Mobile phone stations track aircraft
THE US Federal Aviation Administration wants to replace radar with GPS anchored on the ground to AT&T mobile phone towers.
According to Popular Mechanics, the FAA has awarded a $1.8 billion contract to ITT to lay the groundwork for NextGen.
ITT won the contract because it is chums with AT&T, which has promised to turn over its mobile phone towers for the project and give it a built-in infrastructure.
This piggybacking on an existing system will keep the costs low. The first stage involves installing ADS-B, or automatic dependent surveillance broadcast gear. This uses onboard receivers for GPS signals so pilots and controllers can share accurate data.
TT will install 794 ADS-B ground stations in AT&T’s telecommunications towers, although some of data will be routed through AT&T's ordinary network.
The aim is to have a prototype working by 2010 and the entire system installed by 2013.
Apparently the FAA is keen to get the project up and running. The skies are filling with planes too fast for radar systems to keep up.
More here. µ
Share this:
Business Intelligence Software
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Enterprise Accounting Software
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
Enterprise Systems Management
so... will each base station be equipped with a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) - or are they placed so redundantly that you always pick up a signal at 5 stations anyway?
As we have seen, parts the US are relatively prone to power grid outages. If these cause the system to go down, it would be a scary thought to have all planes in that sector suddenly disappear from the air traffic control screens. In that case, would pilots just have to sort out their near-collision issues by themselves while under way? "Hey, are you going up or am I?" - "Your port side or mine?"
So 1.8 billion is keeping costs low...oh wait, this is dollars.

Still, what would the cost be without AT&T's involvement?
Most aircraft have been navigating with GPS for a decade. GPS ATC will not fix delays. The cause of delays is not in the air, it is on the ground.

We have eight lane freeways in the sky trying to exit onto a single lane exit ramp at rush hour - that ramp is our nation's airports.

With enough air traffic controllers, we can currently put more into the sky TODAY than can get down on time.

Until we improve or make better use of existing infrastructure - there is really no point to GPS ATC, or the so called "NexGen" ATC system. Especially at the bargain price of 1.8B.
Mobile GPS stations to track planes in flight. That means two people moving randomly with one trying to track the other.
Doesn't sound like a good solution to me. In my forest orientation courses I was always told that if I got lost, I should stay put until help arrived. It would seem that it's easier to find someone if that someone is not moving.
I would have thought that such a reasoning would also be valid in reverse : it should be easier to track planes from a fixed location.
Like air traffic control towers, for example.
I have no issue with GPS tracking. Planes broadcast their position via radio anyway, so it makes sense to triangulate their position and progress from a GPS station. But I would prefer the GPS station to be immobile, in a known location.
A roving GPS locator is already subject to the built-in uncertainty of the US GPS system. Using that to track a plane that is also being GPS-tracked kind of compounds the error margin.
That doesn't sound too good for managing collision situations.
@ Pascal
Who said anything about "roving" or mobile GPS stations?
The stations are fixed on the ground - on AT&T mobile phone *towers*. Last time I checked, AT&T's cell towers were not "roving".