PRELIMINARY REQUIREMENTS FOR AVIONICS INTENT INFORMATION FOR FREE FLIGHT

Abstract

The MITRE Corporation Center for Advanced Aviation System Development (CAASD) is currently developing a prototype workstation to identify and validate the system requirements to enable Free Night. This effort will place a "Free Flight Workstation" in a working Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC), with interfaces to radar surveillance and flight plan data. In addition, avionics intent information from several participating airline aircraft will be transmitted to the workstation via the ARINC Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), and potentially other experimental data links. Initially, the workstation will provide supplemental conflict advisories to enroute controllers by integrating ground and airborne data sources in its algorithms. While the project is using a ground implementation, it is expected that airborne free flight enabling functions will require similar avionics intent information to be received via data link from other aircraft. This paper will describe the initial set of avionics intent information required from aircraft to perform conflict detection activities, and the architecture being used to obtain this information. Additional information which may potentially be used by follow-on ground or airborne functions will also be discussed.