Global Airspace Radar and Marius Münstermann, Vice President ATC, Rohde & Schwarz discussed a breadth of topics where the company is playing a role.
Supporting the FAA modernisation of the NAS
The modernisation of the US National Airspace (NAS) is supported by their presence in this region. The US subsidiary has grown to more than 1,000 employees, with 200 new jobs being added as a result of their recent announcement. This presence brings jobs, manufacturing and software development to the region.
Rohde & Schwarz is a long-term trusted partner to the FAA. One example of this history is providing test and measurement solutions to the FAA’s technology support teams. More recently, they have announced a $4.9 billion contract to support modernisation of voice communications systems (VCS) across the US. These systems are being manufactured in Maryland and are not in any jeopardy due to current global supply chain issues many companies are facing in 2026. Long lead items were acquired well before the Iran conflict impacted oil prices and hence transportation costs. This is something that is backed by the overall group size and might not be feasible for a smaller vendor.
The new manufacturing facility in Frederick, MD recently opened in early 2026 and reflects an overall investment of $40 million by Rohde & Schwarz USA to design, develop, and manufacture the CERTIUM VCS in the United States to provide long-term domestic production and support. In addition, expansion of existing manufacturing and system integration space in Coppell, TX provides increased capacity and flexibility to support this important BNATCS initiative.
The FAA Modern Skies website provides a tracker of the status of projects under the modernisation umbrella. There are 140 regional towers in the Rohde & Schwarz project and 70 will be live in the short term. The next wave of deployment is in the design, preparation and R&D phases.
Beyond voice
L-band Digital Aeronautical Communications System (LDACS) supports air traffic control communications at the data level. This is another area they are covering. They have been working with DFS since 2022 on various research and testing projects related to LDACS. In addition, there are two SESAR LDACS projects they are part of. Highlights of these three activities can be found via the following links.
- PaWaDacs project: Developing the LDACS avionic demonstrator and demonstrating IP-based LDACS cell handover.
- FCDI: SESAR project enhancing the maturity of LDACS avionic implementation with end-to-end communication tests.
- MIAR: SESAR project demonstrating LDACS-enabled integrated navigation solutions and APNT services through flight trials.
Then the question arises related to support of voice and if it can leverage these data technologies. Or in short, will it be terrestrial or space-based? The connection needs to be secure. They have done some testing with Starlink related to IP VCS and the support of E-137 latency requirements. This testing has been positive to date.
The challenges with space-based solutions are two-fold. First of all the pricing, although this could adjust over time as solutions become more prevalent. The other issue is that the network infrastructure is out of the control of ANSPs who are used to working with private networks to support voice.
Terrestrial solutions on the other hand are subject to GPS spoofing. Although this is concerning and shouldn’t be minimised. Terrestrial solutions are preferential in Europe, Asia and the Middle East currently.
Marius stated, “we want to empower our customers to control their own destiny in a VUCA world.” If any readers aren’t familiar with this acronym it stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. Which is certainly the current start of the world environment!
Artifical Intelligence
AI was a big topic at this year’s Airspace World, most vendors were talking about it and some were showcasing it in their stands, as was Rohde & Schwarz. Their demonstration was related to speech-to-text for air traffic control support. The idea is not to replace air traffic control, but to increase their efficiency – reduce manual input by controllers, increase accuracy – the demonstration not only did the translation, but checked the accuracy of it.
We are in a safety-focused industry, and as a result are late adopters of technologies such as cybersecurity and AI. AI needs more maturity before it becomes a daily part of the world of airspace management. Today this is a trial and error process working with customers to understand what they need and how AI can impact these requirements. Skyguide is working with Rohde & Schwarz to provide feedback to help them evolve the use of AI.
“This is an opportunity for us to work like a startup does where you have an MVP concept, you conduct customer validation – or invalidation, evolve and possibly pivot your idea, and even have a fail fast experience if that’s where the process takes you.”
Humans plus technology need to be incorporated into this innovation process. AI is based on data, and more is needed to advance and train models to understand their possible role in communications.
Rohde & Schwarz provides solutions for airports, ATC, cybersecurity, public safety and connectivity. All of these topics are interconnected in today’s world of aviation. In the future we might see a closer alignment of these topics, making it easier for customers to find single source solutions.
