NASA demos future air traffic control technology

The National Aeronautical and Space Agency (NASA) has launched the start of what could be the world's most sophisticated intranet.

FutureFlight Central, which opened this week in California, is a state of the art air traffic control centre. It will eventually distribute real-time 3-D images of flight patterns over a private network to international airports.

The centre's simulation technology, developed by hardware company SGI, will visually predict flight delays and, ideally, help prevent collisions.

Currently air traffic control relies on highly skilled individuals building mental maps of flight patterns.

NASA expects the network to be up and running in 2010.