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The Five NextGen Programs That FAA Hopes Will Change Air Traffic Control

By Sean Broderick | November 7, 2008

The slow march towards NextGen, which is intended to modernize U.S. airspace, is happening one step at a time. These are the five advanced FAA programs that will enable the transformation. 

For a more detailed account of these programs, read FAA’s take on things.  

For even more information, here is FAA’s plans for the next few years, including where they want to go with NextGen.

 

1. Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B). The most well known of the new technologies, ADS-B would permit planes would be tracked by GPS rather than the current World War II-era radar system. The system already is being used in Alaska where weather and mountainous terrain make tracking flights by radar nearly impossible. The system also will soon be implemented in the Gulf of Mexico where planes often fly out of radar range and helicopters fly to oil rigs.  

 

2. Data Communications (DataComm). This system is intended to remove as much human error as possible by replacing labor intensive voice communication. According to FAA, DataComm excels in areas in which people can falter such as with long strings of numbers. According to Steve Bradford, FAA chief scientist for the architecture of the NextGen program, “With data, if I’m a controller, I can draw a path and the computer can turn that into a series of instructions, send that to a pilot, and it could go right into the aircraft.”

 

3. NextGen Network Enabled Weather (NNEW). The hope for this weather system is to allow anyone anywhere in the country to have weather information for any space he/she needs. The current system is sporadic with some areas receiving more information than others. NNEW will provide better coverage especially about severe weather.

 

4. System Wide Information Management (SWIM). The program that will bring together all of the NextGen systems is SWIM. In addition to unifying all the pieces, the system will also integrate information from DHS, the military and airlines. Rather than sharing information on a piecemeal basis, users will receive information on any flight by using SWIM.

 

5. NAS Voice Switch (NVS). This is the foundation for all air-to-ground and ground-to-ground communication in the NextGen system. NVS will allow for controllers’ airspace to be shifted around rather than the air traffic controllers themselves.

“You could crunch the airspace towards Miami in the wintertime, reducing the size of the airspace assigned to each controller, while you give Minneapolis controllers more airspace to monitor because there traffic demand is down,” said  Bradford.

 

For a more in-depth look at NextGen and how it is being implemented read Airport Magazine’s cover story on page 16.

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