Air Space Intelligence (ASI) has been selected by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to deploy the Flow Management Data & Services (FMDS) and Strategic Management of Airspace, Routing, and Trajectories (SMART) programmes.
ASI currently provides systems to enable live operations with major US Airlines and the U.S. Air Force. The new USD 875 million software and AI contract for FMDS and SMART is expected to span 12 years.
Under the contract, ASI will support the FAA’s modernisation effort to build a new air traffic control system – to support existing and future airspace users – bringing together operational data, predictive modeling and decision-support applications into a unified software and AI platform.
“The current NAS operation has a limited ability to anticipate the effects of the number and timing of forecasted flights and the effects of unplanned events such as weather, runway closures and other capacity limits,” the FAA said. “Additionally, it doesn’t identify and take advantage of large amounts of available airspace.”
The agency added that controllers often have to use numerous screens and spreadsheets to access this crucial information, hence the need for the FMDS and SMART programmes.
“With these two new technologies, the FAA can house all critical data in one platform and proactively identify delays and available airspace to mitigate them days, weeks, and even months in advance. These systems will also allow controllers to overlay weather patterns and flight paths into one central visualization.”
The FAA has targeted an initial operational SMART deployment for autumn 2026.
For more information
Federal Aviation Administration
Image: Shutterstock