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New ATC System To Rely On AT&T Cell Towers
longacre writes "The FAA has awarded the long-anticipated first contract for development of its NextGen air traffic control system: a $1.8 billion deal with ITT Corporation, beating out bids from aerospace heavyweights such as Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. ITT's design will make use of hundreds of specially modified AT&T cellular phone towers which, in addition to their normal communications duties, will relay an aircraft's position to air traffic controllers and other aircraft in real time. The initial contract is only enough to wire and test the so-called ADS-B system in the Philadelphia area and around the Gulf of Mexico — hooking up the rest of the country will take an estimated 20 years and $20 billion."
International flights are operated under treaties which frequently place restrictions on number of weekly flights allowed by all flag carriers. (Not everyone has Open Skies with the USA.) Plus, flying over large bodies of water requires planes that either have more than two engines, or are rated for long distances under a single engine. (Not that they frequently lose an engine any more the way four-engined piston planes used to when the rule was made, but a rule's a rule.) Even in Open Skies cases, some airports (ie. London Heathrow) are heavily slot-constrained. What this all means is that you can't in general fly smaller planes point-to-point on international routes. You often have to fly the biggest plane you can, because you only get one flight a day. (This is what motivated Airbus Industrie to make the A380.) Thus, carriers that have both international and domestic routes are forced into a hub-and-spoke model because they have to get people to the hub to get them on the international flight.
What sound do people on rollercoasters make? Hint: it's not Xbox 360.
It sounds like this system is just picking up the Mode-S transponders in modern planes, and relaying that information to ATC. Aircraft equipped with modern GPS, even general aviation aircraft, also pick up these Mode-S transmissions and plot other aircraft on the GPS display.
Right now, only Mode-C is required by law, and even then only within 30 nautical miles of a Class B airport. Mode C just transmits your altitude information and it is up to radar to determine your x-y position. Mode S is much more accurate because GPS is accurate to feet, where radar is only accurate to hundreds (or maybe thousands) of feet in x-y, and not accurate at all for altitude (which is why we have Mode C).
I can't imagine it'll actually cost 20 Billion to retrofit cell towers with Mode S receivers and internet relays. A land-based Mode S receiver is probably $100, and they can ride the data on AT&T's EDGE or 3G network for next to free. This seems like a cash grab to me.
I am glad ITT won. I worked a contract on Lockmart's effort. It was one of the worst large projects I have ever seen. It was a C++/AIX effort and managed by pinheads like something out of the 1950's. For what the software does it was horrendously complex. Because the government is unwilling to retrain the air traffic controllers the system has an bizarre anachronistic GUI. They actually worked hard to reimplement the interface feature for bizarre feature. It is no great comfort that the US depends on systems like this for air safety.
an ill wind that blows no good
... and the public transit systems to tie them into urban centres. There is no reason why airports have to be within a metropolitan area, if there's a fast monorail/train/rapid transit from the city to the outskirts, there is PLENTY of cheap land left to build airports.
Or better yet, start re-developing our aging and deteriorating rail networks. IMHO there's no good reason much of the east coast is dominated by air travel at all. I'm not sure about Americans, but here in Canada traveling from Toronto to Ottawa (about 450km) takes about the same time by air as by rail (including check-in, security times, etc). Rapid rail transit, IMHO, is THE answer to short and medium range travel. The only time one should have to step on board an aircraft is when flying halfway across the continent. Even going all the way across the state should be well within the means of fast rail travel (not to mention cheaper).
Hell, on a train I get on-board WiFi, a HUGE amount of legroom, seats that don't try to squeeze me, and non-dry non-stuffy air. Not to mention a soothing, quiet clickety-clack of the rails instead of the roar of jet engines. Oh, and no security, no travel restrictions... It is a superior way to travel in almost every way.
Yeah, as long as your local government is smart enough to manage such a project intelligently, and that half the project doesn't get canned after the next election. Quebec/Montreal spent obscene amounts of money of it's Mirabel airport and now we're about to decommission it because the high-speed train and connecting highway was never completed, so people keep using the old Airport on the island...
