Document Scope and Objectives

The ICAO Annex 6 SARPs and the associated ICAO Global Aeronautical Distress and Safety System (GADSS) Concept of Operations (CONOPS) describe a package of capabilities to enhance locating a downed aircraft or an aircraft in distress. These capabilities cover aircraft tracking during routine operations (normal tracking), distress tracking, improved aircraft crash site localization, and the timely recovery of flight data.

The scope of this report is to document the system-level requirements for a TRFD system and provide a survey of potential architectures to support these requirements. The broader ICAO Annex 6 and GADSS CONOPS scope and the focused scope of this study are shown in Figure 1.

The primary purpose of the requirements and architectural studies in this report is to provide a basis for developing standards to support effective implementation of the ICAO TRFD SARPs in terms of understanding key requirements, functions, and interfaces. The objectives of this document are as follows:

• Capture all currently documented ICAO and regulatory system-level requirements for a TRFD system as of the release of this report (as a “snapshot” in time).

• Integrate these and derive a set of requirements to evaluate a range of potential TRFD architectures.

Note: The derived requirements set are a means to provide a common baseline for developing and evaluating architectures and interfaces.

• Perform a study of applicable TRFD architectures to support aircraft implementation and related standards development.

A secondary purpose for this report is to support the industry’s understanding of the requirements and options for a TRFD system.