A Study on Deep Reinforcement Learning Framework for DME Pulse Design

The Distance Measuring Equipment (DME) is a ground-based aircraft navigation system and is considered as an infrastructure that ensures resilient aircraft navigation capability during the event of a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) outage. The main problem of DME as a GNSS back up is a poor positioning accuracy that often reaches over 100 m. In this paper, a novel approach of applying deep reinforcement learning to a DME pulse design is introduced to improve the DME distance measuring accuracy. This method is designed to develop multipath-resistant DME pulses that comply with current DME specifications. In the research, a Markov Decision Process (MDP) for DME pulse design is set using pulse shape requirements and a timing error. Based on the designed MDP, we created an Environment called PulseEnv, which allows the agent representing a DME pulse shape to explore continuous space using the Soft Actor Critical (SAC) reinforcement learning algorithm.