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At least 271 records · Page 15

Strategic Design of Long-Haul and Oceanic Aircraft Trajectories in Aviation Operations

Long-Haul Aircraft consume most of their fuel during the cruise phase of flight. The inefficiency in cruise flights compared to efficient routes varies is around 3 to 4. The efficiency of oceanic flights is low due to limited navigational and communication equipment, congestion and airspace restrictions. The availability of Automated Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) and other improvements provides opportunity for better strategic planning of trajectories. Transatlantic flights between US and Europe constitute one of the busiest oceanic airspace regions in the world. This talk examines the benefits of a wind-optimal trajectory concept with a strategic de-confliction component compared to the current flight planning using the North Atlantic Tracks. The analysis is based on air traffic between US and Europe during July 2012. The potential fuel savings are in the range of (420-970) kg per flight for a Boeing 767-300, the most widely used aircraft between the city-pairs in this study. The talk also describes a global simulation of aviation operations combining flight plans and real air traffic data with historical commercial city-pair aircraft type and schedule data and global atmospheric data. The resulting capability extends the simulation and optimization functions of NASAs Future Air Traffic Management Concept Evaluation Tool (FACET) to global scale. This new capability is used to characterize the evolution of global air traffic, analyze fuel savings and seasonal variations in the long-haul wind-optimal traffic patterns in six major regions of the world.

strategic trajectory design↗

Automating analog design: Taming the shrew

The pace of progress in the design of integrated circuits continues to amaze observers inside and outside of the industry. Three decades ago, a 50 transistor chip was a technological wonder. Fifteen year later, a 5000 transistor device would 'wow' the crowds. Today, 50,000 transistor chips will earn a 'not too bad' assessment, but it takes 500,000 to really leave an impression. In 1975 a typical ASIC device had 1000 transistors, took one year to first samples (and two years to production) and sold for about 5 cents per transistor. Today's 50,000 transistor gate array takes about 4 months from spec to silicon, works the first time, and sells for about 0.02 cents per transistor. Fifteen years ago, the single most laborious and error prone step in IC design was the physical layout. Today, most IC's never see the hand of a layout designer: and automatic place and route tool converts the engineer's computer captured schematic to a complete physical design using a gate array or a library of standard cells also created by software rather than by designers. CAD has also been a generous benefactor to the digital design process. The architect of today's digital systems creates the design using an RTL or other high level simulator. Then the designer pushes a button to invoke the logic synthesizer-optimizer tool. A fault analyzer checks the result for testability and suggests where scan based cells will improve test coverage. One obstinate holdout amidst this parade of progress is the automation of analog design and its reduction to semi-custom techniques. This paper investigates the application of CAD techniques to analog design.

Barlow, A.↗

Optimizing Aerobot Exploration of Venus

Venus Flyer Robot (VFR) is an aerobot; an autonomous balloon probe designed for remote exploration of Earth's sister planet in 2003. VFR's simple navigation and control system permits travel to virtually any location on Venus, but it can survive for only a limited duration in the harsh Venusian environment. To help address this limitation, we develop: (1) a global circulation model that captures the most important characteristics of the Venusian atmosphere; (2) a simple aerobot model that captures thermal restrictions faced by VFR at Venus; and (3) one exact and two heuristic algorithms that, using abstractions (1) and (2), construct routes making the best use of VFR's limited lifetime. We demonstrate this modeling by planning several small example missions and a prototypical mission that explores numerous interesting sites recently documented in the plane tary geology literature.

SPACE EXPLORATION↗

Natural Language Processing Analysis of Notices to Airmen for Air Traffic Management Optimization

With new emerging technologies in the field of NLP, we explore their applications to digitize and analyze heritage Air Traffic Management (ATM) documents for planning and optimizing airspace operations. Specifically, this research focuses on harvesting semi-structured or un-structured information contained in Notices to Airmen (NOTAMs). Using NLP and other advanced data analytics, we will construct a data-driven framework which facilitates finding language patterns and the use of pretrained language models for classification and extraction of useful airspace constraints and restrictions. These may lead to tools that assist airspace users in understanding the constraints more efficiently, contributing to better route planning and safer execution. This paper explores three workflows entailing different NLP tasks. First, unsupervised techniques like word embedding and topic modeling are used for pattern finding and document classification. Second, a dataset is created by extracting information from the semi-structured NOTAM format as metadata for categorizing, visualizing, and extracting key entities driving NOTAM content. Third, modern pre-built deep learning based transformer models such as BERT, RoBERTa, and XLNet are evaluated on the question answering task, an even more robust approach to information extraction, as well as their respective fine-tuning tasks. In this work we include various performance metrics for the trained models to evaluate both accuracy and precision and we show that the models can be generalized for their respective tasks. The research work developed shows promise in uncovering trends in digital NOTAMs in the NAS and also offers a new framework for digitizing and inferring insights from free-form legacy NOTAMs, that are yet to be digitized.

