TECHNOLOGY
At the end of March, together with
NAV CANADA, NATS started trial
use of Aireon’s satellite-based ADS-B
system to track aircraft flying through the
world’s busiest piece of oceanic airspace – the
North Atlantic.
This has allowed NATS to progress from
the traditional, procedural form of control
where aircraft reported their position every
14 minutes, to one which is virtually realtime,
with track updates every few seconds.
This transformation means NATS has
been able to begin reducing aircraft
separations and for airlines to begin flying at
the speed that best suits them. That’s in
addition to the clear safety benefit of having
real-time surveillance and conformance
monitoring (i.e. knowing that an aircraft is
complying with the clearance they’ve been
issued), something we believe will
significantly reduce the estimated risk of a
collision.
The journey
The NATS’ Oceanic ADS-B journey started
in autumn 2011 when Iridium (now Aireon
LLC) shared its exciting plans to launch a
network of 66 Low Earth Orbiting (LEO)
ADS-B receivers hosted aboard its Iridium
Next communications satellite constellation.
Iridium’s idea was simple, its ADS-B
receivers would cover the entire globe
(including the poles) enabling ATS
Surveillance of all equipped traffic,
regardless of today’s terrestrial line-of-sight
constraints. Commercially, Iridium believed
that the cost of this service would, for every
US$1USD spent on the signal fees, generate
returns to airspace users of about three times
that figure in reduced fuel costs.
AIR TRAFFIC TECHNOLOGY INTERNATIONAL 2020 33.