Aeronautical data exchange gateway: Answer to ATC standardization problem?

The world's Air Traffic Control system still uses components defined in the 1940s following the 1944 meeting in Chicago which launched the creation of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) [1]. This traditional ATC system uses analog radio systems for aircraft Communications, Navigation and Surveillance (CNS). AFTN is a good example for legacy ATC system. The major part of data message interchange is performed by the Aeronautical Fixed Telecommunications Network, AFTN. This is a message handling network running according to ICAO Standards documented in Annex 10 to the ICAO Convention. With a history dating back to the 1950s, it was in fact the world's first large-scale message handling system. It was conceived according to the special needs of its users but also restricted by the technology available then. Today several hundred nodes located in virtually every country of the world exchange messages on links of different types and speeds using "store-and-forward" procedures. The European part of the AFTN forms an important component of this world-wide network. It handles a large volume of message traffic originating and/or terminating in Europe but also considerable transit traffic. There is one or more AFTN nodes in every European country. These legacy systems like AFTN nodes are in need of compliance to new ATM standards. To handle these compatibility problems, we offer a gateway system which handles all the protocol and message conversion between legacy and new ATC systems. Aeronautical Data Exchange Gateway (ADEGW) is a system that lays between legacy and new ATC systems to handle aeronautical data exchange in between.