The main project focus is on the development of spectrally efficient transmission schemes and networking solutions for future aeronautical communication services in the medium-to-long term ranging from safety related ATS to non-safety related bandwidth-intensive services such as e.g. broadband Internet delivered to aircraft passengers. In order to ensure that the schemes to be proposed and analyzed will indeed be relevant for the specific applications and communication environments under study, it is natural to start with the following tasks:

• T2.1: An in-depth study of aeronautical communication channels (including the a/g, a/a, and a/s cases) in the frequency bands under consideration, establishing realistic and analytically tractable statistical and mathematical channel models. These will be used for analysis and simulation of system performance, and for establishing important system parameters which will influence and place constraints on the choice, feasibility, and design of transmission schemes and network architectures.
• T2.2: A characterization of the types of aeronautical communication services which are expected/desired in the future, with respect to QoS constraints, bandwidth demands, traffic models, expected traffic load developments, which channels will be most important for a particular type of traffic, etc. The work will be based on the COCR document and FCS Roadmap, and will also include other services, in particular for APC. The resulting knowledge base will also be used as input when deciding upon the key techniques to be focused upon in the detailed communication system design.