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Performance Data Analysis and Reporting System (PDARS)
Overview
PDARS started as a joint FAA-NASA effort that was an element of NASA's Aviation Safety Monitoring and Modeling (ASMM) Project. The ASMM Project had the objectives of providing decision makers with insightful measures of the performance and safety of the national aviation system to identify life-threatening conditions, events and trends that could compromise safety. In addition, it wanted to provide reliable predictions of system-wide effects of proposed changes to the aviation system in technology, procedures and training.
Solution
ATAC developed PDARS under joint sponsorship of the FAA and NASA to monitor, measure, analyze, and graphically display air traffic operations performance, based on radar flight track data from air traffic control facilities. The goal was to create a system-wide capability to monitor day-to-day operations of the National Airspace System (NAS) and to measure Air Traffic Control's delivery of services, to ensure that they are safe, efficient, and meet the needs of its customers.
Southern California TRACON radar tracks as viewed in PDARS
PDARS is a distributed, component-based system that provides end-to-end data collection, processing, analysis, reporting, visualization, publishing, distribution, and archiving capabilities for air traffic control data. The system accomplishes these tasks on a continuous basis with a high degree of automation, accuracy, and reliability. PDARS extracts radar and flight plan data from HOST, ARTS IIIA, ARTS IIIE and STARS computers at FAA facilities, processes the data locally, and distributes the data and results to other FAA facilities via a secure Wide Area Network (WAN). Local performance reports are generated automatically each day and are available each morning at the facilities. In addition, data from all facilities are merged daily allowing for NAS-wide analysis. All facilities have access to each others' data and the merged data set as needed. The central PDARS database is an Oracle database, storing data from 33 FAA data feeds (20 ARTCCs and 13 TRACONS). 44 FAA facilities are connected to the WAN where over 250 PDARS user accounts have been established and more than 350 unique reports are generated daily. PDARS expansion plans include hooking up an additional 16 TRACONs providing coverage of all 35 OEP airports.
In 2003, PDARS was recognized by NASA's Office of Aerospace Technology for its contribution toward meeting NASA's aeronautics goals and objectives. On June 11, PDARS received the Administrator's Award at the 2003 Turning Goals into Reality (TGIR) Conference in Williamsburg, Virginia. The Administrator's Award is the most prestigious of the TGIR awards, which recognize the year's top teams for their significant contributions to NASA's aeronautics and space objectives.
For a comprehensive presentation of the systems capabilities, please review the Concept and Operations of the Performance Data Analysis and Reporting System (PDARS).
Client: NASA Ames and FAA ATO-P
Prime Contractor: ATAC Corporation
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