Non-Terrestrial Network Architecture and Key Technologies for Civil Aviation
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摘要: 面向全球覆盖、高速移动、低延迟、高可靠的民用航空通信需求,近些年来正在蓬勃发展的非地面网络(NTN)显得愈加重要。在此背景下,该文回顾了面向民用航空的NTN技术发展历程,并追踪了国内外对民航NTN网络技术研究的最新动态。为了实现NTN网络更好服务我国民用航空这一美好愿景,分别介绍了NTN网络中的组网架构,接入和移动性管理以及新型资源管控等关键技术。首先建立了以低轨卫星与高空平台为枢纽的按需隔离的NTN组网框架,随后提出了以星历图为表征的接入和移动性管理技术,最后针对新型智能衍生的算存资源提出了面向民用航空的NTN网络资源管控方案。最后,该文也对面向民用航空的NTN网络关键技术的未来发展提出了展望。Abstract:
Significance Civil aviation communication systems are entering a new stage of development driven by the rapid growth of global air transportation, the increasing demand for intelligent air traffic management, and the continuous expansion of in-flight connectivity services. Traditional civil aviation communication systems mainly rely on high frequency radio, high frequency radio, terrestrial air-to-ground links, and conventional satellite communication systems. These technologies have supported aircraft operation, air traffic control, airline operational communication, and low-rate data transmission for a long time. However, they still face limitations when applied to future civil aviation scenarios characterized by global coverage, high-speed mobility, low latency, high reliability, and service diversification. Particularly, terrestrial networks are difficult to deploy in transoceanic routes, polar regions, deserts, mountains, and remote airspace, while traditional geostationary satellite systems suffer from large propagation delay and limited capacity. Current systems cannot fully meet the requirements of continuous aircraft access, real-time flight monitoring, engine health data transmission, aviation safety communication, and passenger broadband services. Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTNs) provide a promising technical path for overcoming these limitations. By integrating GEOstationary satellites (GEO), Medium Earth Orbit satellites (MEO), low Earth orbit satellites (LEO), Very Low Earth Orbit satellites (VLEO), High-Altitude Platform Stations (HAPS), Unmanned Aerial vehicles (UAV), electric Vertical Take Off and Landing (eVTOL), and terrestrial infrastructures, NTN can construct a multi-layer air-space-ground integrated communication system. Such a system is able to provide continuous coverage, flexible deployment, resilient connectivity, and differentiated service support for civil aviation. NTN is becoming an important enabling technology for future civil aviation communication systems and for the digital and intelligent transformation of the aviation industry. Progress This paper reviews the development of NTN technologies for civil aviation and summarizes key research progress from three aspects: network architecture, access and mobility management, and resource management and scheduling. (1) We propose an aviation-oriented NTN networking framework composed of three layers: the satellite edge layer, the airborne core layer, and the terrestrial assistance layer. The satellite edge layer includes GEO, MEO, LEO, and VLEO satellites connected through inter-satellite links. GEO satellites are suitable for wide-area broadcasting and non-real-time services, MEO satellites can support navigation and intermediate-delay services, LEO satellites are suitable for low-latency and high-capacity broadband access, and VLEO satellites can further reduce propagation delay for future near-real-time aviation applications. The airborne core layer includes civil aircraft, HAPS, UAVs, and eVTOL platforms. HAPS can act as a regional relay, edge computing node, or software-defined control carrier, while UAVs and eVTOL platforms can provide flexible low-altitude coverage, emergency communication, and local access support. The terrestrial assistance layer consists of terrestrial base stations and gateway stations, which support air-to-ground communication and satellite-terrestrial interconnection. Civil aviation services can be divided into air traffic control and air traffic management services, airline operational control services, and airline passenger communication or in-flight entertainment services. Through network slicing, these heterogeneous services can be logically isolated and managed over a shared air-space-ground infrastructure. In congestion, rain attenuation, or shortened visibility-window scenarios, safety slices should be protected with the highest priority, while passenger service slices can be rate-limited, buffered, or degraded. (2) We analyze the characteristics of NR-NTN access and air-to-ground direct access in civil aviation. NR-NTN can provide continuous coverage for oceanic, polar, desert, and remote flight routes through satellites or HAPS, while air-to-ground direct access can provide low-latency and high-rate links in areas where terrestrial base stations can be deployed. However, aircraft differ significantly from ordinary terrestrial terminals because their flight trajectory, altitude, speed, and route are highly predictable. Therefore, the key issue in aviation NTN access is not only how to execute random access, but how to predict the access window, timing compensation, frequency offset, and target access node before the aircraft enters the coverage area. By using satellite