The Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) is a cooperative surveillance technology in which an aircraft determines its position via satellite navigation and broadcasts it periodically, thereby enabling the tracking of the aircraft.
Recent studies and trials have confirmed the possibility to detect ADS-B signals from space. These results together with the decision of the 2015 ITU’s World Radio communication Conference (WRC-15) to allocate the frequency band 1087.7-1092.3 MHz for ADS-B transmissions from aircrafts to communication satellites are expected to open-up an array of opportunities for integrated applications and services.
ADS-B based applications and services could emerge in the following areas:
- support to Air Traffic Control (ATC) management (e.g. provision of unprocessed and post-processed ADS-B messages)
- safety related services (e.g. early detection and notification of anomalous airplane behaviour, provision of “last known aircraft position” for search and rescue applications)
- route optimization services, airport services (e.g. small airports without radar may rely on ADS-B services for managing their operations)
- auxiliary services (e.g. exploitation of ADS-B message exchange for non-positional information such as weather data), etc.
The objective of the feasibility study is to identify and characterise ADS-B based services addressing potentially interesting application domains, carry out the analysis of their technical feasibility and commercial viability, select the most promising ones for further development and exploitation, and propose a roadmap for the implementation and demonstration of the proposed services.