8.10 

 

Applying FX-Connect to the Prototype Aviation Collaborative Effort 

at the Fort Worth Air Route Traffic Control Center 

 

Dennis M. Rodgers*

NOAA Research - Forecast Systems Laboratory, Boulder, Colorado 

Thomas Amis 

National Weather Service, Center Weather Service Unit 

Fort Worth, Texas 

 

*

Corresponding author address: Dennis M. Rodgers, NOAA/OAR/FSL, FS5, 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80305-3328; 

email: rodgers@fsl.noaa.gov 

1. Introduction 

Adverse weather conditions, especially those 

associated with thunderstorms, contribute 

significantly to disruptions in air traffic operations 

within the National Airspace System (NAS). The 

effects extend to every sector of the aviation 

community and take the form of delays, reroutes, 

trip cancellations, and most important, a reduced 

margin of operating safety. When coupled with the 

dramatic growth throughout the industry, hazardous 

weather encounters are severely taxing an already 

overburdened air traffic management system. 

Industry growth is projected to outpace 

improvements to the traffic management system 

over the next five years. 

In 1978, the FAA and NWS established the Center 

Weather Service Unit (CWSU) Program, placing 

NWS meteorologists in FAA Air Route Traffic 

Control Centers (ARTCCs). This program was 

initiated by the FAA as a result of a National 

Transportation Safety Board recommendation 

based on the findings from a Southern Airways 

crash in north Georgia. This meteorological support 

is provided to improve aviation safety and enhance 

the efficient flow of air traffic through continual 

forecasting and monitoring of adverse weather. 

The effectiveness of this support is dependent upon 

CWSU forecasters maintaining close coordination 

with air traffic managers whose decisions affect the 

flow of traffic through the NAS. FAA personnel 

need the best available weather information to 

facilitate their mission of supporting aviation 

operations. The CWSU program has developed 

slowly, and not until the late 1990's did the CWSUs 

begin to receive newer technology that would 

enable the meteorologists to provide higher 

resolution forecasts and advisories to air traffic 

decisionmakers. 

Further progress toward achieving a more weatherresponsive air traffic system depends upon a joint 

FAA and NWS commitment that places increased 

emphasis on emerging science and technology 

applied to aviation weather forecasting. The FAA is 

actively working toward establishing a more 

definitive set of requirements for weather forecast 

information. Weather information needs of the 

ARTCC Traffic Management Unit (TMU) are 

described in an FAA Air Traffic Systems 

Requirements document (FAA 1999), forming the 

basis for a formal requirements document 

anticipated to be completed by 2003. When 

completed and mutually agreed upon by the NWS 

and FAA, this document will provide a starting point 

from which the NWS can launch appropriate 

initiatives aimed at satisfying these requirements. 

2. PACE 

The purpose of the Prototype Aviation Collaborative 

Effort (PACE; Rodgers 2002) is to design an 

operational test for demonstrating and evaluating 

the effective employment of developing science, 

technology and computer communication interfaces 

(NWS 2002). The PACE facility will initially develop 

a focused range of high-resolution forecast 

products specifically tailored to the ARTCC air 

traffic environment. PACE will build upon 

knowledge and experience gained from ongoing 

operations and testing, such as the Collaborative 

Convective Forecast Product (CCFP; AWC 2002). 

It is anticipated that an initial suite of graphical 

products will consist of convective forecasts 

followed by a phased approach to include icing, 

turbulence, and ceiling and visibility products based 

on requirements to be outlined by the FAA. Fort 

Worth ARTCC and FAA Southwest Region 

Headquarters officials have agreed to allow the use 

of their facility in the CWSU workspace for 
conducting PACE activities, with the condition that 

PACE activities do not negatively impact CWSU 

operations. PACE, initiated by NWS Southern 

Region Headquarters, is a coordinated interagency 

effort involving the Fort Worth CWSU, Houston 

CWSU, NWS Southern Region Headquarters, FAA 

Southwest Region Headquarters, and the Forecast 

Systems Laboratory. Additional participants may 

include other adjacent CWSUs and the Aviation 

Weather Center (AWC). 

The primary goal of PACE is to establish 

procedures to generate automated guidance 

products, share common datasets among 

operational units, and demonstrate how the 

employment of collaborative forecasting 

methodologies can lead to improvements in aviation 

forecast products. This process will begin with the 

development of thunderstorm forecast products 

formatted for use by the TMU. 

The specific objectives of PACE are to 1) define a 

methodology, and produce automated forecast 

products; 2) establish a methodology for state-ofthe-art collaboration technology, for promoting an 

exchange of meteorological information among 

several operational elements; 3) demonstrate the 

utility of collaboration to achieve more accurate and 

consistent forecast products; 4) establish a 

methodology for using the collaboration technology 

from FX-Connect; 5) verify results of the forecast 

products for use in an air traffic management 

system. 

