Advanced Airspace Concept (AAC)

Domain: En Route
Principle Investigator: NASA Ames Research Center

The next generation air traffic control system must be designed to achieve a significant increase in capacity and throughput while providing even higher levels of safety than today's system. Such an increase in performance cannot be achieved simply by evolutionary improvements of the existing operational system. Rather, it requires a new approach that constitutes a paradigm shift relative to the traditional systems and methods of control. The automation of separation monitoring and control should allow airspace capacity to be increased significantly. By delegating the separation assurance function to automation systems on the ground and in the cockpit, controllers can shift their attention to such tasks as optimization of traffic flow and accommodating pilot requests for route changes.

The Advanced Airspace concept requires new components on the ground and in the cockpit, as well as a reliable two-way data link for exchanging information between ground and airborne systems. The primary ground-based component is an Advanced Airspace Computer System (AACS) that generates efficient and conflict-free traffic clearances and associated trajectories for all equipped aircraft operating in an Advanced Airspace sector. The trajectories or clearances generated by the AACS are sent via data link to appropriately equipped aircraft where they are executed manually by the pilot or are entered directly into the Flight Management System. Therefore, separation assurance is achieved by equipped aircraft executing clearances generated by the ground-based automation system.

A key component of the Advanced Airspace Concept is an independent separation monitoring and conflict avoidance system that provides a safety net against failures of the AACS and certain on- board system and pilot errors. This system, called Tactical Separation Assisted Flight Environment, or TSAFE, independently monitors the clearances and trajectories sent by the AACS to each equipped aircraft. It also monitors the separation of unequipped aircraft that are being handled manually by controllers.

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