Jeffrey D. Wilson

Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio

Dependence of AeroMACS Interference on 

Airport Radiation Pattern Characteristics

NASA/TM—2012-217657

August 2012

B3
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Jeffrey D. Wilson

Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio

Dependence of AeroMACS Interference on 

Airport Radiation Pattern Characteristics

NASA/TM—2012-217657

August 2012

B3

National Aeronautics and

Space Administration

Glenn Research Center

Cleveland, Ohio 44135

Prepared for the

Integrated Communications, Navigation and Surveillance (ICNS) 2012 Conference

sponsored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

Herndon, Virginia, April 24–26, 2012
Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Chad Jeffrey Wilson for preparation of figures. The authors also gratefully acknowledge the 

Federal Aviation Administration’s support of AeroMACS research at the NASA Glenn Research Center.

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Level of Review: This material has been technically reviewed by technical management. 
NASA/TM—2012-217657 1

Dependence of AeroMACS Interference on 

Airport Radiation Pattern Characteristics

Jeffrey D. Wilson

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Glenn Research Center

Cleveland, Ohio 44135

Abstract

AeroMACS (Aeronautical Mobile Airport Communications 

System), which is based upon the IEEE 802.16e mobile 

wireless standard, is expected to be implemented in the 5091 

to 5150 MHz frequency band. As this band is also occupied by 

Mobile Satellite Service (MSS) feeder uplinks, AeroMACS 

must be designed to avoid interference with this incumbent 

service. The aspects of AeroMACS operation that present 

potential interference are under analysis in order to enable the 

definition of standards that assure that such interference will 

be avoided. In this study, the cumulative interference power 

distribution at low earth orbit from AeroMACS transmitters at 

the 497 major airports in the contiguous United States was 

simulated with the Visualyse Professional software. The 

dependence of the interference power on the number of 

antenna beams per airport, gain patterns, and beam direction 

orientations was simulated. As a function of these parameters, 

the simulation results are presented in terms of the limitations 

on transmitter power required to maintain the cumulative

interference power under the established threshold.

1.0 Introduction

Next generation air transportation systems will achieve high 

levels of efficiency and safety that will require major 

improvements in communications capacity and performance.

In order to enable a safe and reliable airport surface 

communications network, development and test programs as

well as the development of technical standards are being 

undertaken. This includes a test facility now in operation at the 

Cleveland Hopkins International Airport and the adjacent 

NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) known as the Cleveland 

CNS Testbed. The testbed includes a prototype airport 

surface wireless communications network based on the IEEE 

802.16e standard, known as Aeronautical Mobile Airport 

Communications System (AeroMACS) (Ref. 1).

The AeroMACS system is envisioned as a wireless network 

covering all areas of the airport surface and, if necessary, areas 

beyond where facilities and equipment might need to be 

located. The system would accommodate all mobile 

communications requirements including parked and taxiing

aircraft, various types of ground vehicles, and personnel as 

well as connection to fixed assets related to airport safety 

requirements (such as surveillance and navigation aids, 

weather sensors, and communications stations).

AeroMACS is intended to operate in the 5091 to 5150 MHz 

frequency region within C-band. It is essential that the 

AeroMACS service does not interfere with other users in this 

band. In particular, the allocation of the 5091 to 5150 MHz 

band to the Earth-to-space fixed-satellite service (FSS),

limited to feeder links of non-geostationary satellite systems in 

the mobile-satellite service (MSS), will restrict the power 

levels that will be allowed for AeroMACS networks. This

investigation is focused on helping to establish practical limits 

on AeroMACS transmissions from airports so that the 

threshold of interference into MSS feeder links is not 

exceeded. This threshold interference power level at low Earth 

orbit (LEO) has been established at –157.3 dBW 

corresponding to a 2 percent increase of an MSS satellite 

receiver’s noise temperature (Ref. 2).