Initial PACE exploratory development will be 

directed to prototyping graphical thunderstorm 

forecast products combining the National 

Convective Weather Forecast (NCWF; Mueller et 

al. 2000), the Convective SIGMET, and the CCFP. 

The NCWF provides an analysis of convective 

hazards with a 1-h forecast of storm positions 

updated every 5 minutes; the Convective SIGMET 

is a 2-h forecast of significant thunderstorms 

updated hourly; and the CCFP produces forecasts 

of significant thunderstorms at 2, 4, and 6 hours, 

updated every 4 hours. By combining these 

products in a graphical display, the TMU could be 

provided with an automated, frequently updated 0-6 

hour thunderstorm forecast. 

3. FX-Connect 

FX-Connect (FXC), a real-time meteorological 

display system with collaborative capabilities, is a 

main component of the PACE prototyping 

environment (FSL. 2002). A unique feature is that it 

can accommodate the interaction of forecasters at 

different locations through a graphical user 

interface. When connected to an AWIPS server, 

FXC allows the display of D2D data and imagery 

over which graphics may be created, manipulated, 

and viewed by remotely located collaboration 

participants. Although the AWIPS database is the 

primary and most extensive source of data, FXC 

can also obtain data (in image form) from Web 

servers and integrate data from other sources. The 

local data integration capability is restricted at this 

time to the display of surface data that have been 

stored in netCDF format. Details of FXC 

architecture may be obtained in Grote and Golden 

2002. 

The FXC system consists of two major 

components: the client component that allows the 

user to display and interact with meteorological 

data, and the servers that provide various types of 

data to the client. In some special cases the client 

and servers reside on the same machine. 

The FXC server comprises a collection of servers: 

Depictable Server, Scribble Server, Chat Server, 

Baseline Server, Point Server, Dispatch Server, and 

File Monitor. The Depictable Server is responsible 

for interfacing with the AWIPS software and 

exporting graphic products. It must therefore be 

hosted on a machine that has direct access to the 

AWIPS database and is able to run the AWIPS 5.0 

(or later) software. The Depictable Server satisfies 

all user requests for image or graphic products. 

The location of the Scribble Server and other 

servers is more flexible and in the future FXC may 

actually reassign these servers automatically if the 

hosts fail. During a collaborative session each 

server communicates with the clients 

independently, i.e., it does not broadcast the data to 

all clients. As a result, some degradation in 

performance may occur when a large number of 

clients are connected for a collaborative session. 

FXC clients are usually located remotely. In order 

for a client to connect to a server, the user selects 

the desired server from the FXC menu. Once the 

connection is made to the server, the client has 

access to most of the AWIPS databases at the host 

office. Some menu and table changes are 

necessary to add additional AWIPS products to the 

FXC user interface as required by the specific 

application of FXC. 

FXC is a Java 1.3 application that incorporates 

Remote Method Invocation (RMI) and is multithreaded. FXC executes on PCs running Win95, 
Win98, WinNT, Win2000, and Linux; and on 

Macintosh G3 Powerbooks running Yellow Dog 

Linux. Recommended machine attributes include 1 

GHz CPU speed, 1 GB RAM, and 20 GB or larger 

disk. A network connection (DSL, ISDN, or 

Ethernet) is also necessary. FXC is able to retrieve 

processed data from an AWIPS database, web 

server, and local databases. The performance of 

the software varies with the hardware configuration 

and operating system. The Java VM 

implementation for Windows appears to be the 

most efficient and dependable. 

FXC has three basic operational modes: local, 

remote, and collaborative. 

• Local Mode - In local mode, the client is not 

connected to any AWIPS server. However, 

the user does have access to selected data 

from remote Web servers and possibly 

some local data. This mode is useful for 

preparing briefing displays that do not 

require real-time data. 

• Remote Mode - In remote mode the user is 

connected to an AWIPS server that the 

user has selected from the FXC menu. This 

allows the user to access real-time 

meteorological data at the remote server. 

The user can display a variety of data and 

perform such functions as zooming, 

panning, changing colors, overlaying 

graphics, and animation on the client. The 

FXC server can accommodate a number of 

concurrent and independent clients. The 

maximum number of clients is controlled 

from a menu on the server. 

• Collaborative Mode - In collaborative mode, 

the user can perform all of the same 

functions as in remote mode with the added 

capability of simultaneously updating or 

controlling the screen of other users. An 

extensive drawing capability is available 

that allows the user to annotate the screen 

and share the annotation with the other 

collaboration session participants. There is 

also a chat capability that allows users to 

exchange text messages. Only one 

collaborative session can be held at a time. 

