ADS-B system network bandwidth and CPU optimization

Abstract

ITT Exelis has built and operates the Surveillance Broadcast Services (SBS) system to provide the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) with Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Broadcast (ADS-B) target data in the U.S. National Airspace System (NAS). The system requirements for significant coverage at low altitudes demands a dense laydown of radio stations such that at moderate and high altitudes there is an abundance of overlapping coverage from multiple radio stations. While such redundancy is generally a good attribute, the future expected growth in ADS-B equipage will place a large burden on the SBS network and servers because of that redundancy. In order to proactively mitigate that traffic growth, the SBS is designed with a number of traffic management features to control the amount of redundant reports from multiple radio stations. This paper summarizes a study that projects the impact of the growth in ADS-B equipped traffic on the SBS system, and evaluates the effectiveness and adequacy of existing and new candidate network traffic management features under consideration in the SBS.