Previously, the interference power distribution at LEO from 

AeroMACS transmitters at the 497 major airports in the 

contiguous United States was simulated with the Visualyse 

Professional software (Ref. 3). The results were shown to 

agree closely with those of a previous study by MITRECAASD (Ref. 4). Both omni-directional and sectoral antennas 

were modeled and 5 and 10 MHz channels were considered 

with a center frequency of 5100 MHz. 

In this study, the effect of the antenna gain profile on 

interference power is investigated and the accuracy of the 

model is improved by including a profile based on measured 

data. It is assumed that the channel bandwidth is 5 MHz 

centered at 5100 MHz. The effect of the inhomogeneous 

distribution of airports will be examined by comparing with a 

case with the airports evenly distributed. Also the dependence 

of the interference power on the number of antenna beams and 

their directions at the airports will be simulated.

2.0 Analysis

The interference modeling was performed with Visualyse 

Professional Version 7 software from Transfinite Systems 

Limited (Ref. 5). Details of using this software were provided 

in (Ref. 6) with the modeling procedure summarized by the 

following seven steps:

1. Define antenna gain dependence on azimuthal and 

elevation angles.

2. Locate stations (transmitters and receivers).

3. Specify frequency and bandwidth of carriers.

4. Set up the propagation environment.
NASA/TM—2012-217657 2

5. Set up the links between stations.

6. Define victim and interfering links.

7. Specify desired output, submit run, and analyze results.

As in the MITRE-CAASD model (Ref. 4), the original 

NASA model (Ref. 3) assumed a worst case scenario with the 

antenna transmit gain pattern corresponding to peak side-lobe 

levels as specified by ITU (Ref. 7) with the transmitters on 

100 percent of the time. A more recent European model 

(Ref. 8) differs in that it assumes average side-lobe levels for 

the antenna gain profile which is the distribution

recommended by ITU (Ref. 7) for modeling the effects of a 

large number of antennas. With an assumption that the 

beamwidth is 120°, the antenna gains versus elevation and 

azimuth angles for the two models are shown in Figure 1 and 

Figure 2, respectively.

After the modeling was finished with the ITU-R peak and 

average side lobe antenna gain distributions, the measured 

gain distribution for the AeroMACS antennas became

available from the manufacturer Alvarion (Ref. 9). A

measurement-based gain profile was established by sampling

Figure 1.—Antenna gain versus elevation.

Figure 2.—Antenna gain versus azimuth.

the 5100 MHz data every 5° and is also shown in Figure 1 and 

Figure 2. Figure 1 shows that the average side lobe model is a 

much better fit than the peak side lobe model. Figure 2 shows 

that there is considerable difference between the measured

gains versus azimuthal angle from both of the models because

the measured beamwidth is 80° while the previous models 

assumed a 120° beamwidth. The measured gain profile will be 

used in this investigation for improved accuracy.

3.0 Results

3.1 Dependence of Interference Power 

Distribution Profile on Antenna Gain 

Profile

The three antenna gain profiles (ITU-R Peak Side Lobe, 

ITU-R Average Side Lobe, and Measurement-Derived) were 

modeled for each beam and it was assumed that each of the 

497 airports in the USA model utilized three beams. The 

beams were oriented 120° from each other and the directions 

were randomized among the airports with representative 

randomizations shown in Figure 3. This orientation is referred 

to as Case 3.

