Project Title:

General Aviation Data Management

Seagull Technology, Inc.
1310 Hollenbeck Ave.
Sunnyvale, CA 94087

93-103.12   9620  __      AMOUNT REQUESTED $ 70,000

General Aviation Data Management

Abstract:

NASA has recently launched an initiative to rejuvenate the general
aviation (GA) industry in the United States by stimulating and
coordinating R&D in key technical areas. The central goal of this
effort is to create a new generation of GA aircraft which are very
easy to fly and as affordable as a luxury automobile. The new NASA
general aviation initiative seeks revolutionary improvements in GA
aircraft, especially in avionics and other cockpit systems. This
proposal for an integrated datalink and data management system
provides radical improvements in GA Aircraft data communications
and data management, in order to enable a central theme of the GA
initiative: improved situational awareness. Situational awareness
concepts are enabled by providing access to critical information
from the ground, on-board databases and other aircraft. There are
three especially important innovations provided by this effort: 1)
It designs a GPS-based traffic surveillance sensor, 2) It
establishes the first data communications and management standard
for GA aircraft, and 3) It develops a process for pre-certifying
avionics software components. These innovations enable lower costs,
which ensure affordability for GA aircraft. The work is directly
related to this subtopic's stated needs for situational awareness,
datalink systems and reduced certification costs.

The concepts proposed herein have significant potential for
commercial application. The software modules developed for datalink
and datalink management could be implemented on a significant
portion of the 200,000 general aviation aircraft in the U.S. alone.
The immediate market for the software is through direct licensing
to general aviation avionics manufacturers.

General aviation datalink, management, microprocessors, display,
situational, awareness