Technologies Evaluated For The Future National Airspace System

Sensis Corp. is partnering with federal and local government agencies as well as with leading aviation companies to identify and evaluate promising solutions for the transformation of the National Airspace System (NAS). Air travel is projected to grow substantially, doubling or tripling over the next twenty years.

The current NAS must change substantially in order to safely accommodate such demand. Sensis, working with the NASA John H. Glenn Research Center, is collaborating with the FAA and the Joint Planning and Development Office to implement a Next Generation Air Transportation System (NGATS) Test Bed to evaluate these potential solutions. Also included are Barco, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, and WSI Corporation.

This NGATS Test Bed Demonstration Center is located at the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio and is connected to three airports that are also part of the partnership and that are representative of airports across the U.S. Cleveland Burke Lakefront Airport is a towered mid-size facility attractive to business jets and on demand air taxis. Cleveland Hopkins International Airport is a large commercial hub airport. Lorain County Regional Airport is a non-towered, single runway, general aviation airport. These three airports are approximately 15 miles apart.

This NGATS Test Bed partnership will address a number of infrastructure and management challenges required to transform today's air transportation system to the performance based NGATS vision. Advanced communications elements in this Test Bed will include provision of wireless data links for airport surface traffic management, air-ground trajectory negotiation, and a common information sharing and data management network.

Precise surveillance will be provided by the latest generation integrated aviation surveillance system. Decision support tools and ATC automation components will be prototyped to implement and evaluate solutions for trajectory based and super density operations. Advanced applications will be addressed including real time negotiation of aircraft trajectories, remote virtual provision of airport tower ATC services, integrated management of airport traffic movement, and automated safety alerts to the cockpits.

In early Spring 2007, Sensis will be sponsoring an Industry Day for companies interested in participating in future NGATS Test Bed activities.

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