Natural Language Processing↗

Natural Language Processing (NLP) Analysis of NOTAMs for Air Traffic Management Optimization

With new emerging technologies in the field of NLP, we explore their applications to digitize and analyze heritage Air Traffic Management (ATM) documents for planning and optimizing airspace operations. Specifically, this research focuses on harvesting semi-structured or un-structured information contained in Notices to Airmen (NOTAMs). Using NLP and other advanced data analytics, we will construct a data-driven framework which facilitates finding language patterns and the use of pretrained language models for classification and extraction of useful airspace constraints and restrictions. These may lead to tools that assist airspace users in understanding the constraints more efficiently, contributing to better route planning and safer execution. This paper explores three workflows entailing different NLP tasks. First, unsupervised techniques like word embedding and topic modeling are used for pattern finding and document classification. Second, a dataset is created by extracting information from the semi-structured NOTAM format as metadata for categorizing, visualizing, and extracting key entities driving NOTAM content. Third, modern pre-built deep learning based transformer models such as BERT, RoBERTa, and XLNet are evaluated on the question answering task, an even more robust approach to information extraction, as well as their respective fine-tuning tasks. In this work we include various performance metrics for the trained models to evaluate both accuracy and precision and we show that the models can be generalized for their respective tasks. The research work developed shows promise in uncovering trends in digital NOTAMs in the NAS and also offers a new framework for digitizing and inferring insights from free-form legacy NOTAMs, that are yet to be digitized. Video is an mp4 download, with a play time of 9 min 35 secs.

Natural Language Processing↗

Design and simulation of a descent controller for strategic four-dimensional aircraft navigation

A time-controlled navigation system applicable to the descent phase of flight for airline transport aircraft was developed and simulated. The design incorporates the linear discrete-time sampled-data version of the linearized continuous-time system describing the aircraft's aerodynamics. Using optimal linear quadratic control techniques, an optimal deterministic control regulator which is implementable on an airborne computer is designed. The navigation controller assists the pilot in complying with assigned times of arrival along a four-dimensional flight path in the presence of wind disturbances. The strategic air traffic control concept is also described, followed by the design of a strategic control descent path. A strategy for determining possible times of arrival at specified waypoints along the descent path and for generating the corresponding route-time profiles that are within the performance capabilities of the aircraft is presented. Using a mathematical model of the Boeing 707-320B aircraft along with a Boeing 707 cockpit simulator interfaced with an Adage AGT-30 digital computer, a real-time simulation of the complete aircraft aerodynamics was achieved. The strategic four-dimensional navigation controller for longitudinal dynamics was tested on the nonlinear aircraft model in the presence of 15, 30, and 45 knot head-winds. The results indicate that the controller preserved the desired accuracy and precision of a time-controlled aircraft navigation system.

