Category: Avionics

Aireon announced a new partnership with Thales to accelerate innovation in strategic air traffic flow management, addressing the growing global demand and complexity in airspace operations.

This collaboration, announced during Airspace World 2025 in Lisbon, brings together the AireonFLOW air traffic management data stream with Thales’ TopSky – Flow Manager. The partnership aims to deliver optimized air traffic flow solutions that reduce congestion, enhance predictability, and support more sustainable flight operations for Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSP), airlines and airports.

Both Aireon and Thales share a commitment to supporting the airspace management sector as it faces increasing traffic volumes and operational complexities. By leveraging their complementary digital technologies, the two companies will offer a cybersecured information sharing platform designed to enhance predictability and ensure continuity of air traffic services.

By integrating Thales’ Topsky Flow Manager with AireonFLOW, the two companies will provide unmatched accuracy in demand forecasting and flight trajectory prediction. This will enable smarter flow regulation decisions, strategic resolution of congestion across and within Flight Information Regions (FIR), and scalable cost savings beyond fuel efficiency improvements.

Aireon and Thales will also offer a secure information-sharing platform that enhances situational awareness during disruptions caused by weather, technical issues, or other events. This shared common operational picture will empower stakeholders to make informed decisions, coordinate contingency plans, and minimize operational impacts on passengers.

Additionally, the partnership will foster collaborative use communities of ANSPs and airlines to co-develop solutions using real-life scenarios and “what-if” testing in a safe environment. This approach supports cost-effective technology acquisition and cooperation across the aviation ecosystem.

This partnership builds on Aireon and Thales’s ongoing commitment to transforming global aviation safety and efficiency through innovative space-based surveillance technologies and reflects their shared vision for a seamless, collaborative, and sustainable global airspace.

“AireonFLOW offers best-in-class data to ANSPs to better manage their airspaces, providing a single-source of reliable and position data that extends well beyond any one FIR. We look forward to our continued collaboration with Thales to provide the most advanced ATFM services aimed at creating the aviation environment of the future,” said Peter Cabooter, executive vice president, customer affairs, Aireon.  

Working with a range of partners allows us to offer the most comprehensive, reliable, and innovative solutions to the air traffic management sector. Partnerships like these are crucial for the industry to thrive. By collaborating closely with Aireon, we can immediately deliver practical, forward-looking solutions that address growing air traffic demand, enhance safety, and support more sustainable transport options for the future,” Jeremy Hooper, vice president air traffic control segment at Thales.

Muirhead Avionics/AMETEK MRO is the first specialist avionics MRO business to trade with The Royal Mint’s new factory that has been set up to extract precious metals from circuit boards. On average, Muirhead Avionics near London, generates around 100kg of e-waste per month and this now goes to The Royal Mint in Llantrisant, South Wales, for processing.

David Bentley, divisional vice president at Muirhead Avionics, says the Company has a strong focus
on sustainable practices and when it moved into its new facility some 18 months ago, an energy neutral system to minimize the organization’s carbon footprint was established from the outset. “Finding an innovative, viable and practical way to recycle our waste circuit boards has always been high on our list of priorities. So, we are delighted to partner with The Royal Mint, Britain’s oldest company with a history spanning more than 1,100 years, and the original maker of UK coin,” he says.

Globally, a record 62 million tonnes of e-waste was produced in 2022, up 82% from 2010 and this is
set to rise another 32% to 82 million tonnes in 2030. “If we can play our part and help preserve rare
and precious metals for future generations but reducing dependence on traditional mining and encouraging more sustainable practices, then in our small way we are demonstrating to the aviation
industry that there are innovative solutions out there if you look for them,” enthuses Bentley. The Royal Mint’s 3,700 square meter facility uses world-first patented chemistry from Canadian clean tech company Excir. This extracts gold from printed circuit boards (PCBs) found in everyday items, such as TVs, laptops and mobile phones, in minutes. Excir’s chemistry works at room temperature, creating a more energy efficient and cost-effective method of gold recovery.

The boards go through several processes to be reverse engineered, and the different materials are separated into groups. The gold-rich components are then sent to the chemical processing line, where gold is extracted from the circuit boards within minutes via a liquid process called leaching. The
leached gold is then removed from the liquid solution via precipitation and filtration. These processes
produce a gold powder, which is further refined and melted in a furnace at approximately 1100
degrees Celsius, to create an ingot with a purity of 999.9.

The Royal Mint’s facility has the capacity to process up to 4,000 tonnes of circuit boards per year,
recovering gold and other precious metals such as copper, silver and palladium.

“The amount of gold, platinum and silver within avionics equipment has increased with technology
advances due to the superior conductive and corrosion resistant properties,” continues Bentley. “The
process with The Royal Mint was easy to set up and manage. We let them know what we have by
sending photographs and weights, and they collect the batch of circuit boards and attached accessories such as connectors and heat sinks from all of our scrap units and replaced components.”

Bentley goes on to say that this innovative activity complements the Muirhead Avionics’ sustainability program at the new facility near Heathrow Airport. It forms part of a continuously evolving range of initiatives which includes solar panels, green living walls, electric vehicle chargers, smart lighting and electronic insulating blinds on the windows.

Aireon is introducing AireonVECTOR, a suite of tools and resources designed to help aviation stakeholders stay apprised in real-time of changes in the GPS signal reliability.

