Communication and the future of air traffic management

The capacity of the United States' National Airspace System (NAS) must grow to handle the passenger demands that are projected over the next 25 years. Today the NAS is constrained by a host of operational and technical issues. The FAA's operational evolution plan (OEP) addresses a 10-year horizon and identifies modernization activities that will yield a 30% increase in capacity by 2013. However, projected passenger demands indicate that air traffic will double over the next twenty years. To close the gap between the OEP and projected needs, NASA initiated the virtual airspace modeling and simulation (VAMS) project. VAMS participants, including members from industry, government, and academia, develop and share ideas on revolutionary concepts to meet the stated goals. The constraints in the terminal area domain are the focus of Raytheon's VAMS concept, terminal area capacity enhancement concept (TACEC). TACEC envisions a high level of automation and synchronization, generating optimized flight profiles within the terminal airspace and on the airport surface. Implementation requires innovative differences in terminal operations as well as infrastructure improvements such as high-speed data link, improved surveillance, integrated terminal area network, highly automated guidance and scheduling systems, and closely spaced parallel runways.