Using ADSB Data to Analyze the Potential for Nuisance in a Ground Collision Avoidance System

Travel via air carrier is undoubtedly one of the safest forms of long-range transportation available. In contrast, every year an unacceptable number of fatalities still occur in aviation’s most utilized segment, General Aviation. Though existing safety technologies have shown potential to reduce this rate by nearly 71%, little progress has been made to adapt them to General Aviation. In response, the US Federal Aviation Administration has begun funding research into both the development and verification of these systems in order to hasten their availability. As a part of this research, this work has developed a methodology for evaluating the occurrence of false alarms in a Ground Collision Avoidance System (GCAS) using a large number of actual ADS-B flight logs. These developed methods were then applied to the evaluation of NASA’s EVAA GCAS, which is an example of a mature GCAS solution. The first results statistically show that EVAA’s current suppression methods reduce nuisance activations considerably, but improvements can be made to further reduce activations during take-off and landing procedures. Furthermore, it was discovered that most cases of nuisance activations occur during pattern work or training maneuvers. In this scenario, a false activation could be hazardous to the crew of the aircraft. It will be shown that the utilization of ADS-B flight data has proven highly effective in detecting the potential for nuisance activations within a GCAS. This suggests that the methodology employed in this study can be applied to similar safety systems, thereby enhancing safety measures in the realm of General Aviation across the board.