Researcher to improve aeronautical communications with $4.4 million in NASA funding

A University of South Carolina researcher in the College of Engineering and Computing is the principal investigator for a new NASA-funded $4.4 million research project to address limitations in aircraft communication networks to improve operations and increase safety.

USC electrical engineering professor David W. Matolak and his team will brief members of NASA leadership and Congress about improvements needed for an ATM system that is unprepared to handle rapidly expanding air travel and air transport in the U.S and globally. Of particular concern are safety issues caused by the rise of unmanned drone aircraft sharing airspace with conventional manned aircraft.

The NASA award is part of the agency's University Leadership Initiative, in which select universities identify their own projects and lead the technical work with other universities and companies to solve aviation challenges.

Over the next three years, the research will address several challenges to the current ATM systems, including:

• Communication systems that are severely inadequate for future air traffic density and complexity
• Inefficient airport operations that cause significant aircraft delays
• The inability to accurately and continuously monitor and track all manned and unmanned aircraft.

"Our plan is to take advantage of all available aviation frequencies, and using those, to create new, faster and more effective wireless communications that are completely adaptive to all conditions," Matolak said. "These new aviation radio systems will also be able to access multiple communication methods and resources—such as ground stations, other aircraft, satellites, trains and large sea vessels—for maximum efficiency. We are planning to dramatically improve the capacity and efficiency of all airport communication networks as well."

Air traffic has been growing rapidly for the last 60 years. According to Aerospace America and the Federal Aviation Administration, the number of people travelling by air has grown from 46 million passengers in 1956 to 3 billion in 2016. Air travel is projected to hit at least 7.2 billion passengers and millions of drones by 2035.

Through their work, Matolak and the team will be analyzing, simulating, designing and testing models for stronger, more efficient aviation communications. The research will involve new communication techniques for complex ATM simulations that illustrate the new network's ability to handle significantly larger air traffic with rapid and reliable automated air traffic control and management. This will enable more efficient airport operations to remove delays, reduce costs and increase situational awareness.

Matolak's team includes co-investigators Ismail Guvenc, North Carolina State University; Hani Mehrpouyan, Boise State University; and Benjamin Boisvert, Architecture Technology Corporation. The research groups will also have several post-doctoral research students, graduate and undergraduate students working on the project.

Provided by University of South Carolina