Connecting airborne and cloud-based Flight Management Systems for Advanced Air Mobility to optimize airspace and maintain safety standards

GE Aviation announced a collaboration with SmartSky Networks and Mosaic ATM to enhance Flight Management Systems (FMS) and Air Traffic Management (ATM) for Advanced Air Mobility (AAM).

The combined work effort, conducted under a NASA Innovation Award, uniquely connects the airborne and cloud-based FMS to optimize airspace management while maintaining critical flight safety controls and serves as a key enabler for AAM, which promises to bring thousands more aircraft into the airspace in the coming years.

“Advanced Air Mobility FMS presents unique space, power, and processing requirements and GE Aviation, Mosaic ATM and SmartSky Networks working together, have identified ways to address these challenges,” said Gary Goz, product director, Navigation Systems, GE Aviation. “By combining both airborne and cloud-based FMS systems—coupled with a reliable, low latency network—we can address processing needs while meeting critical safety standards for flight control.”

“TrueCourse, GE’s latest generation FMS, with its modularized architecture designed for today and the future, is ideally suited to play this role,” added Brad Mottier, president of Systems for GE Aviation.

The conceptualized cloud-based FMS will allow air traffic controllers better real-time trajectory and airspace management planning by expanding and optimizing available data inputs and processing capabilities across a greater number of relevant sources. In addition, enabling traffic flow management will minimize delays and improve efficiencies required by environmental, social and governance requirements, aiding sustainability planning initiatives. Greater accuracy of onboard FMS outputs will also be achieved through increased processing power and external inputs.

David Claassen, chief technology officer, SmartSky Networks says: “Fast access to data is central to ensuring the Advanced Air Mobility sector can safely further its operations protocols. Our work with GE Aviation and Mosaic ATM brings numerous benefits to the domain by addressing regulatory challenges, maintaining critical safety standards and providing a force multiplier for airspace management.”

Todd Kilbourne, senior program manager, Mosaic ATM, adds: “Working with SmartSky and GE Aviation allows our development of next generation technologies and procedures for traffic management systems to be fully utilized both on the ground and in the air. Having dependable, high-speed, secure and interoperable connectivity enables the cloud-based FMS to further enhance National Airspace System (NAS) safety and improve capacity to the benefit of all users.”

About SmartSky

SmartSky Networks was founded to transform aviation through disruptive communications technologies, services, and tools. Its innovative air-to-ground network is now available, with full CONUS coverage coming in the first half of 2022. The network takes advantage of patented spectrum reuse, advanced beamforming technologies and 60 MHz of spectrum for significantly enhanced connectivity. SmartSky Networks uniquely enables an “office in the sky” experience with unmatched capacity for data transmissions both to and from the aircraft. This real-time, very low latency, bidirectional data link makes SmartSky Networks the best in-flight user experience, and a key enabler for new and enhanced applications and services. For more information, visit SmartSkyNetworks.com

About Mosaic ATM

Mosaic ATM was formed in 2004 to continue aviation progress by designing and developing the systems necessary to increase air transportation capacity and efficiency while maintaining the highest possible safety, security, and sustainability levels.

Through advanced research, user-centered design, development, and software system prototyping, combined with a thorough understanding of air transportation operations, Mosaic ATM provides system solutions to achieve the mission.

About GE Aviation

GE Aviation, an operating unit of GE (NYSE: GE), is a world-leading provider of jet engines, components and systems for commercial and military aircraft. GE Aviation has a global service network to support these offerings. For more information, visit us at www.GEAviation.com. Follow GE Aviation on Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Instagram. GE Aviation is committed to a more sustainable future of flight. Learn more here.

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