Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast benefits to general aviation and barriers to implementation

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. [101]-103).Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Broadcast (ADS-B) will be the basis of the future surveillance system in the US. To achieve benefit from ADS-B, aircraft have to be equipped with ADS-B avionics across all stakeholders. General Aviation (GA) comprises over 96% of the active aircraft fleet in the US but average yearly utilization for GA aircraft is 21 times lower than that of commercial aircraft. Since many benefits from ADS-B depend on aircraft utilization, concern exists that ADS-B does not provide enough user benefit to GA, possibly resulting in delayed acceptance and aircraft equipage with ADS-B avionics. One way of providing user benefits and thus increasing incentives for GA users to equip with ADS-B is to create and implement ADS-B applications that are of high value to those operators. ADS-B Surveillance in non-RADAR airspace and ADS-B based Traffic Situation Awareness (TSA) are identified as two applications that are expected to provide significant benefit to GA. Both applications are evaluated and possible barriers to the delivery of benefit are identified. In order to identify where TSA would be most beneficial, ten years' worth of NTSB mid-air collision reports were reviewed. Ten years of ASRS and NMACS near mid-air collision (MAC) reports were also reviewed. The analysis revealed that aircraft are most likely to encounter each other in the airport vicinity - specifically in the pattern (59% of MACs). Current Traffic Awareness systems are not reliable in that environment due to insufficient surveillance data quality. Surveillance data from ADS-B , however, has much higher resolution. Therefore, ADS-B based traffic alerting systems are expected to be capable of providing reliable alerting in such environments and would thus pose a significant incentive for GA to equip with ADS-B. An analysis of the current availability of low altitude surveillance over the continental United States was conducted in order to identify where ADS-B Low Altitude Surveillance would be beneficial. Providing low altitude surveillance has the potential to improve efficiency during IFR conditions. 27 towered airports with RADAR floors of more than 500ft have been identified. ADS-B surveillance in those locations would create a significant benefit locally. Non-towered airports without low altitude surveillance are more common (806 total). ADS-B surveillance to such airports has the potential to increase airport acceptance rates in Instrument Flight weather and thus providing benefit to GA. However, in addition to providing surveillance, additional ATC procedures need to be developed to take advantage of such ADS-B surveillance. The new procedures would allow ATC to remain in radio communication with aircraft operating at non-towered airports, preventing the application of inefficient procedural control.by Fabrice Kunzi.S.M