# Presentation: 533430

## ARINC Meteorological Data Collection and Reporting System (MDCRS)Communications Segment of NOAA’s AMDAR Program

- January 14, 2007

## Introduction to ARINC

- ARINC has provided information and communications services for the airlines and others since 1929.
- We operate one of the most flexible and sophisticated private networks in the world to ensure mission-critical communications for more than 700 transportation industry companies and government agencies, including:
- Approximately 100 airlines worldwide
- FAA and National Weather Service
- For the commercial aviation industry, we provide a global air/ground communications network with voice and data services for airline operations control and air traffic control.
- Headquarters in Annapolis, MD, with offices and facilities to serve customers in 140 countries.

## Air-Ground Communications Services

- Airlines use VHF air/ground data link service to communicate air traffic control, airline operational control, and airline administrative control between ground-based organizations and the cockpit.

## Air-Ground Communications Services

- HF/VHF  Voice
- VHF Data Link ACARS/VDLM2
- SATCOM
- HF Data Link (HFDL)
***Virtual 100% assurance of message delivery***

## Typical Data Link Applications

*Taxi*
_**From Aircraft**_
- Link test/clock
- Update
- Fuel/crew information
- Delay reports
- Out
_**To Aircraft**_
- PDC
- ATIS
- Weight & balance
- Airport analysis
- V-speeds flight
- Plan-hard copy
- Load FMC

*Take-off*
_**From Aircraft**_
- Off

*Departure*
_**From Aircraft**_
- Engine data
**Ascent Weather **
**reports**
_**To Aircraft**_
- Flight plan
- Updated weather

*En route*
_**From Aircraft**_
- Position reports
**Weather reports**
- Delay info/ETA
- Voice request
- Engine info
- Maintenance info
_**To Aircraft**_
- ATC oceanic clearances
- Weather reports
- Re-clearances
- Ground voice request
-    (SELCAL)

*Approach*
_**From Aircraft**_
- Provisioning
- Gate requests
- ETA
- Special requests
- Engine info
- Maintenance info**Descent Weather**
**reports**
_**To Aircraft**_
- Gate assignments
- Connecting gates
- Passenger & crew
- ATIS

*Landing*
_**From Aircraft**_
- On

*Taxi*
_**From Aircraft**_
- In
- Fuel info
- Crew info
- Fault data
-   (from central
-   maintenance
-   computer)

- Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS)

## History of MDCRS

- In late 1980s the concept of an automated aircraft reporting system for collecting weather observations was developed.
- FAA and NWS funded implementation and operation of the *Meteorological Data Collection and Reporting Service *(MDCRS).
- ARINC fielded MDCRS in 1991
- 3 Participating airlines; Delta, Northwest, United
- American, FedEx, and UPS participation added.
- Southwest joined in 2005.
- ARINC has continually provided the service under contract with the FAA.

## Importance of MDCRS

- MDCRS is an important data sources for aviation weather forecasts.
*Data show temperature inversions that forecast ceiling and visibility at airports in the LA basin. *
*Useful in forecasting wind gusts & LLWS in terminal areas. *
*Used in RUC model for aviation forecasts.*
- Benefits to the airlines
*Accurate wind forecasts enable efficient routing and fuel savings*
*Greater predictability of weather hazards*
*Improved forecasting of local conditions, freezing levels, icing, phases of precipitation, wind shear profiles and turbulence, potential for fog. *
*More accurate forecasts of temperature, wind, clouds, and storms. *
*MDCRS has become an extremely useful data source enabling a significantly better understanding of atmospheric conditions. (American Meteorological Society, Feb. 2003)*

## Airline Participation

- Today’s numbers
- 7 participating airlines
- American, Delta, FedEx, Northwest, United, UPS, Southwest
- 1500 aircraft report Winds and Temps
- 60 UAL a/c report Turbulence (EDR)
- 25 UPS 757s report Water Vapor
- >100,000 observations per day, >3M per month.
*High resolution 3-D meteorological data from commercial aircraft have been shown to  improve the accuracy of forecast, from short term (1 hour or less) to 1 week time projections. *

