II-Morrow Develops an Alternative to TCAS Anti-Collision System

FAA may be hemming and hawing over how to implement the long overdue Automatic Dependent Surveillance (Broadcast) ADS-B system that will be a cornerstone of its Free Flight program, but Portland-based II-Morrow, along with the Cargo Airlines Association, is making this technology a reality.

ADS-B is a surveillance system that is dependent upon each aircraft's automatically broadcasting its identification, position and altitude, hence the name ADS-B. Each aircraft also transmits its track and speed, thereby allowing ADS-B equipment at an ATC station to display the flight path trend vector of each aircraft fitted with similar equipment.

II-Morrow and parent company UPS have demonstrated a proof-of-concept ADS-B system that will be installed on certain UPS air freighters starting this fall. II-Morrow's ADS-B development program is being sponsored by the Cargo Airlines Association as an alternative to TCAS, that is required to be installed on passenger carrying airliners, but which has not yet been mandated for cargo aircraft.

At first, ADS-B seems as though it's a technology that competes with TCAS. Actually, ADS-B complements TCAS. While TCAS displays the location and relative altitude of intruders as symbols and, in the case of TCAS II, provides traffic conflict resolution advisories, ADS-B provides far more information and it functions at a much longer range.

II-Morrow's ADS-B uses an Avionics Display Systems flat-panel MFD, a modified Honeywell Air Transport Mode S data link transponder and II-Morrow's specially designed VHF nav band and UHF TACAN datalink.