Integrated surveillance: foundation of the future NAS

Surveillance provides a view of operations within the National Airspace System (NAS). Safety and efficiency are the essentials of this system. As the demands of capacity and efficiency grow, so must the ability to assess the immediate and evolving operations within the NAS. Safety and efficiency can improve when appropriate procedures and technologies are applied. Surveillance plays an integral role in the NAS in separation assurance, traffic flow management, flight planning, fleet management, collaborative decision making, and collision avoidance. In addition, surveillance may be used to support functions such as fleet monitoring and management, traffic flow management, and search and rescue operations. To address future surveillance needs, the RTCA Free Flight Steering Committee (FFSC) requested that its Select Committee develop an industry consensus on a high-level surveillance operational concept, a supporting architecture, and a roadmap for achieving that architecture.