Building and deploying reliable airspace modernization advances that overhaul communications, navigation, surveillance, and air traffic management systems historically has served as a core element of Raytheon’s Technologies business. Now, Raytheon’s corporate reorganization into three business units will see its Intelligence and Space division’s civil traffic systems business absorbed into Collins’s Connected Aviation Solutions, whose ambitious team aims to stake a claim on the future of air traffic management.
Raytheon Technologies systems currently manages two-thirds of the world’s air traffic. It operates in more than 60 countries and supports the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration in overseeing more than 45,000 flights across more than 29 million square miles of airspace. Jen Schopfer, president of Collins Aerospace’s Connected Aviation Solutions division, told AIN that the reorganization allows for better alignment with customers’ priorities, ensuring more effective coordination and collaboration across its businesses.
The realignment consolidates Raytheon’s Connected Ecosystem of flight data and management into Connected Aviation Solutions’ strategic business activities. The company sees the move as particularly significant at a time when some industry insiders say Raytheon has fallen behind in developing automation outside its domestic market in the U.S.
Schopfer said that once the realignment takes place in July, Collins’s Connected Aviation Solutions will harness the existing capabilities of Raytheon Technologies to find new ways to apply the huge amount of data generated by modern aircraft and manage the predicted growth in aviation. The latest forecast by Airports Council International shows that passenger traffic worldwide will reach 19.3 billion by 2041, so advanced automation systems, surveillance tools, and navigation, communications, and networking technologies will prove essential to meeting future airspace needs.
Connected Aviation Solutions’ partnership with UK air navigation services provider NATS and Flight Aware, which Collins acquired in 2021, serves as one example of finding innovative ways to apply operational data. In March, Collins and NATS announced plans to work together to explore how the use of aviation data could drive airspace efficiencies. The so-called data-centric approach to air traffic management uses predictive analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to streamline the overall travel experience and improve the management and flow of traffic.
Such air traffic flow management (ATFM) techniques and intelligent digital communications that connect aircraft with ground systems could effectively help shape future air travel. With ATFM in place, air traffic controllers can see aircraft position and location data, offering a more accurate view of the airspace at any point in time. And when air traffic controllers can digitally sequence aircraft arrivals and departures, passengers will benefit in terms of reduced taxi times and flight duration.
“Integrating FlightAware’s cutting-edge machine learning intelligence into Collins'a portfolio provides a host of new functionality, enhancing the operations of our customers,” said Schopfer.
She added that Collins’s Foresight Uplink combines FlightAware machine learning intelligence and ArincDirect datalink capability to provide the crew en route with a more accurate arrival time prediction via their flight management system, providing up to 50 percent less estimation error even compared to onboard flight management system estimated arrival times (ETAs).
Another Collins product, called AirPlan, allows airports to manage resources such as gates, check-in desks, and baggage belts from a single application on any computer or mobile device connected to their network. With the recent addition of FlightAware’s Foresight predictive data, airport customers will receive a more accurate picture of their operations, including both flight ETAs and taxi-out duration predictions, which increases the accuracy and efficiency of airport resources to ease congestion and cut turnaround times.
In terms of uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS), Collins uses FlightAware data to integrate new aircraft tracking and alerting features into the company’s WebUAS digital platform. By integrating FlightAware’s global flight tracking and ADS-B flight status data feed, WebUAS provides ANSPs and UAS operators with a high-fidelity picture of active flight operations.
“Being able to incorporate their ongoing technologies with the FlightAware ADS-B data feeds—crowdsourced data blended with satellite ADS-B—and the other Collins data and data management systems can make it look, and probably be, something more relevant and aligned with SESAR/Next-Gen ATM modernization initiatives,” said a senior Collins ATM executive. “This is all part of the move towards a more connected aviation [landscape], which could then increase automation and remove expensive legacy techniques and technologies.”