Ten runs were performed with different randomizations for 

each profile and the average maximum interference powers 

were recorded. It was assumed that each beam transmits 

–8.7 dBW (135 mW) of power. Figure 4, Figure 5, and Figure 6

show the resulting cumulative interference power for the peak 

side lobe, average side lobe, and measurement-derived gain 

profiles respectively for the Case 3 beam orientation. The scale 

for these and the following cumulative interference power 

figures is in dBW. The maximum interference power is –155.2

dBW for the peak side lobe case and –156.9 dBW for both the 

average side-lobe case and the measurement-derived case. Thus 

to be at or below the –157.3 dBW threshold everywhere, the 

transmitted power at each beam for the peak side lobe case 

needs to be decreased to –8.7 – (157.3 – 155.2) = –10.8 dBW = 

19.2 dBm = 83 mW. For both the average side lobe case and the 

measurement-derived case the transmitted power needs to be 

decreased to –8.7 – (157.3-156.9) = –9.1 dBW = 20.9 dBm =

123 mW. (Note that in all cases the transmitted power is 

calculated which is equal to the transmitter power minus the 

cable/line loss). Thus the previous NASA antenna gain model 

significantly underestimated the allowable transmitted power, 

while the European antenna gain model was a much better 

representation of the actual gain profile.

3.2 Dependence of Interference Power 

Distribution Profile on Station 

Distribution 

In order to understand the effect of the inhomogeneous 

distribution of U.S. airports, a hypothetical case in which the

497 stations are evenly distributed over the contiguous United 
NASA/TM—2012-217657 3

Figure 3.—Beam orientations for Case 3.

Figure 4.—Interference power from peak side lobe antenna 

gain.

Figure 5.—Interference power from average side lobe antenna

gain.

States was modeled as shown in Figure 7. The measurementderived antenna gain profile is used in this and all succeeding 

calculations. The maximum interference power is 

–157.9 dBW. Thus to get below the –157.3 dBW threshold 

everywhere, the transmitted power for each beam needs to be 

decreased to –8.7 – (157.3 – 157.9) = –8.1 dBW = 21.9 dBm = 

155 mW. This is 32 mW higher than with the real airport

distribution. By spreading out the transmission sources, the 

cumulative power is less focused on the hot spot over northern 

Canada.

Figure 6.—Interference power from measurement-derived 

antenna gain.

Figure 7.—Interference power for evenly distributed antennas.

3.3 Dependence of Interference Power 

Distribution Profile on Beams per Airport

To compare cumulative interference power with the case in 

Section 3.1 and Figure 4 where there were three beams at each 

of the 497 airports, results were also obtained with 1, 2, and 4 

beams per airport. For each case, twenty runs were performed 

with different antenna orientation randomizations with each 

beam transmitting –8.7 dBW of power. For the two-beam

case, two sub-cases were simulated: Case 2a with the beams 

separated by 180° and Case 2b with the beams separated by 

120°. In the four beam case, the beams were separated by 90°. 

Representative randomized beam orientations for Cases 1, 2a, 

2b, and 4 are shown in Figure 8 to Figure 11, respectively. 

(The beam orientations for Case 3 were shown in Figure 3). 

The cumulative interference power for sample runs of Cases 1, 

2a, and 4 beam are shown in Figure 12 to Figure 14,

respectively. 

For each run of the one-beam case, the maximum 

cumulative interference power at LEO altitude is obtained. For 

example in the run corresponding to Figure 11, this value is 

–161.4 dBW which occurs at latitude 67° N and longitude 

105° W in northern Canada (all the runs for each of these

cases result in a maximum cumulative interference power in
NASA/TM—2012-217657 4

Figure 8.—Beam orientations for Case 1.

Figure 9.—Beam orientations for Case 2a.

Figure 10.—Beam orientations for Case 2b.

Figure 11.—Beam orientations for Case 4.

Figure 12.—Interference power for Case 1.

Figure 13.—Interference Power for Case 2a.

Figure 14.—Interference Power for Case 4
NASA/TM—2012-217657 5

northern Canada). The transmitted power that would result in 

the maximum cumulative interference power being equal to 

the threshold value of –157.3 dBW is calculated as –8.7 dBW 

– 157.3 dBW – (–161.4 dBW) = –4.6 dBW = 343.7 mW. This 

value along with those corresponding to the nineteen other 

one-beam runs is plotted as Case 1 in Figure 15. Similarly, the 

total power transmitted at each airport to provide a maximum 

cumulative interference power of –157.3 dBW is shown in 

Figure 15 for the two-beam (180°) case (Case 2a), two-beam

(120°) case (Case 2b), three-beam case (Case 3), and fourbeam case (Case 4). It is seen that the variation between runs 

decreases as the number of beams per airport increases from 

one to four and the radiation pattern becomes more 

symmetrical.

