It has been around longer than you can believe; but only in the last 30 years have aircraft come online that have much better performance. The recent big deal was the FAA finally allowing the use of non-certified avionics in certified aircraft, breaking the stranglehold that the avionics industry had on the sector, driving down prices by near orders of magnitude.

For example, four years ago, a Garmin ADS-B capable transponder, just one part of an aviomics stack, was once over $12,500. They are now less than a tenth of that...new.