A system of air traffic control aircraft (ATC) surveillance using Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) instead of radar went live on 1 January in a remote part of Alaska, the US Federal Aviation Administration has confirmed.
Surveillance by ADS-B is part of the FAA's Capstone safety initiative and the National Airspace System modernisation programme. This entails making use of the GPS satellite navigation system to provide ATC with aircraft position information. During inflight trials conducted last year, 150 Bethel-based general aviation (GA) aircraft were equipped with a $12,000 avionics package, putting weather, terrain and traffic information in GA cockpits for the first time.
Each aircraft broadcasts its position via a digital datalink along with data such as airspeed, altitude and track direction. The ADS-B data transmissions are fed into the air traffic management system via ground-based transceivers, and are linked, via telephone line and satellite, to the Anchorage Air Route Traffic Control Center where data is displayed on controllers' screens.
An FAA group has concluded that "the ADS-B reported positions displayed appear to be as good as or better than the Anchorage radar data for determining position, speed and direction of flight."
Source: Flight International