The results of Figure 15 are summarized in Table I. For the 

twenty runs of each case, the table shows the average power 

and minimum power needed to reach the threshold cumulative 

interference power value of –157.3 dBW. Also shown is the 

standard deviation σ, the average power value minus 2σ, and 

the average value minus 3σ. If we assume a normal 

distribution, these last two rows indicate that for a given 

random run, there is less than a 2.3 percent probability and 

less than a 0.2 percent probability that the value will fall 

below these respective values. 

Figure 15.—Total power transmitted per airport to provide 

threshold interference power.

TABLE I.—STATISTICS FOR CASES 1 TO 6

Case 1 2a 2b 3 4 5 6

Description 1 

beam

2

beams

180°

2

beams

120°

3 

beams

120°

4

beams

90°

1, 2, 3 

and 4

beams

2

beams

semirandom

Average power, mW 364.2 369.7 366.3 365.9 366.3 371.5 176.2

Minimum power, mW 313.6 343.2 343.6 356.1 364.7 327.3 151.3

σ, mW 31.6 20.5 16.1 7.0 0.9 24.5 11.0

Average – 2σ, mW 332.6 349.2 350.2 358.9 365.4 347.0 154.2

Average – 2σ, mW 301.0 328.7 334.1 351.9 364.5 322.5 143.2

3.4 Dependence of Interference Power 

Distribution Profile on Airport Size

Although there is a very large difference in size and power 

requirements among the 497 airports in this study, in the 

previous scenarios it was assumed that each transmitted an 

equivalent power. In order to provide a more realistic model, 

here the airports are divided into four size categories based on 

the number of passenger boardings in calendar year 2009 

(Ref. 10). The 10 largest airports had more than 18 million 

passenger boardings and are designated ‘very large’ airports.

Each very large airport is modeled with four beams. The next 

largest 18 airports had between 8 and 18 million boardings 

and are designated as ‘large’ airports and modeled with three 

beams. The next 33 are ‘medium’ airports with between 1.75 

and 8 million boardings and modeled with two beams oriented 

180° apart. The remaining 436 airports with less than 

1.75 million boardings are designated as ‘small’ airports and 

are modeled with one beam. (The codes for each of the very 

large, large, and medium airports are in the appendix.) This 

scenario is designated as Case 5 and representative 

orientations are shown in Figure 16.

The airport-averaged transmitted power is defined as the 

total power transmitted divided by the number of airports, 497.

For each of 20 runs with randomized orientations, the airportaveraged transmitted power that would result in the maximum 

cumulative interference power being equal to the threshold 

value of –157.3 dBW is shown in Figure 15 and the 

corresponding statistics are shown in Table I. The average 

number of beams at an airport is 1.199, so for a power value in 

Figure 15 and Table I, the power transmitted by an individual 

airport is equal to the airport-averaged transmitted power 

multiplied by the number of beams and divided by 1.199. For 

example, in the run with the minimum airport-averaged 

transmitted power of 327.3 mW, the ‘very large’ airports 

transmit 327.3*4/1.199 = 1091.9 mW, the ‘large’ airports 

transmit 327.3*3/1.199 = 818.9 mW, the ‘medium’ airports 

transmit 327.3*2/1.199 = 546.0 mW, and the ‘small’ airports 

transmit 327.3/1.199 = 273.0 mW.

From Figure 15, it is seen that the variation in the runs is 

less than in the one-beam scenario of Case 1, but more than 

the two-beam scenarios of Cases 2 and 3. This is to be

Figure 16.—Beam orientations for Case 5. 
NASA/TM—2012-217657 6

Figure 17.—Interference power for Case 5.

expected since the average number of beams per airport is 

1.199. The cumulative interference power for a sample run 

with all beams transmitting -8.7 dBW is shown in Figure 17.