## Airline Participation – No. of Observations

- 3,291,986 Observations from 1,462 aircraft – June 2006

| Airline | No. of A/C | No. of Obs. |
| --- | --- | --- |
| American | 265 | 403,428 |
| Delta | 375 | 511,917 |
| Fed Ex | 194 | 437,665 |
| Northwest | 41 | 84,252 |
| United | 413 | 795,634 |
| UPS | 124 | 683,147 |
| Southwest | 50 | 375,943 |

## Content of Typical MDCRS Messages

- ACARS Header info contains Aircraft ID, Departure Station, Destination Station.
- Time of Observation – Day, Hour, Minute (6 char.)
- Latitude in Deg, Min, Tenths (6 char.)
- Longitude in Deg, Min, Tenths (7 char.)
- Pressure Altitude, feet (4 char.)
- Wind Direction (3 char.)
- Wind Speed (3 char.)
- Static Air Temperature – degrees C (4 char.)
- Roll Angle Flag (1 char.)
- Phase of Flight (when available) (4 char.)
- Turbulence (when available) (4 or 5 char.)
- Icing (when available) (4 char.)
- Water Vapor Mixing Ratio (when available) (4 char.)

## MDCRS Data Processing by ARINC

- ACARS

- Central
- Processor

- ARINC Packet
- Network

- ARINC Data Network Service

- NOAA/NWS“Gateway”

- MDCRS Server

- ACARS

- BUFR

- Messages

- NOAA/OAR
- ESRL/GSD

-  Remove message headers
-  Extract raw wx data, validate format
-  Remove airline and flight IDs
-  Convert to binary (BUFR) format

- GTS

- NOAA/OAR RUC Dev

- NOAA/OAR AMDAR Page

- NOAA/NWS
- NCEP

- NOAA/NWS NOAAPORT

## More than 100,000 Observations per Day

-  Some regions provide few observations and some provide more than are necessary.
-  Adding aircraft to improve coverage in data-sparse regions will increase data overall.
-  86% of soundings come from 51 airports; 13 airports account for 31% of soundings.
-  NOAA Objective - Minimum 1 sounding/2 hours from 100 geographically dispersed airports.

## Optimization Concept

- NOAA desires a minimum of 1 sounding every 2 hours from 100 geographically dispersed airports.
- Model for implementing an optimization system
- 2 soundings per hour from 25 major airports
- 1 sounding per hour from 15 airports
- 1 sounding every 2 hours from 60 smaller airports
- 1,700 soundings per day from 100 airports (assuming 18 hours of operation each day).
- *  Sounding collection tuned to more fully
- reach 100 airport/2 hour goal.
- *  Better data coverage and cost effectiveness.
- Enable selection of specific aircraft to provide only essential data to meet needs of forecasting agencies.
- Reduce number of meteorological reports being transmitted from aircraft without degrading forecasting capabilities.

## Typical ARINC 620 Reporting

- 91 samples during a typical 2:15 flight

-  Aircraft must be able to accept commands from the ground to configure reporting.

## Requirements of an Optimization System

- Send uplink message in ARINC 620 format to enable or disable reporting from aircraft based on a/c departure or destination airport and scheduled time of departure of arrival.
- Command reporting “On” for ascent, descent, en route, or for more than one phase of flight.
- Accept pre-planned schedule from NOAA for an entire day.
- Accept changes from NOAA to pre-planned schedule as often as once per hour.
- Accept flight schedules from participating airlines.
- Match airline flight number and aircraft tail number.
- Assign higher or lower priority to aircraft based on reporting capabilities.

## Summary

- Commercial aircraft are an important source meteorological observations for NOAA through the MDCRS program.
- U.S. airlines have been participating in MDCRS for 20 years.
- Currently about 1,500 aircraft operated by 7 carriers provide over 100,000 observations a day.
- While more data are received from many areas, some areas are not well covered.
- More aircraft can be added.
- Optimization systems can be used to select aircraft and flights that provide the most useful data and potentially more cost effective.