Engineering topics

Rein-Weston, Daphne

Publications and source records attributed to Rein-Weston, Daphne.

3 records

NASA NTRS2015

The Effectiveness of a Route Crossing Tool in a Simulated New York Airspace

Congested airspace is the cause of many delays in the terminal area and these delays can have a ripple effect on the rest of a nation's airspace. The New York terminal area is an example of where this happens in the U. S. An important goal, therefore, is to increase the efficiency of operations in congested terminal airspace where possible. Modeling studies of arrival and departure flows have shown that sharing of arrival and departure airspace increases efficiency in terminal operations. One source of inefficiency in terminal operations is that departure aircraft are frequently held level under arrival flows when it would be more efficient to climb the departure aircraft earlier. A Route Crossing Tool was developed to help controllers climb Newark (EWR) departures to the south earlier by temporarily sharing airspace with arrivals coming into LaGuardia (LGA) from the south. Instead of flying under the arrivals, a departure to the south could climb earlier by flying through the arrival airspace if there was a suitable gap between arrivals. A Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) simulation was conducted in this environment which compared three tool conditions: Baseline (no tool), a Single Route Crossing tool in which one route through the arrival flow was evaluated for crossing, and a Multi-Route Crossing tool in which five parallel routes were evaluated. In all conditions, the departures could be held level under the arrival flow. The results showed that controllers climbed a higher proportion of departures in the Multi-Route tool condition than in the other two conditions, with a higher proportion of departures climbed in smaller gaps and in front of trailing arrivals. The controllers indicated that the Multi-Route and Single Route tools helped them estimate distances more accurately and rated safety, workload, and coordination in the simulation as acceptable.

terminal airspace↗

NASA NTRS2014

Development of a Route Crossing Tool for Shared Airspace Environments

In current-day Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) operations, departure and arrival controllers maintain separate and dedicated airspace for their respective traffic flows. Although this practice has obvious safety features, it also leads to inefficiencies; for example, departure aircraft may be routinely capped beneath arrival airspace. With the right decision-support and coordination tools, departures could continue to climb through arrival airspace when sufficient gaps exist. Previous studies of ‘shared airspace’ have examined pre-arranged coordination procedures, as well as tools that gave feedback to the controllers on where gaps between arrivals were located and whether the departure aircraft could be scheduled to fly through those gaps [1, 2, 3, 4]. Since then, the Route Crossing Tool (RCT) has been developed to allow controllers to assess multiple pre-defined route options at points where the arrivals and departures cross, thereby increasing the possibility of climbing a departure through an arrival gap.The RCT aids in ensuring lateral separation between departure and arrival aircraft that pass through the same altitude. Since the RCT can be applied tactically, it can enable aircraft to fly through arrival flows even if these aircraft depart outside scheduled times. The RCT makes use of a set of predefined parallel departure routes crossing the arrival flow at equidistant intersecting points on the arrival route. The RCT uses the Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) of the departure aircraft at each intersecting point to calculate the lateral separation with the neighboring arrivals when it crosses that point; this information is graphically displayed to the controller. Additionally, the RCT incorporates forecast winds in its ETA predictions.Multiple prototypes of the RCT have been iteratively developed with feedback from Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). This paper presents the final design, the design process, and lessons learned. Initial results from a simulation suggest that the tool was successful in helping controllers to safely climb more aircraft. Controller feedback on the tool was also positive.

shared airspace↗

NASA NTRS2013

NextGen Operations in a Simulated NY Area Airspace

A human-in-the-loop simulation conducted in the Airspace Operations Laboratory (AOL) at NASA Ames Research Center explored the feasibility of a Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) solution to address airspace and airport capacity limitations in and around the New York metropolitan area. A week-long study explored the feasibility of a new Optimal Profile Descent (OPD) arrival into the airspace as well as a novel application of a Terminal Area Precision Scheduling and Spacing (TAPSS) enhancement to the Traffic Management Advisor (TMA) arrival scheduling tool to coordinate high volume arrival traffic to intersecting runways. In the simulation, four en route sector controllers and four terminal radar approach control (TRACON) controllers managed traffic inbound to Newark International Airport's primary runway, 22L, and its intersecting overflow runway, 11. TAPSS was used to generate independent arrival schedules for each runway and a traffic management coordinator participant adjusted the arrival schedule for each runway 11 aircraft to follow one of the 22L aircraft. TAPSS also provided controller-managed spacing tools (slot markers with speed advisories and timelines) to assist the TRACON controllers in managing the arrivals that were descending on OPDs. Results showed that the tools significantly decreased the occurrence of runway violations (potential go-arounds) when compared with a Baseline condition with no tools. Further, the combined use of the tools with the new OPD produced a peak arrival rate of over 65 aircraft per hour using instrument flight rules (IFR), exceeding the current maximum arrival rate at Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) of 52 per hour under visual flight rules (VFR). Although the participants rated the workload as relatively low and acceptable both with and without the tools, they rated the tools as reducing their workload further. Safety and coordination were rated by most participants as acceptable in both conditions, although the TRACON Runway Coordinator (TRC) rated neither as acceptable in the Baseline condition. Regarding the role of the TRC, the two TRACON controllers handling the 11 arrivals indicated that the TRC was very much needed in the Baseline condition without tools, but not needed in the condition with tools. This indicates that the tools were providing much of the sequencing and spacing information that the TRC had supplied in the Baseline condition.

NextGen↗