Kieran Daly/LONDON
THE WORLD'S BIGGEST trial of satellite-based automatic dependent surveillance (ADS) will begin in Europe by the end of the year.
The European Commission-funded ADS Europe programme will gather data from at least 11 aircraft - ten of them airliners on revenue flights. ADS is intended to provide radar-like surveillance, in oceanic and remote airspace, where there is no coverage.
Programme officials say that the year-long experiment will achieve two notable firsts: it will use avionics and datalinks compatible with the emerging aeronautical telecommunications network (ATN); and it will involve several aircraft having their positions reported to multiple ground stations. Additionally, it will look at ADS operations in congested airspace.
Previous trials around the world, have involved single aircraft, reporting to single ground stations and have used derivative technology datalinks and avionics, such as the ARINC 622 standard, with existing cockpit equipment. Such systems are not compatible with the ATN, which is intended to bring seamless data-communications to the airline industry.
ADS Europe is run by the UK Civil Aviation Authority's National Air Traffic Services (NATS), which has subcontracted the research agencies of France and the Netherlands, respectively Sofreavia/STNA and the NLR. Further subcontracts have been issued to UK and French telecommunications providers BT and France Telecom; satellite-communications supplier Honeywell/Racal; Sextant Avionique; and airlines Air France, British Airways, KLM and Lufthansa.
Those carriers are making a total of five Boeing 747-400s and five Airbus A330/340s available, alongside the NLR's Cessna Citation II, which will be used for manoeuvres considered impracticable on revenue flights.
Deputy programme manager Phil Platt says: "ADS Europe is out to show that an ATN-based system can provide reliability of communications, coupled with the expected rate-requirements, in a robust and easily configurable way. There is a feeling with ATN that it is next-century technology, but we are out to prove that it is here and now."
The airborne equipment includes a data-collection unit, which takes flight-data from the flight-management systems and converts it to ARINC 745-standard ADS format, with ATN protocols, for transmission to the ground stations at Goonhilly Down, UK, and Aussagual, France. The data are forwarded to NATS and the STNA at centres, which are linked by X.25 electronic data-interchange lines.
American Airlines and United Airlines may also supply data from aircraft in North America.
The major European authorities and airlines are opposed to the use of the "character-oriented" ARINC 622 link, rather than "bit-oriented" ATN use, in Europe or over the North Atlantic, but they accept that it will be in operation over the Pacific for the foreseeable future.
Source: Flight International
