A Research and Implementation on Real Time Tracking for Abnormal Flight using ACARS

The tragedies of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 and Air France flight AF447 before, have highlighted vulnerabilities in current systems for identification and localization of aircraft. ICAO endorsed GADSS (Global Aeronautical Distress and Safety System)-in 2016 as the high level concept of operations, which prescribes the performance requirements for tracking flights globally in a timely manner: by covering every single phase during the whole flights. While for the abnormal tracking requirements, EUROCAE had issued ED-237 which describes the minimum system performance criteria for detecting in-flight distress events and the provisions for triggering the transmission of the locations and status information of an aircraft in distress. A method, in accordance with the minimum performance criteria prescribed in ED-237 for abnormal flight tracking by using ACARS only is proposed, which attributes to no additional avionics retrofit nor new installation is needed. By developing the newly triggering mechanism for ACARS position reports, the proposed method is capable of detecting altitude, rolling angle and velocity as well, while dropping in pre-defined abnormal ranges. Abnormal alerting messages are automatically composed in ACARS position reports and sent to the airlines operation control at one-minute interval, once abnormal condition is monitored. Thus the airlines can track the positions of the flight operating in abnormal conditionstimely. The triggering logic is implemented in CMU(Communication Management Unit)-by upgrading and customizing the fundamental database. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method as well as the implementation have the capability of detecting variety in-flight abnormal cases and succeed in triggering the real time position reports containing alerts information. This method is in compliance with the GADSS operational concepts framework while managed to avoid extra costs on retrofit.