As one of the greatest efforts to reduce the workload of all crew members and thus improve the integrity of navigation data in 1978 the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System or ACARS, is integrated in aviation.
Just in the 80s, this system became quite popular and over the years, this system has taken a great flight, in addition to developing multiple improvements to its system.
ACARS comprises a communication system, which is specified to encode surveillance between an aircraft and its ground station. All this, he manages to do, with the sole purpose of allowing him to automatically control the status of the plane during a flight.
In this way, it sends different types of data to the maintenance center, routing in the same way everything related to its operational and logistical communications.
ACARS, INMARSAT and HFDL What do you need to know?
During the 70s, airplanes began to have complex equipment with computers within their systems, but not personal computers, but other special ones for aeronautics. This circumstance, managed to open the door to further development, so in 1978, ACARS was given way to by its acronym in English, but this means “Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System”.
To all this, we must also add the fact that the communication equipment that was on board began to connect and which worked with the VHF bands: Very High Frequency and HF: High Frequency.
This combination allows the device to send and receive messages through an automated network, which are located at its ground stations.
Said stations are also connected to a centralized distribution system, which automatically routes messages between the aircraft and the ground receiver. This same process is even done in reverse.
For this reason, this network, which is made up of four satellites, whose location is within the geostationary equatorial orbit, just over the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and the east and west of the Atlantic Ocean, helps to provide all this, a wide coverage starting at 80 degrees north to 80 degrees south latitude.
ACARS quickly became a super important tool for the proper management of air operations. With this, it was also possible to facilitate not only the automatic sending of flight data, but also it was possible to exchange the messages that are made within the service and likewise, to receive meteorological information without any problem.
FANS and its data links
Years after ACARS appeared, ICAO formed a committee which began to be charged with creating an air navigation system for the future. Similarly, different concepts were developed, which became operational in order to achieve air traffic management.
For this system, they had to focus on the previous work carried out with ICAO, which had a broad relationship with ADS or Automatic Dependent Surveillance.
This advance has helped with the communications that take place between the pilot and the controller through the CPDLC data links or Controller Pilot Data Link Communications. Since then, these actions are known as “FANS” which describes the avionics system.
This system provides communication directly through a sophisticated data link with the pilot and air traffic control. In this way, it is possible to take air navigation and its own surveillance to a much higher level.