Lax, F. M.↗

Pharmacotherapeutic Aspects of Space Medicine

Medications are used for a wide variety of indications during space flight. For example, astronauts have taken drugs in flight to ameliorate or prevent symptoms of space motion sickness, headache, sleeplessness, backache, nasal congestion, and constipation. Russian cosmonauts reportedly take medications to prevent metabolic disturbances of the myocardium and intestinal flora, and to optimize their work capacity. Although the discomfort associated with some acute responses to microgravity (e.g., space motion sickness) is expected to diminish with length of time in flight, other responses that have delayed onset (e.g., maintaining nutritional status, bone and muscle strength, and perhaps immune response) may affect health and quality of life during longer missions. Therefore, as the duration of space flights increases, the need for treatment with medications is expected to increase accordingly. Medications carried on Space Shuttle missions have varied somewhat from flight to flight, depending on the individual needs of the crewmembers. Medications use during Shuttle flights seems to be more prevalent than during earlier programs, perhaps because drugs are provided in easy-to-use forms. In fact, nearly all medications taken to date have been ingested orally in tablet form. However, given that the oral route may not be ideal for those suffering motion-sickness symptoms, intramuscular and intranasal preparations are being tested. For example, intramuscular administration of promethazine hydrochloride (Phenergan(Registered TradeMark)) has been reported to be more effective in alleviating motion-sickness symptoms. The difficulties involved in conducting definitive studies of drug efficacy during U.S. space flights have been compounded by the absence of a systematic approach to determining which drugs were taken by whom and under what circumstances. The use of some drugs in space has been less efficacious than expected. The onset, intensity, and duration of the response produced by any drug depend upon rates of absorption, distribution, metabolism, and elimination of the drug; space flight-induced changes in blood flow and the function of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, liver, or kidneys may alter these processes. Another important aspect of clinical efficacy of medications in space is the stability of pharmaceuticals. As the U.S. space program is moving toward extended Space Shuttle flights and beyond, to space station missions and planetary explorations, understanding how space flight affects organ systems and clinical pharmacology is necessary to optimize pharmacotherapeutics in space and ensure adequate safety and health of crewmembers.

Putcha, Lakshmi↗

Effect of Mass Transfer on Aeroheating in Hypersonic Chemically Reacting Boundary Layers

Heat flux characterization of high-enthalpy boundary layer flows is key to optimize the performance and design of Thermal Protection System of next generation aerospace vehicles [1]. At atmospheric entry hypersonic speeds, ablation as well as surface catalycity impact boundary layer aeroheating. Out-gassing occurring from an ablative surface in planetary entry environment introduces a rich set of problems in thermodynamic, fluid dynamic, and material pyrolysis. Ablation leads to out-gassing and surface roughness, both of which are known to affect surface heating in hypersonic chemically reacting boundary layers via three main routes: gas blowing into the boundary layer from the wall, changing the surface heat transfer due to wall-flow chemical reactions, and modifying surface roughness via ablative processes.

Karimi, Mona↗

Traveling Wave Tube (TVT) RF Power Combining Demonstration for use in the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO)

The Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) is set to launch between the years 2012 and 2015. It will possibly utilize a nuclear reactor power source and ion engines as it travels to the moons of Jupiter. The nuclear reactor will produce hundreds of kilowatts of power for propulsion, communication and various scientific instruments. Hence, the RF amplification devices aboard will be able to operate at a higher power level and data rate. The initial plan for the communications system is for an output of 1000 watts of RF power, a data rate of at least 10 megabits a second, and a frequency of 32 GHz. A higher data rate would be ideal to fully utilize the instruments aboard JIMO. At NASA Glenn, one of our roles in the JIMO project is to demonstrate RF power combining using multiple traveling wave tubes (TWT). In order for the power of separate TWT s to be combined, the RF output waves from each must be in-phase and have the same amplitude. Since different tubes act differently, we had to characterize each tube using a Network Analyzer. We took frequency sweeps and power sweeps to characterize each tube to ensure that they will behave similarly under the same conditions. The 200 watt Dornier tubes had been optimized to run at a lower power level (120 watts) for their extensive use in the ACTS program, so we also had to experiment with adjusting the voltage settings on several internal components (helix, anode, collector) of the tubes to reach the full 200 watt potential. from the ACTS program. Phase shifters and power attenuators were placed in the waveguide circuit at the inputs to the tubes so that adjustments could be made individually to match them exactly. A magic tee was used to route and combine the amplified electromagnetic RF waves on the tube output side. The demonstration of 200 watts of combined power was successful with efficiencies greater than 90% over a 500 MHz bandwidth. The next step will be to demonstrate the use of three amplifiers using two magic tees by adding a 200 watt Dornier tube to the Varian and Logimetrics combined setup for a total of 400 watts. After that we will use two 200 watt Dorniers for 400 watts and eventually four 200 watt Dornier tubes to demonstrate 800 watts. After demonstrating the success of power combining, we will need to verify the integrity of a modulated signal sent through the combined tubes. The purpose will be to see what effects separating and recombining will have on the modulated signal and also what effect it will have on combining efficiency. A Bit Error Rate (BER) will be determined by a Bit Error Rate Tester (BERT) by comparing the random information it transmits to what it receives back. The process began with two 100 watt tubes, a Varian and a Logimetrics, salvaged

