Raytheon’s funding of the deployment of satellite-based surveillance at the largest terminal ATC facilities in the U.S. is a good example of the type of public/private partnership needed to advance the country’s Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen), according to the U.S. group. Andy Zogg, vice president of Raytheon’s airspace management and homeland security business area, said the company’s initial funding to deploy automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) capability at 11 terminal radar approach control (Tracon) facilities “probably took 18 months” out of the program schedule.

Under the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s terminal automation modernization and replacment (TAMR) Phase 3 program, the so-called IIIE Tracons are being upgraded from 2013 to 2015 with Raytheon’s standard terminal automation replacement system (STARS), which will be able to receive and display ADS-B position reports from aircraft. The Dallas Ft. Worth Tracon will be the first to integrate ADS-B.

Raytheon (Outdoor Exhibit 9) is also working with the FAA on eventually integrating ADS-B at smaller capacity terminal IIE facilities, Zogg said. Last December, Raytheon was awarded a contract from the U.S. Air Force to incorporate ADS-B with the service’s APX-119 identification friend or foe (IFF) transponders “well in advance” of the FAA’s mandate that aircraft be equipped for ADS-B Out capability to broadcast their position to the ground by 2020.

Industry and government partnerships on programs such as ADS-B are needed to expedite the NextGen program in the U.S. as well as the Single European Sky ATM Research (Sesar) program in Europe and other similar ATC modernization efforts worldwide, Zogg said. As one of the world’s leading providers of air traffic management systems and ATC surveillance radars, Raytheon is well-positioned to support those efforts, he said. “We’re really focused on (identifying) the next bottleneck [in air traffic flows],” Zogg said. “ … If the operational need is strong, we know that if we put our resources in, [the solution] will come to fruition.”