New Technology

New Solutions for Shaping Tomorrow's Skies

Maintaining the safest, most efficient aerospace system in the world is a mission that demands only the most cutting-edge technology available. It takes continuing advances in navigation, surveillance, computer processing capabilities, air traffic tools, telecommunications infrastructure and even weather information to make the national airspace system run.

From automated radar systems to advanced detection capabilities, the programs we have under development provide safer skies for our nation's travelers and a number of exciting and challenging opportunities to build a career at FAA.

Featured programs in development include:

• Advanced Technologies & Oceanic Procedures (ATOP)
• Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B)
• Airport Surface Detection Equipment, Model X (ASDE-X)
• Airport Surface Radar (ASR-11)
• En Route Automation Modernization (ERAM)
• En Route Communications Gateway (ECG)
• Federal Telecommunications Infrastructure (FTI)
• Integrated Terminal Weather System (ITWS)
• Runway Status Lights (RWSL)
• System Wide Information Management (SWIM)
• Terminal Automation and Replacement (TAMR)
• Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS)

Satellite Technology

For decades the FAA predominantly maintained air traffic via aircraft- and ground-based technologies. Today, through advances related to NextGen, air travel is shifting to a safer and more efficient satellite-based system. Satellite-based navigation routes and procedures rely on the global satellite network to continuously establish precise location information, allowing pilots to know their location as well as the locations of other planes around them at all times.

See it in action.

The benefits of this improvement in navigation are many. Aircraft can fly more direct routes, improved access to airports during periods of low visibility and difficult weather, less time in the air means fuel efficiency and time savings, and most importantly, these strides made by NextGen greatly enhance the overall safety of air travel.

The result is more planes in the sky, all flying safer, smarter and more efficiently, leading to more predictable arrivals and departures. Our nation's air travelers are getting where they're going faster and more safely than ever.

Direct Flight/Precision Path

Today, our nation's skies are busier than they have ever been. In the next two decades, they are only expected to grow more crowded. To meet the demands of increased air travel and busier skies, the FAA is revolutionizing the way aircraft navigate our skies by creating new flight paths and producing new navigation standards.

All of this is being achieved through a new FAA initiative known as Performance-Based Navigation. Designed to increase the efficiency, capacity and safety of modern aviation, Performance-Based Navigation uses on-board avionics to navigate with greater precision and accuracy. There are two key elements that drive Performance-Based Navigation and produce more precise and accurate paths through our nation's airspace.

Area Navigation (RNAV)

Allows pilots to fly a direct path to their final destination, resulting in reduced flight distances and fuel costs

Required Navigation Performance (RNP)

Contains aircraft to a narrow corridor, creating more "lanes" and more precise and accurate paths

These advances in pathing and navigation are only part of what we are developing at FAA to create safer, more efficient airspace for today's travelers as well as tomorrow's.