DAB Event Offers Glimpse At New Technologies

ANN learned this week technology that could be used for an "airport of the future" will be demonstrated March 27-28 at Florida's Daytona Beach International Airport (DAB) by an aviation industry consortium led by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Lockheed Martin, and the airport authority. The demonstration sessions will be held in the airport's international terminal.

The Integrated Airport Project, to be implemented by the consortium over a three-year period, will showcase emerging technologies in safety, security, capacity, and overall efficiency of the next generation of airports. The effort comes amid industry predictions that air traffic will increase by 300 percent by the year 2025. 

The Integrated Airport Project began in 2006 as a way to address such timely issues as airport security and business operations; airline dispatch and ramp operations; FAA terminal radar approach control and surface operations; and collaborative arrival and departure management.

"The intention is to show that applications and systems that have already been developed can be consolidated into a single integrated airport," said Embry-Riddle Interim Provost Christina Frederick-Recascino. She added Daytona Beach International Airport will be the national test bed for this project.

Embry-Riddle and its partners are proposing that half the cost of the project be covered by the private companies providing technological expertise. The other half would be obtained through federal sources by the agencies that manage the U.S. airspace.

In the months since it began, the consortium has added industry partners Transtech Airport Solutions, ENSCO, Mosaic ATM, Jeppesen, Sensis, Boeing, and CSC, and is exploring the addition of new partners that would bring key technologies to the project.

The conference will take place from 0830-1200 each day. It is the first of three such gatherings planned for 2007.

FMI: www.erau.edu