The FAA’s Strategic Management of Airspace Routing Trajectories platform, known as SMART, could begin its first operational demonstration in September, according to a FLYING report. Steve Fulton, an FAA senior certification adviser and technical pilot, said this week at the FAA/European Union Aviation Safety Agency annual safety conference that the first deployment will focus on en route airspace at 24,000 feet and above.
The system is designed to use artificial intelligence, cloud computing and traffic data to improve trajectory predictions and give traffic managers earlier notice of schedule and routing conflicts across the National Airspace System.
“Humans will separate airplanes,” Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said in April. “Humans will be responsible for human lives. What we haven’t had is a system that helps us manage the national airspace system before the day even begins.”
At the Transportation Department’s Modern Skies Summit in April, officials described SMART and related software as part of a broader move toward more strategic traffic management. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford later told a Senate aviation subcommittee that the agency wants to treat the National Airspace System as a single system and address conflicting flight plans and scheduling practices before aircraft leave the ground.
The SMART effort is being pursued alongside air traffic control modernization work funded through $12.5 billion previously approved by Congress. The Transportation Department has said that work includes replacing copper wiring, converting radio sites, installing surface awareness systems and moving towers to electronic flight strips. Officials have said additional funding will be needed for the software side of the modernization program, and Duffy has said more funding will be needed to complete the broader air traffic control upgrade.
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