3, 4, 5, 6, and even 7 (X-factor). Hardware costs increments for implementing either the analog or digital Weaver method are modest among schemes with different X-factors. This implies that it is possible to increase the present capacity of 760 to up to 5320 voice channels; which meets the challenge of required number of civil aviation radio channels for at least two decades.