The Flexible Solution

ACSS has developed a military-specific application from our commercial surveillance system that addresses unique requirements of the military. This set of technologies is known as Military Airborne Surveillance System (MASS™) and is based on commercial Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) technology. The ACSS Cooperative Member functionality, a subset of MASS, is a software change to the TCAS 2000 or T²CAS™ computer and the Mode S/IFF Transponder that provides a system capable of supporting unique military flight requirements such as formation flight and rendezvous operations in commercial airspace.

The use of ADS-B and adaptive power level interrogation techniques will prevent interference with the civil ATC environment. The system will include cooperative member identification using Flight ID and Mode S address, unique cockpit display characteristics for cooperative members, and the ability to select an aircraft for display of specific aircraft data.

In addition to standard TCAS modes, the MASS product provides military operational modes that support operation in cooperative flight situations such as large formation or rendezvous operations. When Cooperative Flight Mode is not selected, the system will perform normally as a TCAS/ACAS II collision avoidance system. The MASS product is easily upgradeable to T²CAS™ by adding the innovative Thales Avionics Ground Collision Avoidance Module TAWS system to the TCAS 2000 LRU.