Projecting the effect of CPDLC on NAS capacity

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in conjunction with MITRE's Center for Advanced Aviation System Development (CAASD) is developing operational concepts and working with stakeholders throughout the aviation community to build the business case for investment in air/ground data communications capabilities. These capabilities are needed to respond to the high demand on the National Airspace System (NAS) currently and in the foreseeable future, resulting from the increased demand for access to airspace and the need to increase the operational efficiency of NAS infrastructure. The FAA Air Traffic Organization (ATO) is analyzing the benefits of potentially implementing a subset of air/ground data communications in the domestic en route domain focused on the controller-pilot data link communications (CPDLC) application. The air/ground data communications functionality provided by CPDLC is inherently coupled with the flight data processing functions of the NAS. The ATO is in the process of replacing these functions as part of the en route automation modernization (ERAM) program. Any potential introduction of CPDLC functionality would occur subsequent to the implementation of ERAM in the NAS. This paper presents a quantitative estimate of the operational effects of implementing a CPDLC capability in the en route domain. The economic implications of this estimate of operational effects were presented in a MITRE CAASD report (Giles, 2004).