GPS soars high with FAA

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By Mark A. Kellner

Imagine how much easier the commute would be if you had the ability to see not just the traffic around you, but also for five miles ahead. Think of the notion that you could know what to expect when crossing the Woodrow Wilson Bridge or getting on the Beltway at Connecticut Avenue.

That's the basic idea behind an 18-month-old effort to upgrade the nation's air traffic control system.

After decades of dependence on radar, a new system based on global positioning technology that uses satellites to determine an object's place, time and velocity is making inroads.

ITT Corp.'s Defense Systems unit, based in Herndon, is the lead contractor on the effort, which is called an Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast, or ADS-B, system, for the Federal Aviation Administration.

The effort, which began in 2007 and could be extended to 2025 by the FAA, might be worth as much as $1.8 billion to ITT, said Vincent Capezzuto, the agency's director of Surveillance and Broadcast Services.

"This is the beginning of a new infrastructure that's going to be around for 50 years. It's exciting to be a part of it," Mr. Capezzuto said. ITT has been "performing very well," he added.

The system, explained John T. Kefaliotis, ITT's vice president of Next Generation Transportation Systems, will deliver "at a lower cost, more accurate and more frequent updating" of positional information for aircraft, once a second versus once every 12 seconds with radar.

"We can also survey aircraft where previously it wasn't possible, such as from oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico," he added. The system's ground receivers and transmitters can be placed in many different kinds of locations, allowing for greater expansion of the service, he said.

The new program, although carrying the overall tag of ADS-B, is actually composed of four services: GPS coverage from a plane back to the ground and adjacent aircraft on a 1090 MHz band for large planes; "universal" GPS access at 978 MHz for smaller planes known as general aviation aircraft; a Traffic Information Service, or TIS-B; and a Flight Information Service, or FIS-B, which covers weather and aeronautical data.

GPS signals are used because the technology is not only newer and more advanced, but it also covers more data. Each plane can be assigned a unique identifier, and the flight numbers can be matched and relayed to surrounding planes, showing pilots "nearby" flights that might be above or below a given plane but still in the vicinity.