Deployment and evaluation of the Helicopter In-flight Tracking System (HITS)

Details

• Creators:
  Daskalakis, Anastasios ; Martone, Patrick
• Corporate Creators:
  John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (U.S.)
• Corporate Contributors:
  Ames Research Center ; United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Helicopters
  • Rotary wing aircraft
  • Airspace utilization
  • Offshore drilling platforms
  • Offshore platforms
  • Air traffic control
  • Radar air traffic control
  • Heliports
  • Deployment
  • Flight tests
  More +
• Publication/ Report Number:
  NASA/TM-2004-213447
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  Florida ; Houston (Texas) ; Miami (Florida) ; Texas ; Louisiana
• Corporate Publisher:
  Ames Research Center ; United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
• NTL Classification:
  NTL-AVIATION-Air Traffic Control
• Abstract:
  The Gulf of Mexico airspace has two major operating regions: low altitude offshore (below 7,000 ft) and high altitude oceanic (above 18,000 ft). Both regions suffer significant inefficiencies due to the lack of continuous surveillance during Instrument Flight Rules operations. Provision of surveillance in the offshore region is hindered by its low-altitude nature, which makes coverage by conventional radars economically infeasible. Significant portions of the oceanic sectors are inaccessible to shore-based sensors, as they are beyond line-of-sight. Two emerging surveillance technologies were assessed that are relatively low cost and can be deployed on offshore platforms Wide Area Multilateration and Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast. Performance criteria were formulated using existing FAA specifications. Three configurations were developed and deployed representative of systems serving full-size and reduced-sized domestic terminal areas and an en-route/oceanic region. These configurations were evaluated during nine flight test periods using fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft.
• Format:
  PDF
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/9762/dot_9762_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 12.84 MB]
• Collection(s):
  Volpe Center
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:f09106bff749e0a03fd17745cafcf29739c1463a26454c8f25619dde98c86d5a