All users connected to a common server 

are part of the same session. The session 

can remain active although all clients have 

disconnected from the server. This allows 

users to rejoin the session at a later time. 

FXC features many conventional capabilities: 

• Display of diverse datasets (images, 

observations, and text); 

• Interactive display manipulation (zoom, 

pan, toggle overlays, overlay color); 

• Interactive display generation (cross 

sections, time series, time/height, model 

soundings); 

• Extensive manual graphic and annotation 

tools; 

• Display procedures. 

Advanced capabilities include: 

• Slide creation and presentation; 

• Chat capability; 

• Internet access to web products; 

• Display of data from any WSR-88D radar; 

• Creation and display of JPEG images; 

• Local (independent) or collaborative mode 

of operation. 

FXC will be used in PACE to explore methodologies 

for promoting an efficient exchange of 

meteorological information and collaboration in the 

development and production of new briefing 

products for TMU decisionmakers. One of the key 

features of FXC is the ability to annotate 

meteorological displays. This feature will play a 

crucial role in enhancing communications between 

collaborators, as well as in supporting prototyping 

and routine briefing product generation. 

NWS Warning and Forecast Offices, CWSUs and 

the AWC all have aviation forecast responsibilities, 

yet utilize different operational workstations and 

data streams; AWIPS at the Forecast Offices, 

Weather and Radar Processor (WARP; Harris 

2002) at the CWSUs, and N-AWIPS at the AWC. 

Forecasters with overlapping or intersecting regions 

of forecast responsibility will gain a shared 

situational awareness through collaborative 

analysis and diagnosis using FXC's collaboration 

capability. 

Another advantage of FXC in PACE is that the 

Depictable Server and AWIPS data server being 

used reside at AWC, outside their operational 

firewall and local area network, and outside the 

operational AWIPS configuration management 

system. This arrangement allows exploratory 

development and prototyping to occur with no 

impact to AWC's operational systems. It also 

allows the display of new operational products 

(NCWF and CCFP), which are not currently 

available on operational AWIPS displays. 
Additionally, the FXC Client computer at the CWSU 

is isolated from the ARTCC operational systems, 

with a commercial DSL connection to the Internet, 

posing no impact to that operational environment. 

In this implementation, FXC meets or exceeds 

current government IT security standards. 

4. Acknowledgments 

This work is in response to requirements and 

funding by the Federal Aviation Administration. The 

views expressed are those of the authors and do not 

necessarily represent the official policy or position 

of the FAA or NWS.

PACE is a joint project with FAA Southwest Region 

Headquarters, NWS Southern Region 

Headquarters, NWS CWSU Fort Worth, NWS 

CWSU Houston, and NOAA FSL. 

Thanks to Ed Tollerud for reviewing this extended 

abstract. 

5. References 

AWC, 2002: Collaborative Convective Forecast 

Product. Aviation Weather Center, Kansas City, MO 

64153-2371. [Available online at: 

http://ftb1.kc.noaa.gov/ccfp/index.php3.] 

FAA, 1999: Decision-based weather needs for the 

Air Route Traffic Control Center Traffic 

Management Unit. Federal Aviation Administration, 

Air Traffic Systems Requirements, Washington, 

D.C., 21 pp. 

FSL, 2002: FXC Users' Guide. NOAA OAR 

Forecast Systems Laboratory, 325 Broadway, 

Boulder CO 80305. [Available online at: 

http://wwwsdd.fsl.noaa.gov/FXC_UG/FXC_UG_TC.html.] 

Grote, U.H., and C. Golden, 2002: Extending 

AWIPS to support remote collaboration. Preprints, 

Interactive Symposium on AWIPS, Amer. Meteor. 

Soc., Orlando, FL, Boston, MA, 114-117. 

Harris, 2002: Weather and Radar Processor. Harris 

Corporation, 1025 West NASA Blvd, Melbourne, FL 

32919. [Available online at: 

http://www.govcomm.harris.com/environmental/pro

grams/warp.] 

Mueller, C.K., C.B. Fidalego, D.W. McCann, D. 

Meganhart, N. Rehak, and T. Carty, 1999: 

National Convective Weather Forecast Product. 

Preprints, 8th Conf on Aviation Range, and 

Aerospace Meteorology, Dallas. TX, Amer. Meteor. 

Soc., Boston, MA, 230-234. 

NWS, 2002: Prototyping Aviation Collaboration 

Effort (PACE) concept of operations at the Fort 

Worth ARTCC CWSU. National Weather Service 

Southern Region Headquarters, Fort Worth, TX, 22 

pp. 

Rodgers, D.M., 2002: Applying AWIPS technology 

to the Prototype Aviation Collaboration Effort 

(PACE). Preprints, Interactive Symposium on 

AWIPS, Orlando. FL, Amer. Meteor. Soc., Boston, 

MA, J326-J327.