Better known for its air traffic control systems, Lockheed Martin is exploiting some of the same technologies to enter a new business area - information management systems for airlines and airports. "These tools bring benefit from the airline side," says Alan Bloodgood, director, communication, navigation and surveillance, at Lockheed Martin Air Traffic Management. "They consolidate data to provide better situational awareness."
The product suite includes real-time tools to help airlines and airports handle irregular operations and analysis tools to help users make better business decisions, says Bloodgood.
The hub and ramp management system is based on Lockheed Martin's SkyLine air traffic management (ATM) equipment in use in China, the UK and elsewhere. The system integrates air and ground surveillance data on to a single display at a hub airport, allowing the airline or airport operator to manage aircraft and vehicle ground operations. "They can see aircraft coming in and get a heads-up, which helps the airline manage its gates," says Bloodgood.
He adds: "The display provides an air and surface surveillance picture showing the status of aircraft and vehicles." The system can take in data from sensors such as radar, automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast, multilateration or TV cameras. "As the system is based off our international ATM product, it is robust and can take in a lot of feeds," he says.
An airline could put the system in place, or an airport authority, says Bloodgood. The information can be used by a specific carrier or provided to all airlines using an airport. The network allows up to 100 display positions and supports message interchange between airline users and with the air traffic service provider, enabling collaborative decision-making. "The system can export data via the web, to users such as icing trucks and baggage crews," he says.
The hub and ramp management system integrates with another Lockheed Martin decision-support tool, FltWinds. Using weather processing and forecasting technology originally developed for the USAir Force and Navy, the flight and weather information and decision support system is intended for use in the airline operations centre. "It's mainly targeted at flight dispatchers to give them better situational awareness," says Bloodgood.
FltWinds takes aircraft position reports from FAA-supplied surveillance data and other sources and combines this with weather information to create a four-dimensional model of the atmosphere. The system is then able to interpret the interaction of the objects within the model: aircraft with airports and weather, and weather with airports and airspace. FltWinds analyses flight plans and generates alerts for conflicts with hazardous weather or restricted airspace.
"Integrating the information on to a set of displays allows the user to track flights and do weather look-aheads so they can more efficiently manage the fleet," says Bloodgood. "When there is bad weather, FltWinds helps them look at the storm details and alternate routes so they plan a reroute, or maybe find a way through," he says.
An extension of FltWinds is the Spear system performance assessment tool. While FltWinds is an operational aid, Spear allows airlines to perform business analyses. "FltWinds provides real-time tracking and analysis and collects a lot of airline-specific data. Spear is used to mine that data so the airline can do business analyses on or off line," says Bloodgood.
Reports can be generated automatically on hub airport departure and arrival performance; flight deviations and delays; city-pair performance comparisons; and airspace occupancy for overflight accounting. "This goes way beyond flight tracking," says Bloodgood. "With one mouse click, users can get data that today requires two or three different systems."
Source: Flight International