Air Traffic Management

Bringing Advanced Simulation and Visualization Technologies to Help Design and Build the Next-Generation ATM System


The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is embarking on an ambitious project to upgrade the nation’s air traffic management (ATM) systems. Each team under the FAA Systems Engineering 2020 (SE2020) IDIQ will need an integrated, distributed modeling and simulation environment to try out their new systems and concepts. Aircraft manufacturers will need to upgrade their aircraft engineering simulators to model the new ATM environment in order to test their equipment in realistic synthetic environments.

MÄK saves our customers time, effort, cost, and risk by applying our distributed simulation expertise and suite of tools to ATM simulation. We provide cost effective, open solutions to meet ATM visualization and simulation requirements, in the breadth of application areas:

  • Concept Exploration and Validation
  • Control Tower Training
  • Man-Machine Interface Research
  • System Design (by simulating detailed operation)
  • Technology Performance Assessment

VT MÄK is in a unique position to help your company in this process. Many players in the aviation space already use MÄK products for simulation, visualization, and interoperability. For the ATM community we can offer:

  • Simulation Integration and Interoperability. The US has standardized on the High Level Architecture (HLA) protocol for interoperability and the MÄK RTI is already in use as part of the AviationSimNet. We can provide general distributed simulation interoperability services, including streaming terrain (VR-TheWorld, GIS Enabled Modeling & Simulation), gateways to operational systems (VR-Exchange), simulation debugging and monitoring (HLA Traffic Analyzer).
  • Visualization. VR-Vantage can be used to create 3D representations of the airspace from the big picture to an individual airport. VR-TheWorld can provide the central terrain storage.
  • Simulation. VR-Forces can be used to develop specific models for non-commercial aviation entities such as UAVs, fighter aircraft, rogue aircraft, people on the ground, ground vehicles, etc. In addition, as an open toolkit, VR-Forces may well be preferred in many labs over the closed ATC simulators.