In aviation, Air Traffic Management System (ATM) is a multiple-function-integrated system specialized to supply Air Traffic Service (ATS). One of its main functions is managing and processing flight data. Flight data is an important object of system. Any problem happening to flight data can also cause critical problems to the system, affecting seriously to air traffic controller task, which can threaten flight safety.

From experiencing the operation of ATM systems in reality, the flight data problems often encountered are: flight missing, being suddenly lost, not being update, or being updated with wrong parameters. The reasons of these problems are mostly caused by the improper coming of ATS messages. Normally, flight data is managed in the form of flight plans (FPL). Their states are handled by ATS messages. Any improper coming of ATS messages can cause FPL state errors. For example, FPL message loss, unexpected CNL message, wrong message format, or wrong message time content can lead to the problems of FPL not being created, FPL being terminated suddenly, FPL not being updated, or FPL lifetime error.

As these problems are caused by the element from outside, not inside system, they have not got any thorough solution until now. It requires man labor to observe, manually retype and resend corrected wrong format messages. There are errors caused by wrong messages that reasons are not easy to be found. In order to deal with these problems, integrated solution as ATS Message Gateway (AMG) is proposed.

AMG takes the intermediate role between ATM system and ATS message network. It receives message from network, pre-processing, and then feeding them to the ATM system. The processing of AMG consists of exchanging message between ATM system and network, correcting wrong message format, investigating the messages coming for each FPL, taking statistics FPL in concerned categories, and filtering FPLs.

The design of AMG has been developed to apply for the NOVA 9000 system, which is managed by North Region ATS of Vietnam Air Traffic Management Corporation. Its software is written in C language, running on a COTS computer being installed linux operating system. The test results expressed the great effective of this invention. The system can auto update flight data from all coming messages. Flight data problems related to messages can be easy to be found based on the investigating and statistic result supplied by AMG. Not only save time and work load, AMG also help operators to early detect the potential problems, allowing them to have proper reaction timely. That can prevent the problems from occurring; raising the reliability and safety to flight operation.

The problems caused by ATS messages can happen to every ATM system over world. Therefore, a solution as AMG is surely needed by all of such systems. AMG can work independently and interface with outside via ICAO standard for ATS message transmission, so it can work with every ATM system from different producers. It can be deployed to upgrade the system currently in run, or merged to systems in developing progress.