Delay is preferable to error. (Thomas Jefferson)
That is precisely what this (ADS-B) does. At the moment, when not in radar coverage, the pilot uses the radio to report his position which he reads from his GPS (or other instruments). ATC copy this down and track his movement from these position updates. Now the problem with this is that by the time he reads out the position and ATC copies it down, the aircraft has actually traveled several miles.
This is the start of the problem. You don't actually have a pinpoint position to work with. You actually have a circle of probability which is combination of equipment and reporting errors. You could fit a lot of planes on a 100 mile route if you only had to keep them a mile apart and you had constant, pinpoint instant updating position information.
After getting the position report, ATC now have an expanding bubble of possible positions the aircraft could actually occupy until they get the next voice update which might be 30 minutes hence. This could end up expanding to 30 miles wide and 120 miles long before it is updated again. (Updating resets the probability circle back to just a couple of miles again). To keep aircraft from colliding you have to separate the the great big probability of position areas, not just a couple of points. Two aircraft could occupy 200 miles of airspace and it is now full; room for no more.
ADS removes the pilot and the ATC from the position reporting chain. The aircraft equipment just codes and sends the position directly to the ATC equipment. The position then automagically just appears on the controller's screen (with a display note saying that it is ADS derived). In busy airspace these reports can be generated only seconds apart pulling that circular error of probability back in to only a couple of miles with each update. You can now fit 50 planes into the airspace where you might have put only a couple before.
RADAR does exactly the same thing as ADS. The ground equipment asks the plane where it is and it sends back a reflection (primary) or a coded pulse (secondary) which is then displayed on a controllers screen. The difference with ADS is that instead of an enormously expensive piece of ground equipment to decode and receive the signal it can all be done on a regular vhf/uhf radio. If you add another radio antenna to a cell tower nobody cares. You can also utilise the existing ground network to carry the signal back to the ATC centre. You don't have to pay techs to install and maintain your own proprietary equipment.
Try building a couple of hundred multi-million dollar radar dishes across the landscape and every kook, luny, luddite and portable Faraday cage wearing weirdo will be out to stop you and protect the speckled barn toad as a bonus.
The huge advantages of ADS are that it is accurate, cheap and has a small ground footprint. It can be adapted for long range (hf) and satellite updating for oceanic sectors. It's all win. If someone asks "what will do when it breaks?" Well look out he window, we're doing it now.
A little background first: I work in IT at an airport, and I'm somewhat familiar with some of the administrative aspects of airport management.
"The problem with building more runways is that in most areas (New York, Los Angelas, Chicago), development is already done around the major airport. You can't expand further out."
While this is true somewhat, its still not an impediment to airport growth. Most airports are public entities, and thus have powers of eminent domain. Most will try to buy properties they want without resorting to ED in order to keep good relations with the neighbors, but if pressed, they'll use ED if needed. Airports have purchased entire border neighborhoods and paved them over, and they've gone to court and seized them as well. They still have to pay compensation, but likely not what owners would have gotten had they sold when first approached.
"What's needed is for airlines to move away from the hub and spoke model, and fly smaller planes directly between routes."
Airlines are already doing this, but with mixed success. The fact is, those kinds of routes just aren't as profitable. In fact, the airline industry will probably contract severely over the next twenty years. We might well end up with only two or three major carriers, and far fewer airports, as smaller regional airports close down. In order to keep current levels of air service, unless a major technology breakthrough comes along that makes direct flights cheaper, it'll take massive government subsidies to keep the number of flights we have now. I just don't see that happening.
Just as the coming of the airliner spelled the end of passenger rail, the coming of teleconferencing may spell the end of business travel, which is what drove the airlines in the first place. The airline industry will likely be dominated by cargo in a quarter century, with goods far outstripping people in the airplanes. Its likely that air freight companies will be America's largest commercial air providers in a quarter century. Fedex already has the largest commercial fleet in the world.
A much-smaller airline industry will be transporting mostly pleasure travelers, as high speed Internet has made long distance meetings a reality. America's greatest aircraft designer, Lockheed's Kelly Johnson, has predicted that the airline industry will basically disappear soon because of advances in IT. Looking at the numbers, its hard to disagree with him
Life is hard, and the world is cruel