ephemeris, Global Navigation Satellite System information, aircraft trajectory, and velocity parameters, civil aircraft can predict satellite visibility and pre-compute timing advance, scheduling offset, and Doppler compensation before initiating access. This transforms random access from a passive response process into a proactive and predictive access process, thereby improving access certainty and synchronization stability in highly dynamic aviation scenarios. For mobility management, a signaling interaction process for aircraft handover is designed. Based on trajectory prediction and satellite visibility prediction, the network can select a target satellite or gateway with longer residence time and better service capability. Before the aircraft reaches the handover boundary, the source and target network sides can complete context preparation, user-plane path preparation, radio resource reservation, and protocol data unit session update. When the handover condition is triggered, the aircraft performs random access to the target satellite or beam and then switches the user-plane path. This “prediction–preparation–fast handover” mechanism can reduce service interruption and maintain session continuity. For safety-critical traffic, priority and isolation policies should remain consistent and auditable throughout session preparation, handover execution, and path switching. (3)We discuss computing and caching resource management in civil aviation NTN. As onboard computing capability is limited and aviation applications generate increasing computing demands, NTN can provide mobile edge computing and caching services through LEO satellites, HAPS, UAVs, and inter-satellite cooperation. The paper introduces several computing offloading modes, including on-orbit satellite collaborative offloading, network-level integrated offloading, and cloud-edge-terminal hybrid offloading. These mechanisms can support tasks such as aviation monitoring, trajectory analysis, intelligent inference, and in-flight service optimization. In addition, caching mechanisms such as onboard satellite caching, inter-satellite cooperative caching, and named-data-networking-based content caching can improve content delivery efficiency and service continuity. Cache placement should consider content popularity, regional demand prediction, visibility windows, cache prefetching, and cooperative cache sharing among different satellite layers. Conclusions NTN can effectively complement traditional civil aviation communication systems by filling coverage gaps in remote and oceanic airspace, enhancing service continuity, and supporting differentiated aviation services. The proposed aviation-oriented NTN architecture integrates multi-orbit satellites, HAPS, UAVs, civil aircraft, and terrestrial infrastructures into a unified framework. The on-demand isolated slicing mechanism can provide differentiated protection for ATC/ATM, AOC, and APC/IFE services. Ephemeris-map-assisted access and predictive mobility management can improve access reliability and reduce handover interruption in high-speed aviation scenarios. Computing offloading and cooperative caching further enhance the ability of NTN to support intelligent and data-intensive aviation applications. Prospects Future civil aviation NTN should evolve toward deeper integration of low-altitude networks, space networks, and terrestrial networks. Cross-domain topology visualization, link-state sharing, policy distribution, and programmable logical networks are essential for improving controllability and scalability. In mobility management, integrated cross-domain handover mechanisms should be developed to cope with satellite beam switching, terrestrial cell handover, and air-to-air relay reconstruction. In resource management, communication, navigation, computing, and caching resources should be jointly scheduled and transformed according to aviation service requirements. With continuous advances in NTN architecture, network slicing, predictive access, mobility management, computing offloading, and caching, NTN is expected to provide more efficient, stable, and intelligent communication support for civil aviation and to promote the digital transformation of future air transportation systems. -
Key words:
- Civil aviation /
- Non-terrestrial networks(NTN) /
- Network slicing /
- Mobility management /
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表 1 本文缩略词汇总表
缩略词 英文全称 中文全称 AOC Airline Operational Control 航空公司运行控制 APC Airline Passenger Communication 航空乘客通信 ATC Air Traffic Control 空中交通管制 ATG Air-To-Ground 空对地 ATM Air Traffic Management 航空交通管理 COO Computing-On-Orbit 在轨计算 GEO GEOstationary orbit 地球静止轨道 GNSS Global Navigation Satellite System 全球导航卫星系统 HAPS High Altitude Platform Station 高空平台 IFE In-Flight Entertainment 机上娱乐 ISL Inter-Satellite Link 星间链路 LEO Low Earth Orbit 低地球轨道 MEC Mobile Edge Computing 移动边缘计算 MEO Medium-Earth Orbit 中地球轨道 NDN Named Data Networking 命名数据网络 NTN Non-Terrestrial Networks 非地面网络 PIT Pending Interest Table 待处理兴趣表 QoS Quality of Service 服务质量 UAV Unmanned Aerial Vehicle 无人机 VLEO Very Low Earth Orbit 极低地球轨道 eVTOL electric Vertical TakeOff
and Landing电动垂直起降飞行器 -
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