In this paper, the European research project B-VHF' is introduced which is funded by the European Commission and has started in January 2004. The main goal of the B-VHF project is to prove that it is feasible to establish a multi-camer based overlay system for future Air Traffic Control (ATC) communications in the Very High Frequency (VHF) band without causing interference to the legacy VHF systems. Note, this overlay system concept enables in-band transition from the current to a future ATC communications system and, thus, allows future ATC communications to stay in the advantageous and protected VHF band.The focus in this paper is on the technical approach for realizing the overlay concept. Thus, the technology behind B-VHF will be described in detail and how it is applied for realizing an overlay system in the VHF band.

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Contract-of-Objectives (CoO) is designed in the context of trajectory-based Air Traffic Management (ATM), using mutually agreed objectives between Air Traffic Control (ATC), airlines and airports. This paper provides an overview of the foreseen validation of CoO and discusses the results of the first Humanin-the-Loop (HIL) evaluation of the concept of operations using CoO between Air Traffic Controllers (ATCos). This HIL real time evaluation is carried out in October 2008 in SkyGuide premises in Geneva, Switzerland. Measurements on system performance (i.e., Safety, Efficiency, and Capacity) as well as Human performances (i.e., workload, Situation Awareness, and acceptability) were collected and analyzed. Results show that ATCos are positive with the concept of operations, and they do agree on the principle of flying what were "planned, agreed and negotiated" on the planning phase as opposed to "first come, first served". Results of the evaluations also show that CoO can be applied to 2008 and 2020 traffic level in Europe without any impact on System Safety.

B-VHF is a proposal for a future aeronautical communication system in the VHF band based on an overlay concept, i.e. during the transition phase the B-VHF system shares the same frequency band with legacy VHF systems without interfering with them. In this paper, the overlay concept is evaluated by simulations of the physical and higher layers. Simulation results show that the B-VHF overlay system works in presence of interference from legacy VHF systems. The protocol is designed to allow using the available resources very efficiently and to provide voice and data services with the required quality of service. The main goal of the B-VHF project is to verify the feasibility of a multi-carrier based overlay system for future air traffic control (ATC) communications in the very high frequency (VHF) band operating simultaneously with legacy VHF systems without causing interference. This approach enables in-band transition from the current to a future ATC communications system and, thus, allows future ATC communications to stay in the advantageous and protected VHF band. I IntroductionThe B-VHF overlay concept has already been presented at DASC 2004 [2], and in 2005, the physical (PHY) layer design of B-VHF has been detailed [3] with special emphasis on co-existence issues between B-VHF and the legacy VHF systems. At this year's conference, right after the end of the current project, the results of the B-VHF system simulations are presented and an assessment about the feasibility of the overlay concept in the VHF band is given.In a first step, the performance of the PHY layer is assessed using a set of realistic simulation scenarios. These scenarios comprise different channel conditions according to the different phases of flight, e.g., take-off and landing, taxiing, parking, or en-route flights. Moreover, realistic as well as worst-case situations for the interference from the legacy VHF systems towards the B-VHF system are taken into account.In a second step, higher layer protocol simulations are performed using the results from the physical layer simulations to model the B-VHF air interface, the interference situation in the VHF band, and the propagation conditions of the channel. Voice and different data applications are considered and the overall B-VHF system performance is assessed with respect to relevant system parameters like delay and throughput.The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In Section II, PHY layer simulations are addressed. This section contains a description of the system model including the most important components specific for an overlay system as well as the considered simulation scenarios. Section III deals with the assessment of the developed data link layer (DLL) and higher layers protocols. In this section, the simulated system model and the simulation setup used for evaluating the protocols are described. In Section IV, simulation results for the PHY layer as well as for the DLL protocols are presented. In the last section, the B-VHF overlay concept is assessed and ...