Rocky Mountain Section

General MeetingDecember 10, 2009

Agenda

• 5:30 – 5:45pm – Meet/greet (free pizza)• 5:45 – 6:00pm – General Meeting– Section business

• Scholarship Application• Mini-Urban Challenge• 2010 Elections

• 6:00 – 6:30pm – Keynote Speaker– Dr. Mark Crews– ADS-B and how GPS supports this concept

• 6:30 - Adjourn

Section Business• Scholarship

– Information and application form is on RMS-ION website– Looking to award for Fall 2010 (or sooner)

• Mini-Urban Challenge– To design and build a robotic unmanned LEGO MindStorm car that can autonomously navigate through a mock

LEGO city– Competition

• Participants: High School students• Regional plus National Competition

– Need coordination team to prepare for 2010 participation• 2010 Elections

– Nomination process is open to all; send nominations to armstrong@infinity.aero– Elections will be held at January meeting– Terms begin February 1, 2010– The By-Laws are available on the RMS-ION website

• Misc. Topics– Open discussion

• Next Meeting– January 28, 2010 @ 5:30pm

• Keynote Speaker: Dr. Penina Axelrad (2009 Kepler Award winner from ION)• Location still TBD

Keynote Speaker• Mark Crews

– Former GPS chief engineer at GPSW in Los Angeles, CA– Currently Chief Technology Officer with ITT Space Systems in Colorado Springs

• ADS-B and how GPS supports this concept– ADS-B, or Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast, is a key component of the FAA’s

GPS satellite-based NextGen program, intended to replace the nation’s aging network of ground-based radar sites in the air traffic control system.

– The new system as designed will be 10 times more accurate than radar, according to the FAA.• ADS-B uses GPS signals to determine aircraft position.• The code containing a plane’s flight data is automatically broadcast from the aircraft’s transponder

once per second.• Aircraft equipped to receive the data and ADS-B ground stations up to 200 miles away receive the

broadcasts.• Ground stations add radar-based targets for non-ADS-B-equipped aircraft to the mix and send all

of the information back up to equipped aircraft, along with information on weather and flight restrictions.

• This data displays on cockpit screens and air traffic control displays.