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Lead Engineer Oscar Olmos helped develop the flight profiles flown at Louisville International Airport. During the trials, he worked on the ground to make sure everything went smoothly. "The MITRE team is assessing the data gathered during the OpEval," said Olmos. "This spring we'll release the final report to the aviation industry. We're also preparing for another OpEval in May."

Will flight delays soon be a thing of the past?

Prolific growth in air travel is an ongoing challenge to the world's aviation systems. MITRE's Center for Advanced Aviation System Development (CAASD) is working in close partnership with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to develop and implement new technologies that will modernize the world's air traffic management systems. One such technology, Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B), is designed to give airspace users more flexibility in choosing appropriate routes, speeds, and altitudes. The FAA's Safeflight 21 Program is supporting the development and implementation of ADS-B technology; ADS-B improves situational awareness by enabling aircraft to see other aircraft in the vicinity as well as vehicles on the ground.

"For several years now, the Safeflight 21 Program has been working with industry in developing ADS-B," says MITRE Lead Engineer Oscar Olmos. "This technology enhances pilots' and controllers' situational awareness—that makes Safeflight 21 a valuable program. ADS-B uses Global Positioning System satellite data to provide specially equipped aircraft with an array of information. It helps pilots see other similarly equipped vehicles.

MITRE-CAASD has extensive background and experience in developing ADS-B requirements. While the avionics vendors are responsible for implementing the actual hardware used in the field evaluations, CAASD plays a key role in providing the technical and operational requirements for successful evaluation of this technology," explains Olmos. "The avionics vendors rely on our expertise to get the ADS-B technology into the field."

Olmos and many other MITRE staff recently had the opportunity to participate in a field test of the ADS-B technology. Operation Evaluation-2 (OpEval-2) occurred in October 2000 in Louisville. The Louisville OpEval was one of a series of field evaluations conducted jointly by the Cargo Airline Association (CAA) and the Safeflight 21 Program at the CAA regional hubs. "The OpEvals are an on-going effort. We're in the midst of preparing for upcoming evaluations in Memphis later this year," says Olmos. "Each OpEval has a number of specific objectives and requires input from a number of different groups."

"The OpEval was a collaborative effort across the board. The project team consisted of representatives from many organizations including MITRE, CAA, FAA, NASA, and others," observes Olmos. "All together we probably had 200 to 300 people involved in the Louisville OpEval."

"One of the best aspects of this project for me personally is having the opportunity to work with real avionics and real airplanes," says Olmos. "You aren't limited to simulations. We've been working closely with the actual users—in this case, the CAA. We take the technology and implement real displays and avionics to go out into the field for testing and evaluations."