3.5 Dependence of Interference Power 

Distribution Profile on Semi-Randomized 

Beam Orientation

The previous simulations have all assumed that the beam 

directions at each airport are randomly oriented. However 

since aircraft stability is enhanced when takeoff and landing 

are into the wind, runways are preferentially directed along the 

prevailing wind direction. In the continental United States this 

is generally from the southwest quadrant. In this section, an 

extreme case is modeled in which it is assumed that all the 

runways are oriented from the SW to the NE quadrant with 

half the base station antenna beams directed into the SW

quadrant and half into the NE quadrant. In this case, referred 

to as Case 6, each airport has two beams separated by 180° as

in Case 2a. The directions within the SW-NE quadrants are 

randomly oriented with representative directions shown in 

Figure 18. This is an extreme case since not all runways are 

oriented in the SW-NE quadrants and not all base station 

beams will be directed along the runways; instead it is meant 

to serve as a bound for the lower limit of permissible transmit 

power per airport. It is expected that the future AeroMACS 

architecture will lie somewhere between the random 

orientations of the previous section and this semi-random 

orientation scenario. 

Twenty runs were simulated, with a representative

cumulative interference distribution shown in Figure 19. The 

‘hot spot’ is now located over the Pacific Ocean west of 

Mexico instead of over northern Canada as in the random 

orientation cases in the previous section. The secondary ‘hot 

spot’ is over the northern Atlantic Ocean. The average 

transmitted power per airport to reach the threshold 

interference level at LEO is 176.2 mW, 47.7 percent of the 

value for the corresponding random case, Case 2a. The worst 

run would allow only 151.3 mW to be transmitted per airport, 

44.1 percent of that for the worst run of Case 2a. This should

Figure 18.—Beam orientations for Case 6.

Figure 19.—Interference power for Case 6.

serve as a low level bound for allowable power to be 

transmitted per airport. In other words, the results suggest that 

there should be virtually no chance of causing interference at 

or above the threshold level if transmitted power is limited to 

less than 150 mW per airport. The limit per airport could be 

significantly higher, depending on the randomness of the 

antenna beam directions.

4.0 Conclusions

The effect of the AeroMACS base station antenna gain 

profile on cumulative interference power at the low Earth orbit 

(LEO) altitude was computationally investigated with the 

software package Visualyse Professional Version 7. It was 

assumed that base stations exists at each of the 497 major 

airports in the contiguous United States and each transmits 

over a single 5 MHz channel centered at 5100 MHz at all 

times. With the gain pattern based on experimental 

measurement, the number of beams at each base station was 

varied from one to four. For each case, twenty runs were 

simulated with different random orientations of the antenna 

beams and for each run, the transmitted power required to 

reach the threshold value was calculated. It was found that the 

average power that could be transmitted at each airport was 

about the same for each case and ranged from 364 to 370 mW.

However the variation among runs was large for asymmetric 

antenna gain patterns and small for symmetric patterns. The 

worst case scenario is for a single beam at each airport and 

allows up to 313.6 mW to be transmitted at each airport.
NASA/TM—2012-217657 7

In a more realistic model, the airports were divided into four 

size categories based on the number of passenger boardings in 

calendar year 2009. ‘Very large’, ‘large’, ‘medium’, and 

‘small’ airports were modeled with four, three, two, and one 

beams respectively. Of the twenty runs with random antenna 

direction orientations, the worst case allowed an average 

airport transmission power of up to 327.3 mW to reach the 

threshold cumulative interference power at the Globalstar 

orbit. Assuming a normal distribution, the simulations 

indicated that there is less than a 0.2 percent probability that 

the interference threshold value will be exceeded if the 

average transmission power per airport is 322.5 mW.

