ARCON has for many years concentrated on research and development of GPS receiver technology. We have programmed elaborate systems to model space segment including atmospheric effects and the receiver segment. These systems, which closely mimic the real world situations have proved to be valuable tools in our simulation analysis of GPS receiver performance and aircraft navigation.

Inertial navigation system, which is an integral component of the aircraft avionics, can supplement the GPS in navigation when the GPS signals are lost or it can reinforce the GPS navigation. ARCON engineers have implemented three different coupling mechanisms to integrate GPS and INS in order to improve the navigation accuracy tremendously. Simulation results of these systems are an indication of how much ARCON is in the forefront of the cutting edge technology.

ADS-B delivers a significantly different set of data to the ATC automation systems that were designed for conventional ground based radar systems. ARCON plays a major role in supporting FAA to optimally make use of the ADS-B data without disturbing the current data processing sub functions in automation systems.

Use of system resources in an automation system to process ADS-B or radar data can be optimally adapted by considering the track state, output requirement and system condition. Our engineers are in the forefront of the research to temporally adapt the input data rate to depending on the situation.

ARCON is actively involved in supporting the FAA to optimally incorporate the ADS-B data into Common ARTS and STARS. Tracking and Safety function subsystems in these two major systems were designed for conventional ground based radar systems. Particularly, Common ARTS processing cycle depends on the rotation rate of the radar. Our engineers are involved in developing the evolutionary steps to transform the Common ARTS system to accept ADS-B data. We also analyzed the options to integrate ADS-B data to the STARS.