VIPMobile Air Traffic Control (ATC) Tactical Briefcase

Current air traffic control (ATC) tactical operations require disparate pieces of software and hardware equipment that fail to provide the controller or the pilot with network-centric real time information. The controller does not have a single unified graphical view of the area of operations (AO) that would allow him to make quicker decisions. This requires both the operator and pilot to envision a "mental picture" of the AO. The controller must use of multiple pieces of gear, which include a laptop, radios, lazing device, lights, and GPS. Scalability is dependent on the number of controllers who can carry all the ATC gear. VIPMobile will investigate and design a highly integrated network-centric, software/hardware solution that will provide the controller with up-to-date situational awareness to allow optimal information transfer, improved decision-making, and succinct communications between controller and pilot. The VIPMobile Integrated Software Visualization (VIP ISV) package combines VIPMobile's existing visualization and interactive GUI software, Georgia Tech's FalconView, and Harris' Multiple Image Exploitation Tool (MET) to create a single unified combat controller interface with multiple selectable dynamic layers that can be customized for mission type and data availability. The innovation is in the ability to dynamically register and update these layers and will be one of the key technical outputs of this project.