In all, twenty runs were simulated with each of six scenarios 

of base station antenna configurations with random beam 

direction orientations. For the 100 runs with equal power being 

transmitted at each airport, the worst case run allowed up to 

313.6 mW to be transmitted at each airport before the 

cumulative threshold interference power is reached. In the 

scenario in which the larger airports are allowed to transmit 

more power, the worst case of 20 runs allowed up to an average 

of 327.3 mW per airport to be transmitted. This included the ten 

‘very large’ airports transmitting up to 1091.9 mW each. It 

should be reiterated that the transmitted power is equal to the 

transmitter power minus the cable/line loss which is typically on 

the order of 1 dB and that the simulations assume the 

transmissions occur 100 percent of the time. 

Because it is expected that the AeroMACS antenna beam 

directions will not be completely random, a semi-random case

was modeled and examined. This extreme case assumed that 

half the base station antenna beams are randomly directed into 

the SW quadrant and half into the NE quadrant. This is a 

scenario that gives a much more concentrated cumulative 

interference power distribution than can be expected in future 

AeroMACS architectures and serves as a bound for the lower 

limit of permissible transmit power per airport. It is expected 

that the future AeroMACS architecture will lie somewhere 

between the random orientations of the random and semirandom scenarios. Twenty runs were submitted for this case 

and the worst run allows only 151.3 mW to be transmitted per 

airport before the threshold cumulative interference power 

limit is reached. This value is only 44.1 percent of the 

corresponding random case. The large difference indicates that 

the actual positioning of the AeroMACS antenna beam 

directions and their degree of randomness will have a large 

effect on the allowable transmitted power per airport. The 

results suggest that in a very bad scenario in which all antenna 

beams are directed into two quadrants, at least 150 mW in 

each channel can be transmitted at each airport while more 

optimal random beam orientations will allow more than 

300 mW per channel. Since the 5091 to 5150 MHz frequency 

band provides for up to eleven channels available to 

AeroMACS (Ref. 11), considerable capacity should be 

available without interfering with Mobile Satellite Service 

feeder uplinks.

The simulations do not include subscriber effects which are 

planned to be incorporated in a future study.

NASA/TM—2012-217657 9

Appendix

The 497 airports are designated as ‘very large’, ‘large’, 

‘medium’, or ‘small’ according to the number of passenger 

boardings in calendar year 2009 (Ref. 5):

a. 10 very large airports with 2009 boardings > 18 million, 

modeled with four beams: ATL, ORD, LAX, DFW, 

DEN, JFK, LAS, IAH, PHX, SFO

b. 18 large airports with 18 million > 2009 boardings > 8 

million, modeled with three beams: CLT, EWR, MCO,

c. MIA, MSP, SEA, DTW, PHL, BOS, IAD, LGA, BWI, 

FLL, SLC, DCA, SAN, TPA, MDW

d. 33 medium airports with 8 million > 2009 boardings

> 1.75 million, modeled with two beams: PDX, STL, 

CVG, MEM, MCI, CLE, OAK, SMF, RDU, BNA, SNA, 

SJC, HOU, AUS, PIT, MSY, MKE, SAT, IND, DAL, 

RSW, CMH, PBI, ABQ, JAX, BUF, BDL, ONT, BUR, 

PVD, OMA, RNO, TUS

e. 436 small airports with 2009 boardings < 1.75 million, 

modeled with one beam: remaining towered airports in 

contiguous United States.
NASA/TM—2012-217657 10

References

1. Kerczewski, R. J., J. M. Budinger, T. J. Gilbert, 2008, 

Technology Assessment Results of the Eurocontrol/FAA 

Future Communications Study, IEEE Aerospace 

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2. Gheorghisor, I. L., Y.-S. Hoh, A. E. Leu, 2009, Analysis 

of ANLE Compatibility with MSS Feeder Links, 

MITRE-CAASD Report MTR090458.

