2008 Annual Report - NASA Airborne Science Program

Interagency Working Group
for Airborne Data and
Telecommunication Systems
(IWGADTS)
The Interagency Working
Group for Airborne Data and
Telecommunications Systems
(IWGADTS) was organized
at the behest of the Airborne
Science Program for the purpose of fostering
increased interoperability among airborne
platforms and instrument payloads within the
government research community. Besides
representatives from the various NASA
centers, its active members include NSF/
NCAR, DoE, NOAA, ONR, and several
academic institutions including the University
of North Dakota. IGWADTS meets twice
yearly to develop recommendations for
technical standards to increase infrastructure
commonality between airborne platforms
and instrument payloads, and to encourage
synergy between airborne research programs
with similar goals.
Ongoing topics of discussion include
standards for real-time data feeds (formats
and timing,) the implementation of airborne
ethernet networks, and the current status
of satellite communication and GPS
technologies. A survey of science instrument
teams is also underway, gathering information
on navigation data and communications/
telemetry requirements across the
community.
The “IWG-1” standard format for platform
navigation data, which originated from this
group, is currently being implemented in
the next-generation of NASA airborne data
systems.
More information may be found at: http://
www.eol.ucar.edu/iwgadts.
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