Downey, Joseph A.↗

Robotic Recon for Human Exploration

Robotic reconnaissance has the potential to significantly improve scientific and technical return from lunar surface exploration. In particular, robotic recon may increase crew productivity and reduce operational risk for exploration. However, additional research, development and field-testing is needed to mature robot and ground control systems, refine operational protocols, and specify detailed requirements. When the new lunar surface campaign begins around 2020, and before permanent outposts are established, humans will initially be on the Moon less than 10% of the time. During the 90% of time between crew visits, robots will be available to perform surface operations under ground control. Understanding how robotic systems can best address surface science needs, therefore, becomes a central issue Prior to surface missions, lunar orbiters (LRO, Kaguya, Chandrayyan-1, etc.) will map the Moon. These orbital missions will provide numerous types of maps: visible photography, topographic, mineralogical and geochemical distributions, etc. However, remote sensing data will not be of sufficient resolution, lighting, nor view angle, to fully optimize pre-human exploration planning, e.g., crew traverses for field geology and geophysics. Thus, it is important to acquire supplemental and complementary surface data. Robotic recon can obtain such data, using robot-mounted instruments to scout the surface and subsurface at resolutions and at viewpoints not achievable from orbit. This data can then be used to select locations for detailed field activity and prioritize targets to improve crew productivity. Surface data can also help identify and assess terrain hazards, and evaluate alternate routes to reduce operational risk. Robotic recon could be done months in advance, or be part of a continuing planning process during human missions.

Deans, Matthew↗

Preliminary Benefits Assessment of Traffic Aware Strategic Aircrew Requests (TASAR)

While en route, aircrews submit trajectory change requests to air traffic control (ATC) to better meet their objectives including reduced delays, reduced fuel burn, and passenger comfort. Aircrew requests are currently made with limited to no information on surrounding traffic. Consequently, these requests are uninformed about a key ATC objective, ensuring traffic separation, and therefore less likely to be accepted than requests informed by surrounding traffic and that avoids creating conflicts. This paper studies the benefits of providing aircrews with on-board decision support to generate optimized trajectory requests that are probed and cleared of known separation violations prior to issuing the request to ATC. These informed requests are referred to as traffic aware strategic aircrew requests (TASAR) and leverage traffic surveillance information available through Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) In capability. Preliminary fast-time simulation results show increased benefits with longer stage lengths since beneficial trajectory changes can be applied over a longer distance. Also, larger benefits were experienced between large hub airports as compared to other airport sizes. On average, an aircraft equipped with TASAR reduced its travel time by about one to four minutes per operation and fuel burn by about 50 to 550 lbs per operation depending on the objective of the aircrew (time, fuel, or weighted combination of time and fuel), class of airspace user, and aircraft type. These preliminary results are based on analysis of approximately one week of traffic in July 2012 and additional analysis is planned on a larger data set to confirm these initial findings.

Henderson, Jeff↗

Unmanned Aircraft Systems Traffic Management (UTM) Safely Enabling UAS Operations in Low-Altitude Airspace

Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) Enabling Civilian Low-Altitude Airspace and Unmanned Aircraft System Operations What is the problem? Many beneficial civilian applications of UAS have been proposed, from goods delivery and infrastructure surveillance, to search and rescue, and agricultural monitoring. Currently, there is no established infrastructure to enable and safely manage the widespread use of low-altitude airspace and UAS operations, regardless of the type of UAS. A UAS traffic management (UTM) system for low-altitude airspace may be needed, perhaps leveraging concepts from the system of roads, lanes, stop signs, rules and lights that govern vehicles on the ground today, whether the vehicles are driven by humans or are automated. What system technologies is NASA exploring? Building on its legacy of work in air traffic management for crewed aircraft, NASA is researching prototype technologies for a UAS Traffic Management (UTM) system that could develop airspace integration requirements for enabling safe, efficient low-altitude operations. While incorporating lessons learned from the today's well-established air traffic management system, which was a response that grew out of a mid-air collision over the Grand Canyon in the early days of commercial aviation, the UTM system would enable safe and efficient low-altitude airspace operations by providing services such as airspace design, corridors, dynamic geofencing, severe weather and wind avoidance, congestion management, terrain avoidance, route planning and re-routing, separation management, sequencing and spacing, and contingency management. One of the attributes of the UTM system is that it would not require human operators to monitor every vehicle continuously. The system could provide to human managers the data to make strategic decisions related to initiation, continuation, and termination of airspace operations. This approach would ensure that only authenticated UAS could operate in the airspace. In its most mature form, the UTM system could be developed using autonomicity characteristics that include self-configuration, self-optimization and self-protection. The self-configuration aspect could determine whether the operations should continue given the current andor predicted windweather conditions. NASA envisions concepts for two types of possible UTM systems. The first type would be a Portable UTM system, which would move from between geographical areas and support operations such as precision agriculture and disaster relief. The second type of system would be a Persistent UTM system, which would support low-altitude operations and provide continuous coverage for a geographical area. Either system would require persistent communication, navigation, and surveillance (CNS) coverage to track, ensure, and monitor conformance. What is NASA doing to test the technologies? NASA's near-term goal is the development and demonstration of a possible future UTM system that could safely enable low-altitude airspace and UAS operations. Working alongside many committed government, industry and academic partners, NASA is leading the research, development and testing that is taking place in a series of activities called Technology Capability Levels (TCL), each increasing in complexity. UTM TCL1 concluded field testing in August 2015 and is undergoing additional testing at an FAA site.

