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Purpose
The purpose of the Flight Data Processor (FDP) is to provide the
core services of an ATC system: ICAO or NAS message parsing, syntax
checking, route conversion, fix time estimation, conformance
monitoring, and creation and updating of a flight database with the
capability of exporting updated 4D-profiles to any external clients.
Description
The program is a platform independent console application written
in C++ using Object Oriented technology. FDP supports two run modes:
a) a real-time process connected to a live data feed used primarily as
an operational ATC system, and b) an off-line batch mode used for data
analysis, live data re-play, and as a source of 4D-trajectories for
the AwSim™
metrics pipeline. FDP keeps a flight database in memory
that is updated with any movement coordination and/or control message
received by the system. Running in real-time mode, FDP uses socket
interfaces to receive ATC messages (input) and to send trajectories
(output) to the client application. The main output produced by FDP is
trajectories. Trajectories are generated every time a new flight
enters the database and every time a flight is updated as a result of
processing a message received for the flight. As an off-line tool FDP
uses file i/o. Configuration of the system is done via *.ini files.
The primary input to FDP is a stream of ICAO Air Traffic Services
messages text messages, and with the addition of the ASD Driver
process FDP can also handle the US ETMS message set.
The Flight Data Processor (FDP) together with the ASD driver adds
the capability of connecting to live traffic and subsequent generation
of trajectories resulting from processing of flight plans and related
ETMS messages. ASD is the main driver that provides an interface with
the FAAs Volpe Feed (live data source for the ETMS system). FDP is
the Flight Data Processor where NAS and ICAO flight plans are
processed to produce trajectories. Having the capability to capture
live traffic is useful to a) establish air traffic baselines, b) fine
tune the trajectory simulator (TRS) to make its output more realistic,
c) provide a trajectory database for a 'bootstrap' generation
mechanism, d) perform systematic metrics studies of current air
traffic.
The ASD driver establishes a socket connection to the FAAs Volpe
Center ASDI Server over a TCP/IP enabled client. All NAS ETMS messages
(AF, AZ, DZ, FZ, RZ, TZ, and UZ) are read from the socket port and passed
to FDP. FDP parses these messages, performs syntax checking, route
conversion, boundary crossing, and fix time estimation. The end
product of FDP is a 4-dimensional Trajectory object ready to be sent to the rest
of the AwSim™
pipeline. FDP requires adaptation data (i.e. fixes,
airports, airways, airspaces, etc), which the user customarily
provides and maintains. FDP is provided with an initial (US)
adaptation and maintenance of this can be provided under engineering
service.
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