帮助人们指挥飞机的自动化系统是怎么设计出来的？这篇文章告诉你
空管自动化系统作为民航空管部门实施对空指挥的核心系统，通过处理雷达信号等监视数据，为管制员提供空中飞行态势的显示和各种飞行冲突及各种异常的告警，通过处理飞行计划和动态电报，为管制员提供飞行计划和飞行动态相关信息以及管理手段，在确保民航空管对空指挥任务的安全实施中发挥着重要的作用。
我们把指挥飞机的人员称之为空中交通管制员，他们是怎么指挥飞行的呢？
在这里，就不得不提到空中交通管制自动化系统了。
In 1967 Lyndon Baines Johnson was president. The war was in full swing and the United States had almost half a million soldiers in Vietnam. The biggest concern for most young men was their military draft classification.
1967年，当时约翰逊任还是美国总统。
越战如火如荼，美国在越南有近50万士兵。当时大多数年轻人最担心的是入伍后分到哪个兵种。
NASA was hard at work planning their Apollo 11 mission to land a man on the moon. Bill Gates was 12 years old.
The Commodore PET personal computer was still a decade in the future. The word internet had not yet been coined. The functional equivalent of a Color Graphics Adapter would actually fill an entire large sized room; and it did not have color.
The Federal Aviation Agency was renamed to the Federal Aviation Administration, and became part of the US Department of Transportation.
当时NASA正在筹备他们的阿波罗11号登月任务，比尔盖茨才12岁。
要再过十年，第一台Commodore PET 个人电脑才会出现。
当然了，互联网这个词肯定还没有被创造出来。Commodore PET 功能简单，只能做一些色彩的简单适配，但是体积却很大；而且它不能显示彩色。
联邦航空局更名为联邦航空管理局，成为美国交通部的一部分。
In 1967 IBM delivered the prototype of the National Airspace System (NAS) En Route Air Traffic Control system.
This system was designed from a blank sheet of paper to do two things that were incredible for the time.
It would integrate certain pieces of hardware, such as beacons and radars together into a single system. Much more importantly, the system would connect together air traffic controllers, air traffic control sectors, and pilots all across the nation into a single system.
1967年，IBM设计了美国国家空域系统（NAS）空中交通管制自动化系统的原型。
这个自动化系统在当时并没有设计上的参考对象，不过它做了两件具有开创性的工作，一是将把某些数据源（如信标和雷达）融合到一个单一的系统中（第一件事）。更重要的是，该系统将把全国各地的管制员、管制扇区和飞行员连接到一个系统中来.（第二件事）
The En Route system was built to work on a group of 20 Air Route Traffic Control Centers that divided up the country according to geography. These centers were connected using real time data communications.
This was six years before the TCP/IP protocols, foundation protocols of the modern internet, were developed.
Each of these centers was further divided into a number of sectors that one or two controllers could manage at a time.
Air traffic control sectors also coincided, more or less, with the distance that radar could see accurately.
The mathematics of radar translated naturally into a polar stereo-graphic coordinate system. This coordinate system also worked very well in the “flat earth” space of a controller’s “scope”.
虽然六年之后（其实应该是1983年元旦），作为现代网络标准的TCP/IP协议才被开发和确定下来。
不过这个自动化系统在设计时已经有了一些局域网的设计理念，它将全美20个空中交通管制中心通过实时数据通信相互联系到一起，每个管制中心所辖空域又被进一步划分为若干个扇区，每个扇区内的航空器由一到两名管制员负责指挥。
你可把扇区理解为雷达所能覆盖到空域范围，雷达利用极球面投影方法将实际的立体空域投影成了平面图形并显示到管制员面前的显示器上。
Although software configuration management had been kicking around for a few years, it was mostly derived from hardware configuration processes, and was still not really codified in the industry.
IBM designed a process of allowing each of the twenty centers to implement a “local patch” to provide for necessary differences in each system, while each system was running the same basic software.
Although this practice drew a great deal of criticism in the years to come, it was a brilliant solution for the time.
尽管当时自动化系统中已经有了所谓的运行程序，但它主要是从硬件配置过程中衍生出来的，当时行业中还没有真正的软件编码。
IBM设计了一个进程，允许管制中心在运行相同的基本软件前提下，可以自己根据需要打一个“本地补丁”，用来满足各自的本地化需求。
尽管这种做法在今后几年里招致了很多批评，但在当时却是一个绝妙的解决办法。
The NAS En Route natural integration of geographic centers and sectors, hardware technology, and personnel was massively successful.
With twenty centers linked together across thousands of miles it became a model and a logical foundation for air traffic control.
This grew from the NAS En Route system, to military aviation, and soon became the model for air traffic control around the world.
You can walk into most any air traffic control center anywhere in the world and you will find the same familiar functions being performed.
Although the systems have different names and different authors, the same foundation logic structure is always there.
IBM的这套自动化系统将全国各地的管制中心、所辖的不同扇区、硬件和技术人员整合到一起，这种解决办法无疑是巨大的成功。
这套系统后来也应用到美国军方，并很快成为全球空中交通管制的典范。
如果你走进全球大多数的空中交通管制中心，你会发现大多数自动化 系统都是基于这种逻辑架构。虽然系统的名称和设计方不同，但相同的基础逻辑结构总是存在的。
Over time this logical foundation became policy both in the US and in the International Civil Aviation Organization.
People that want to pursue a career in air traffic control anywhere in the world, study the functions of this foundation. It has even evolved its own language for talking about the entire industry.
The NAS En Route system was nothing less than an engineering masterwork. The design logic was elegant in its simplicity, and craftsman like in its implementation.
All this, even though it was implemented on what today would be considered prehistoric computer hardware.
随着时间的推移，这一设计理念在美国甚至国际民航组织都成为了标准。
如果你想成为管制员，那必然要来学习这种自动化系统的功能。
NAS的这套空管自动化系统简直就是一个工程杰作。
它设计简洁，操作简便。
即使它在今天看来，已经是个老古董了。