Next generation of thales ADS-B ground stations - supporting the US Surveillance Broadcasting Services System Program

Abstract

Thales is delivering the ground station equipment for the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Surveillance Broadcast Services (SBS) Program which is part of the FAA Next Generation Air Traffic System (NGATS or NextGen). Demanded by the constraints and requirements laid out in the FAA essential and critical services specification, this new generation of automatic dependent surveillance broadcast (ADS-B) ground station equipment provides significantly higher performance and flexibility than its already successful predecessor AS680. This paper presents background, function, and performance of the new equipment generation.