ATMOSPHERIC DATA ACQUISITION AND 
INTERPOLATION FOR ENHANCED TRAJECTORY-
PREDICTION ACCURACY IN THE CENTER-TRACON 
AUTOMATION SYSTEM

 M. R. Jardin*, H. Erzberger+

 NASA Ames Research Center
 MS 210-9
 Moffett Field, CA 94035




 Abstract

The Center-TRACON Automation System (CTAS), 
an advanced air traffic automation tool, requires 
knowledge of spatial and temporal atmospheric 
conditions such as the wind speed and direction, the 
temperature, and the pressure in order to better predict 
aircraft trajectories. Real-time atmospheric data are 
available in a grid format so that CTAS must interpolate 
between grid points to estimate the atmospheric 
parameter values. Because the atmospheric data grid is 
generally not in the same coordinates system as that used 
by CTAS, coordinate conversions are required. Both the 
interpolation and coordinate conversion processes can 
introduce errors into the atmospheric data and reduce 
interpolation accuracy. More accurate algorithms may be 
computationally expensive or may require a 
prohibitively large amount of data storage capacity so 
that trade-offs must be made between accuracy and the 
available computational and data storage resources. The 
atmospheric data acquisition and processing employed 
by CTAS will be outlined in this report, and the possible 
errors introduced by the data processing will be 
analyzed.


*Electronics Engineer. Member AIAA.
+Chief Scientist for Air Traffic Management.
 Fellow AIAA.

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