Air Traffic Control

Abstract

The Tactical Airspace Integration System (TAIS) is the Army's program of record for Airspace Control (AC) and enroute Air Traffic Services (ATS). TAIS provides Airspace Management, planning, and dynamic execution capabilities at all echelons above Brigade, and enroute flight following air traffic services. TAIS is the only Army system with direct interface to the U.S. Air Force Air Operations Center (AOC) Weapon System for submission of the Army's requests for airspace from the Battlefield Coordination Detachment (BCD). Airspace Coordinating Measure Requests (ACMREQs) received from other mission command systems are passed to TAIS for approval or higher coordination. TAIS software supports U.S. Army commanders, airspace users, airspace managers, Army air traffic controllers, Joint organizations, and Unified Action Partners (UAP) by providing digitized, multi-echelon planning and execution of airspace management and Air Traffic Services. TAIS provides AC planning and enhanced AC execution; improved theater, intra-, and inter-Corps/Division Air Traffic Services (ATS) support; effective battlespace synchronization; and direct links to the Theater Air Ground System (TAGS) through interface with the automated airspace planning and communications systems of the Joint Force Air Component Commander (JFACC). TAIS modernization is mandated through Common Operating Environment (COE) Software convergence, and eventually C2 Fix and Pivot strategies, to the Integrated Mission Planning and Airspace Control Tools (IMPACT). IMPACT contributes to four of the Army's six modernization priorities: future vertical lift, long range precision fires, the network, and air and missile defense. IMPACT also directly supports the National Military Strategy Joint force task of integrating capabilities rapidly. IMPACT is the software convergence of AC and will provide interoperability with Army Mission Command, Joint, and UAP systems. This will facilitate AC capabilities, enhance situational understanding, reduce risks, and provide more effective Air-Ground Integration to enable Multi-Domain Operations (MDO), Joint All Domain Operations (JADO), and Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2). IMPACT will be instantiated across Command Post Computing Environment (CE), Mounted CE, and Mobile/Handheld CE and will extend AC services to the tactical edge. Any changes driven by the C2 Pivot and Fix strategy will be assessed in terms of cost, schedule, and performance impacts to product development. The modernized software baseline is following Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) tenants of the Software Acquisition Pathway (SWP) of the Adaptive Acquisition Framework (AAF) to leverage the shift to more Agile acquisition to mirror modern Agile development and delivery. This includes use of Government owned Software Factories and DEVSECOPS processes to ensure that products are tested early and often to mitigate cyber and other vulnerabilities to delivery hardened code from the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) through all successive Minimum Viable Capability Releases (MVCR). TAIS and IMPACT plans to leverage Air Space Total Awareness for Rapid Tactical Execution (ASTARTE) technology. ASTARTE provides artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms which will allow IMPACT to achieve more rapid synchronization of airspace planning and dynamic execution. This will enable commanders to maximize airspace usage, increase freedom of maneuver in the 3rd dimension, enhance safety and fratricide prevention, and enable seamless integration / deconfliction of fires and aviation operations in highly congested and complex environments during Large Scale Combat Operations (LSCO). Persistent experimentation events like Project Convergence and COCOM sponsored exercises continue to confirm the existence of airspace planning and management challenges that are only increasing in complexity. IMPACT has been part of Project Convergence and Experimental Demonstration Gateway Event (EDGE) events in demonstrating critical mission threads showing a measurable reduction in sensor to shooter timelines.

Document Details

• Document Type: Project
• Publication Date: Oct 01, 2025
• Source ID: 586_0604633A_5_2040_PB_2025

Tags

Readers

• Aviation Safety and Air Traffic Management
• Enterprise Information Systems Architecture and Joint Command Capability Interoperability Support.
• Joint Military Operations and Doctrine.

Technology Areas

• AI & ML
• AI & ML - Autonomous Systems
• AI & ML - DoD AI Strategy
• Cyber
• Fully Networked C3
• Fully Networked C3 - Command and Control
• Space