Publications

Accurate, short-term forecasts of where thunderstorms will develop, move and decay allow for strategic traffic management in and around the aviation terminal and enroute airspace. Pre-planning to avoid adverse weather conditions provides safe, smooth and continuous air traffic flow and savings in both fuel cost and time. Wolfson, et. al...

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is in the process of developing Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) techniques. In one candidate system, GPS-Squitter, each aircraft periodically broadcasts messages, called "squitters," that report the aircraft's identification, position, and velocity. The position and velocity information may be obtained from the Global Positioning System...

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory provides support to the Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (TDWR) Program Office in the performance analysis of deployed TDWR systems, and resulting recommendations for systems enhancements. This report documents initial performance of the TDWR products at Washington National Airport (DCA), Memphis International Airport (MEM) and...

This paper gives an overview and summary of the separation requirements for air traffic control in the U.S. National Airspace System with emphasis on those relevant to terminal landing operations. These requirements are documented in the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA's) Air Traffic Control Order 7110.65J, as ammended, and various national...

Models of vortex behavior as a function of atmospheric conditions are being developed in an attempt to improve safety and minimize unnecessary airport capacity restrictions due to wake vortices. Direct measurements of vortices and the relevant meteorological conditions in an operational setting, which would serve to improve the understanding of...

Lincoln Laboratory, under funding from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Terminal Doppler Weather Radar program, has developed algorithms for automatically detecting microbursts. While microburst detection algorithms provide highly reliable warnings of microbursts. there still remains a period of time between microburst onset and pilot reaction during which aircraft are at...

This paper gives a brief overview of the history of the development of the TDWR/LLWAS 3 integration algorithms, a brief overview of the various algorithms, and a discussion of the comparative evaluation of the TDWR, LLWAS 3, and the three candidate TDWR/LLWAS 3 integration algorithms. This is followed by a...

Under Federal Aviation Administration sponsorship, Lincoln Laboratory has developed a prototype Airport Surveillance Radar Weather Systems Processor (ASR-WSP). This prototype has been used for field measurements and operational demonstrations since 1987. Measurements so acquired provide an extensive database for development and validation of the algorithms used by the WSP to...

Wind shear detection algorithms that operate on Doppler radar data are tuned to primarily recognize the velocity and reflectivity signatures associated with microbursts and gust fronts. Microbursts produce a divergent pattern in the velocity field that is associated with a descending column of precipitation. Gust fronts produce a convergent pattern...

This paper describes the designs of the TDWR and ITWS Microburst Detection algorithms, and compares their performances in the Orlando, FL and Memphis, TN environments. This is the first study in which the performance of the TDWR and ITWS microburst detection algorithms are compared using an identical data set and...