AireonVECTOR (Validation & Enhanced Calculation of Tactical Operational Routing) leverages Aireon’s global, real-time, space-based automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) data and the precision of its advanced Iridium satellite backbone, to pinpoint the location of the aircraft independent of the onboard GPS.  Using our proprietary algorithm, VECTOR provides a validated, independent source of aircraft position data for enhanced operational and safety awareness.

The Aireon algorithm uses a ground-breaking analytical technique to calculate a “reference position” based on Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA) and independent kinematic modeling. Under normal conditions, this reference position aligns with the ADS-B transmitted position. However, in cases of single interference and spoofing, Aireon can detect real-time divergence between the reference and reported positions, providing an immediate indicator of degraded GPS integrity.

With that methodology, Aireon has developed a suite of capabilities that allow a range of aviation stakeholders – ANSPs, airlines, airports, safety organizations, defense and national intelligence agencies, and others — to access the data in the way and timing that suits the customers’ operational needs. From a real-time alerting framework to dashboard tools to monitor trends in a region to streaming data to fill in gaps in routes, AireonVECTOR has a solution to fit.

“GPS interference has become a significant concern for the aviation industry, driven by the rise of geopolitical tensions worldwide. Identifying GPS interference hotspots can provide valuable insights for aircraft operators, ANSPs, and other aviation stakeholders. AireonVECTOR offers a great deal of actionable information across the value chain to really drive safety and mitigate navigation challenges,” said Don Thoma, Aireon CEO.

As the only global provider of space-based ADS-B data, Aireon is the only company that can provide the accuracy, reliability, and consistency needed to derive these valuable operational data points.

AireonVECTOR products include:

• AireonVECTOR Flight: A position track of an aircraft that is generated independent of a GPS signal. AireonVECTOR Flight generates a “truth position” of the aircraft that has its basis in the timing of satellite receipt of ADS-B transmissions to produce a location that is independent of GPS-reported position.
• AireonSTREAM powered by VECTOR: Aireon VECTOR enhances AireonSTREAM by providing superior flight tracks even in the presence of high interference by combining ADS-B messages received directly via Aireon’s satellite network with AireonVECTOR’s calculated aircraft positions.
• AireonVECTOR Monitor: Leveraging a COTS visualization tool, AireonVECTOR Monitor provides detailed, real-time airspace data for ANSPs, allowing the users to perform detailed analytics into the sources and impacts of signal interference.

“Our customers consistently tell us they need trusted, actionable intelligence on GPS spoofing and interference. With AireonVECTOR, we’ve transformed the industry’s most accurate and reliable surveillance data into a breakthrough capability — one that delivers operational insight no one else can match with the quality and assurance our customers expect,” said Chris Devlin, Aireon Vice President of Product Management and Strategy.

In the coming months, Aireon will introduce more VECTOR products to the aviation market, including a real-time alerting capability and a map visualization layer for the detailed display of GPS Interference globally via API integration.

Earlier this year, Aireon released a GPS Interference metric to its Safety Dashboard product. The Safety Dashboard GPS Interference metric analyzes the trends of Position Integrity Categories, Individual Position Checks of possible spoofing, and heat maps of both values.

Universal Avionics (UA), an Elbit Systems company, announced an agreement with De Havilland Aircraft of Canada (De Havilland Canada) to supply avionics for flight deck upgrades on the Dash 8 series 100 & 200 aircraft. De Havilland Canada, the manufacturer of the Dash 8, selected Universal Avionics InSight display system to modernize the aircraft while increasing operational efficiency and digital capabilities with connected solutions.

This upgrade brings enhancements to increase navigation capabilities, safety with improved situational awareness and connected analytics for proactive insights. Automated database delivery helps technicians save 45 minutes on aircraft updates each month, while extensive fleet and aircraft data reporting is recorded in real-time for every flight. Norwegian-based Widerøes Flyveselskap AS (Widerøe) will be the first customer for the new system, enabling its fleet of Dash-8 regional operations to continue well into the next decade. 

“The selection of InSight for yet another aircraft platform, and within the airline market, highlights the versatility of the system,” says Dror Yahav, Chief Executive Officer of Universal Avionics. “The growing adoption of this modernized flight deck across more than 10 unique platforms signifies its success as an industry standard for today’s flight operations and builds on our collaboration with other exciting De Havilland programs.”

“Partnering with Universal Avionics to upgrade our Dash 8 100 & 200 aircraft reinforces De Havilland Canada’s commitment to investing in the fleet and delivering modernized and reliable solutions to our customers. The new avionics provides a good solution to replace components difficult to replace and repair,” said Jean-Philippe Côté, Vice-President of Programs and Business Improvement at De Havilland Canada. “Their proven track record in avionics innovation and deep understanding of the complex operations of our DHC customers make them an ideal partner as we continue to enhance the performance and capability of our aircraft and is aligned with our plan to keep our fleet flying.”

Universal’s InSight flight display system installation on the Dash-8 adds five high-resolution LCD displays with improved synthetic vision and digital engine indication, replacing aging CRT equipment to remove unnecessary weight and increase available payload. Precision navigation is enabled down to RNP AR 0.1, with enhanced terrain awareness warning systems for enhanced situational awareness. Dual touchscreen controllers and KAPTURE™ recorders streamline pilot and maintenance workflows, complemented by UniLink data communications and UA FlightPartner & FlightReview applications.

Following the agreement signed earlier last year, the project is expected to be completed by early 2026. Learn more about Universal’s connected avionics for regional airlines and InSight.