Integrated Air Surveillance Concept of Operations - Joint Planning ...

Integrated Air Surveillance Concept of Operations
clearance data for external users. Interagency Shared Situational Awareness is facilitated
primarily by multiple teleconferences (including the DEN). Shared Situational Awareness (SSA)
is improved further in the NCRCC by collocating disparate remote displays for DoD, DHS, and
DOT C2 automation.
2.3 Operational Constraints
Current air surveillance operations and infrastructure are not integrated and automated across
partner agencies. Information needed to assess the intent of an anomalous and/or suspiciouslybehaving
aircraft is not accessible to all partners across the multitude of their systems. The
inability to acquire, fuse, and analyze disparate interagency data and information feeds
automatically hinders detection, identification, tracking, and monitoring operations. For
example, the FAA-operated DEN, which is used to conduct crisis response and emergency
operations, relies primarily on voice communication as the primary source of interagency
information. It lacks digital communications and coordination tools to support the DEN, as
illustrated in Figure 2 below:
Figure 2: Current Integrated Air Surveillance Challenges
Shortfalls and gaps in current operations and systems, in addition to constraints on information
sharing, limit broader shared situational awareness and the full leveraging of existing interagency
air surveillance systems and capabilities. Gaps exist at low altitudes across most of the United
States interior, as well as the oceanic approaches. Incomplete coverage and limited capabilities
to conduct wide-area surveillance off the coasts produce additional gaps. Current plans to use
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