ABSTRACT
The Interagency Coordinating Committee for Airborne Geosciences Research and Applications (ICCAGRA) was established to improve cooperation, foster awareness, facilitate communication among sponsoring agencies having airborne platforms and instruments for research and applications, and serve as a resource to senior level management on airborne geosciences issues. The Interagency Working Group for Airborne Data and Telecommunications Systems (IWGADTS) is organized as a subgroup to ICCAGRA for the purpose of developing recommendations leading to increased interoperability amongst airborne platforms and instrument payloads, to produce increased synergy with DoD research programs with similar goals, and to enable the suborbital layer of the Global Earth Observing System of Systems. The purpose of this page is to summarize accomplishments to date.
Introduction
Airborne science in the United States is conducted by multiple U.S. government agencies. Collectively, these agencies maintain numerous manned and unmanned aircraft platforms that serve a global research community and hundreds of sensor systems designed for atmospheric in situ and earth-observing remote sensing measurements. Each of these aircraft have evolved data systems and services over the years that are, not surprisingly, independently designed and largely incompatible. This creates a detrimental effect on the productivity of researchers with instruments that need to migrate amongst platforms.
In January 2005 a group of representatives from U.S. agencies met for the first time to discuss closing capability gaps in airborne data systems. The group drafted a charter and decided at that meeting to organize as the Interagency Working Group for Airborne Data and Telecommunications Systems IWGADTS, a working group under the auspices of the Interagency Coordinating Committee for Airborne Geosciences Research and Applications (ICCAGRA). ICCAGRA has worked for nearly a decade to improve cooperation, foster awareness, facilitate communication among sponsoring federal agencies having airborne platforms and instruments for research and applications, and has been a resource to senior level management on airborne geosciences issues. The IWGADTS charter is available online (Click Here).
Accomplishments to Date
2005
- Established Working Group
- XX Action Items
- inaugural use of Google Earth for situational awareness displays
2006
- XX action items
- Draft introduction of IWG1 Trival Packet Format
- First interagency use of Internet Relay Chat server managed by NCAR
- Deployment of IWG1 packet format
- Two meetings, 1 Briefing to ICCAGRA (May 2006)
2007
- XX action items (NN cumulative)
- ()
- Two meetings, 1 Briefing to ICCAGRA ()
2008
- XX Action items
- One meeting (so far), one briefing to ICCAGRA
Looking Forward
comments on general direction....