UTM Low-altitude↗

An algorithm for a general class of routing problems derived from Huygens' principle

If a set of N points or nodes with a nonnegative cost associated with each ordered pair is known, it is desired to find a path from one given node to another given node which minimizes the cost sum. An algorithm is presented which yields a global minimum solution after at most N - 1 iterations or on a typical large third-generation computer, after 1 hour of computation time for a 10,000-node problem. The rapid-access data storage capacity demanded by the algorithm is approximately 3N words for costs read in from slow-access storage or 2N words for calculable costs. The time-storage requirements of the algorithm known to the authors. When the problem is viewed as a discretized optimal control problem, after N-1 iterations, an optimal control or node transition is established for each of the N nodes or states; thus, the algorithm can be applied to situations were there may be errors in the control that necessitate a closed loop control that necessitate a closed loop control philosophy.

Avis, L. M.↗

Ocean thermal plant

A floating energy converter is described which uses large volumes of sea water to produce electrical power. In this plant, a fluid working medium is pumped to an evaporator where is is heated by a flow of warm surface sea water. The fluid in liquid form boils to a pressurized gas vapor which is routed to drive a turbine that, in turn, drives a generator for producing electricity. The gas vapor then enters a condenser immersed in cold sea water pumped from lower depths, condenses to its original liquid form, and then pumped to the evaporator to repeat the cycle. Modular components can be readily interchanged on the ocean thermal unit and inlet pipes for the sea water are provided with means for maintaining the pipes in alignment with the oncoming current. The modular construction allows for the testing of various components to provide a more rapid optimization of a standardized plant.

Owens, L. J.↗

Effect of Out-Gassing on the Onset of Hypersonic Boundary Layer Transition

Prediction and control of the onset of transition and the associated variation in aerothermodynamic parameters in high-speed flows is key to optimize the performance and design of Thermal Protection Systems (TPS) of next-generation aerospace vehicles [1]. Boundary Layer Transition (BLT) characteristics can influence the surface heating budget determining the TPS thickness and consequently its weight penalty. Ablative heatshields are designed to alleviate the high heat flux at the surface through pyrolysis of their polymeric matrix and subsequent fiber ablation [2]. Pyrolysis leads to out-gassing and non-uniform ablation lead to surface roughness, both of which are known to influence the transition process. An ablator impacts BLT through three main routes: gas injecting into the boundary layer from the wall, changing the surface heat transfer due to wall-flow chemical reactions, and modifying surface roughness [3]. In preparation to Mars 2020 mission post-flight analysis, the predictive transition capability has been initiated toward hard-coupling porous material response analysis and aerothermal environment calculation.

