Photo Credit: Karl Jansen
The growing number of plane trips in the United States and the world is causing major congestion in the air. In reality there is more than enough space for planes. However, keeping track of all those planes and maintaining the several mile buffer between them as required by the FAA is becoming a challenge for the the antiquated air traffic control system that is currently in place. As a result, work is being done to try and fix this problem by the FAA, NASA, and others. This work ranges from theoretical optimization of the air space for plane trip mapping, to better hardware to track planes so they can fly closer. All this work will be necessary as more and more planes take to the sky in the coming years.