QoS Support in ARINC 664 P8 Data Networks: ATN Applications Over TCP/IP Ground-to-Ground Subnetworks

Aeronautical Telecommunication Network (ATN) has been developed by International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to integrate air-ground and ground-ground data communications for aeronautical applications into a single network serving air traffic control and aeronautical operational communications. The current ICAO ATN model specifies a standalone network with its own protocols, which requires building an expensive separate network for air-ground and ground-ground communications. However, the cost of building ATN can be reduced if it can use existing networks wherever possible, such as the Internet. ARINC 664 Part 8 committee has been developing an approach for inter-operation of ATN applications over the commercial TCP/IP networks. To carry time critical information required for aeronautical applications, ATN provides different Quality of Services (QoS) to applications. Although the current Internet does not provide QoS, Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) developed the Differentiated Services (DiffServ) network to provide differential QoS to users of next generation data networks. The objective of this paper is to investigate the possibility and conduct a proof-of-concept evaluation of providing QoS to ATN applications over the DiffServ network in the next generation Internet. Our results show that the QoS requirements of ATN applications for ground-to-ground communications can be successfully satisfied when ATN is run over a DiffServ backbone.