Karimi, Mona↗

Evaluating LSM-Based Water Budgets Over a West African Basin Assisted with a River Routing Scheme

Within the framework of the African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis (AMMA) Land Surface Model Intercomparison Project phase 2 (ALMIP-2), this study evaluates the water balance simulated by the Interactions between Soil, Biosphere, and Atmosphere (ISBA) over the upper Oum River basin, in Benin, using a mesoscale river routing scheme (RRS). The RRS is based on the nonlinear Muskingum Cunge method coupled with two linear reservoirs that simulate the time delay of both surface runoff and base flow that are produced by land surface models. On the basis of the evidence of a deep water-table recharge in that region,a reservoir representing the deep-water infiltration (DWI) is introduced. The hydrological processes of the basin are simulated for the 2005-08 AMMA field campaign period during which rainfall and stream flow data were intensively collected over the study area. Optimal RRS parameter sets were determined for three optimization experiments that were performed using daily stream flow at five gauges within the basin. Results demonstrate that the RRS simulates stream flow at all gauges with relative errors varying from -22% to 3% and Nash-Sutcliffe coefficients varying from 0.62 to 0.90. DWI varies from 24% to 67% of the base flow as a function of the sub-basin. The relatively simple reservoir DWI approach is quite robust, and further improvements would likely necessitate more complex solutions (e.g., considering seasonality and soil type in ISBA); thus, such modifications are recommended for future studies. Although the evaluation shows that the simulated stream flows are generally satisfactory, further field investigations are necessary to confirm some of the model assumptions.

Multidisciplinary↗

Ultrasonic NDE Simulation for Composite Manufacturing Defects

The increased use of composites in aerospace components is expected to continue into the future. The large scale use of composites in aerospace necessitates the development of composite-appropriate nondestructive evaluation (NDE) methods to quantitatively characterize defects in as-manufactured parts and damage incurred during or post manufacturing. Ultrasonic techniques are one of the most common approaches for defect/damage detection in composite materials. One key technical challenge area included in NASA's Advanced Composite's Project is to develop optimized rapid inspection methods for composite materials. Common manufacturing defects in carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites include fiber waviness (in-plane and out-of-plane), porosity, and disbonds; among others. This paper is an overview of ongoing work to develop ultrasonic wavefield based methods for characterizing manufacturing waviness defects. The paper describes the development and implementation of a custom ultrasound simulation tool that is used to model ultrasonic wave interaction with in-plane fiber waviness (also known as marcelling). Wavefield data processing methods are applied to the simulation data to explore possible routes for quantitative defect characterization.

Leckey, Cara A. C.↗

Usability Evaluation of Fleet Management Interface for High Density Vertiplex Environments

To meet the rising demand for an Advanced Air Mobility (i.e. urban and rural unmanned aircraft systems) ecosystem, NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) is hosting a series of simulations and flight tests under the High Density Vertiplex sub-project (HDV). HDV aims to develop an integrated automation architecture to support terminal area flight operations. The HDV simulations and flight tests address safety, integration, and operational challenges, while integrated systems and software demonstrate design readiness, robustness, and interoperability. During the initial HDV simulation in 2021, a prototype traffic management tool developed by NASA called Fleet Management Interface (FMI) was tested. FMI was designed to introduce an advanced level of human-automation interaction to aid both Ground Control Station Operators (GCSOs) and Fleet Managers (FMs) in remotely managing flights under their ownership. In a human-in-the-loop simulation, a usability study was conducted with FMI to identify optimal approaches for displaying information for human operators using subjective measures of usability, workload, situation awareness, risk, and trust, along with qualitative feedback. This study consisted of task analysis in which GCSO and FM subjects used an Urban Air Mobility (UAM) environment to develop and execute a plan for two different traffic scenarios of remotely controlled vehicles. In each scenario, a controlled vehicle completed a takeoff, active flight, and landing sequence while automated traffic flew in the background at a rate of 20 operations per hour. In the first scenario, the controlled vehicle flew a nominal route with takeoff and landing at the same vertiport. In the second scenario, the controlled vehicle started on the nominal route, then diverted to an unplanned location mid-flight. Results showed that self-reported performance, usability, trust, and situation awareness ratings of FMI were moderately to strongly high. There were small differences between scenarios, with Scenario 2 being perceived as more unstable, complex, variable, risky, and potentially harmful than Scenario 1. Furthermore, participants described improvements that could be made to create a better user experience. For example, users would like greater configurability of the interface based on their personal information requirements, and they would like the opportunity to review routes before assigning them. The results from this study will inform future development of the FMI with the end goal of creating a reference automation tool for airspace management procedures in AAM. The FMI could be introduced as a potential way to reduce dependency on traditional air navigation services through increased automation in high density vertiplex environments.

vertiplex↗