Toward High Accuracy DME for Alternative Aircraft Positioning: SFOL Pulse Transmission in High-Power DME

The Stretched-FrOnt-Leg (SFOL) pulse is an advanced distance measuring equipment (DME) pulse that offers superior ranging accuracy compared to conventional Gaussian pulses. Successful SFOL pulse transmission has been recently demonstrated from a commercial Gaussian pulse-based DME in low-power mode utilizing digital predistortion (DPD) techniques for power amplifiers. These adjustments were achieved through software modifications, enabling SFOL integration without replacing existing DME infrastructure. However, the SFOL pulse is designed to optimize ranging capabilities by leveraging the effective radiated power (ERP) and pulse shape parameters permitted within DME specifications. Consequently, it operates with narrow margins against these specifications, potentially leading to non-compliance when transmitted in high-power mode. This paper introduces strategies to enable a Gaussian pulse-based DME to transmit the SFOL pulse while adhering to DME specifications in high-power mode. The proposed strategies involve use of a variant of the SFOL pulse and DPD techniques utilizing truncated singular value decomposition, tailored for high-power DME operations. Test results, conducted on a testbed utilizing a commercial Gaussian pulse-based DME, demonstrate the effectiveness of these strategies, ensuring compliance with DME specifications in high-power mode with minimal performance loss. This study enables cost-effective integration of high-accuracy SFOL pulses into existing high-power DME systems, enhancing aircraft positioning precision while ensuring compliance with industry standards.

SFOL DME Pulse Shaping Through Digital Predistortion for High-Accuracy DME

The Stretched-FrOnt-Leg (SFOL) pulse is a high-accuracy distance measuring equipment (DME) pulse developed to support alternative positioning and navigation for aircraft during global navigation satellite system outages. To facilitate the use of the SFOL pulse, it is best to use legacy DMEs that are already deployed to transmit the SFOL pulse, rather than the current Gaussian pulse, through software changes only. When attempting to transmit the SFOL pulse in legacy DMEs, the greatest challenge is the pulse shape distortion caused by the pulse-shaping circuits and power amplifiers in the transmission unit such that the original SFOL pulse shape is no longer preserved. This letter proposes an inverse-learning-based DME digital predistortion method and presents successfully transmitted SFOL pulses from a testbed based on a commercial legacy DME that was designed to transmit Gaussian pulses.