3. Wilson, J. D., R. J. Kerczewski, 2011, Interference 

Analysis for an Aeronautical Mobile Airport 

Communications System, IEEE Aerospace Conference 

Proceedings, Paper 4.1503, Big Sky, Montana.

4. Hoh, Y.-S., I. L. Gheorghisor, A. E. Leu, 2005, 

Feasibility Analysis of 5091-5150 MHz Band Sharing by 

ANLE and MSS Feeder Links, MITRE-CAASD Report 

MP 05W0000083.

5. http://transfinite.com/content/downloadsvisualyse.html.

6. Wilson, J. D., 2011, Modeling C-Band Co-Channel 

Interference From AeroMACS Omni-Directional 

Antennas to Mobile Satellite Service Feeder Uplinks, 

NASA/TM—2011-216938.

7. ITU-R, 2007, F-1336-2 Reference Radiation Patterns of 

Omni-directional, Sectoral and Other Antennas in Pointto-Multipoint Systems for Use in Sharing Studies in the 

Frequency Range from 1 GHz to about 70 GHz.

8. J. E. Håkegård, 2011, Compatibility Study between 

AeroMACS and FSS, Proceedings of 2011 ICNS, 

Herndon, VA.

9. http://www.alvarion.com/index.php/products/breezemax/

breezemaxr-extreme-5000.

10. http://www.faa.gov/airports/planning_capacity/passenger

_allcargo_stats/passenger/media/cy09_cs_enplanements.

pdf.

11. Hall, E., J. Isaac, S. Henricksen, N. Zelkin, 2011, CBand Airport Surface Communications System 

Standards Development, Volume 1: Concepts of Use, 

Initial System Requirements, Architecture, and 

AeroMACS Design Considerations, NASA/CR—2011-

216997/VOL1. 

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Cleveland, Ohio 44135-3191 

8. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION

 REPORT NUMBER

E-18334 

9. SPONSORING/MONITORING AGENCY NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

Washington, DC 20546-0001 

10. SPONSORING/MONITOR'S

 ACRONYM(S)

NASA 

11. SPONSORING/MONITORING

 REPORT NUMBER

NASA/TM-2012-217657 

12. DISTRIBUTION/AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

Unclassified-Unlimited 

Subject Category: 04 

Available electronically at http://www.sti.nasa.gov 

This publication is available from the NASA Center for AeroSpace Information, 443-757-5802

13. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES

14. ABSTRACT

AeroMACS (Aeronautical Mobile Airport Communications System), which is based upon the IEEE 802.16e mobile wireless standard, is

expected to be implemented in the 5091 to 5150 MHz frequency band. As this band is also occupied by Mobile Satellite Service (MSS) 

feeder uplinks, AeroMACS must be designed to avoid interference with this incumbent service. The aspects of AeroMACS operation that 

present potential interference are under analysis in order to enable the definition of standards that assure that such interference will be 

avoided. In this study, the cumulative interference power distribution at low earth orbit from AeroMACS transmitters at the 497 major 

airports in the contiguous United States was simulated with the Visualyse Professional software. The dependence of the interference power 

on the number of antenna beams per airport, gain patterns, and beam direction orientations was simulated. As a function of these parameters, 

the simulation results are presented in terms of the limitations on transmitter power required to maintain the cumulative interference power 

under the established threshold. 

15. SUBJECT TERMS

Airports; Antenna gain; Antenna radiation patterns; Sidelobes 

16. SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF: 17. LIMITATION OF

 ABSTRACT

UU 

18. NUMBER

 OF 

 PAGES

18 

19a. NAME OF RESPONSIBLE PERSON

STI Help Desk (email:help@sti.nasa.gov) 

a. REPORT

U 

b. ABSTRACT

U 

c. THIS 

PAGE

U 

19b. TELEPHONE NUMBER (include area code)

443-757-5802 

Standard Form 298 (Rev. 8-98)

Prescribed by ANSI Std. Z39-18