Description: Turbulence is a major hazard to all classes of aircraft, affecting aircraft on a daily basis. While a variety of systems are currently deployed to support the detection of forecasting of turbulence, all have limitations, many are proprietary, and often costly. Our innovation is a real-time turbulence identification system that can provide a uniquely accurate up-to-the-second representation of turbulence, can geofence boundaries around hazard regions, determine the impacts to Air Traffic Management (ATM), and provide a collaborative ATM mitigation plan. Automatic Dependent Surveillance — Broadcast (ADS-B) data, updated every 1 second, is used as the basis for in situ up-to-the-second turbulence detection. ADS-B-based turbulence data, when fused with other turbulence nowcasts, provides a clear representation of where turbulence exists, and where turbulence has been positively demonstrated not to exist (clear-air-altitudes). This solution does not mount any new hardware or software onto any aircraft, however, it receives data "for free" from every aircraft in the sky.

Benefits: Fundamental areas of NASA applications are: • Aviation Safety Research — system-wide safety assurance exploiting automated turbulence event detection • TFM Research — models of turbulence impacts into TFM (sector, center, or Continental United States (CONUS)) optimization problems, including collaborative Air Traffic Control (ATC)-Airline solutions • Hazard Display Research — display of turbulence events to AOC dispatcher and FD displays. Potential Government Customers: o Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to be used operationally in Air Traffic Services o National Weather Service (NWS) providing improved aviation turbulence forecasts and nowcasts o Military Applications Potential Commercial Customers: o Airlines for use in AOC centers and in AOC workstation displays and FD EFBs o General Aviation (GA) o IATA Turbulence Aware Platform o Industry Partners o Commercial Aviation Weather Forecast Providers