Aircraft Equipage is Crucial for ADS-B Benefit

ADS-B has a very unique characteristic: Unless other aircraft are equipped, your aircraft's ADS-B unit will not help you much. In other words, the benefits to a specific operator are co-dependent on the level of equipage of all other aircraft. The more aircraft that participate in ADS-B, the more beneficial the ADS-B system becomes.

As a result, the FAA is very interested in fostering a high percentage of equipage as soon as possible. Initially, the research that we are doing here at MIT was born out of this desire to create incentives for operators to equip.

After an initial review of the current fleet of aircraft in the US, it became apparent that General Aviation has been largely left out in the design of NextGen. And, since GA makes up 96% of the aircraft fleet in the US (see below), the efficiency of the ADS-B system would be diminished if General Aviation would not willingly equip with ADS-B.


To avoid this, the FAA has started to address how ADS-B could bring benefit to GA. Our research here at MIT are intended to help with this potential problem.