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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 325 records · Page 18
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2004

High Altitude Long Endurance Remotely Operated Aircraft - National Airspace System Integration - Simulation IPT: Detailed Airspace Operations Simulation Plan. Version 1.0

The primary goal of Access 5 is to allow safe, reliable and routine operations of High Altitude-Long Endurance Remotely Operated Aircraft (HALE ROAs) within the National Airspace System (NAS). Step 1 of Access 5 addresses the policies, procedures, technologies and implementation issues of introducing such operations into the NAS above pressure altitude 40,000 ft (Flight Level 400 or FL400). Routine HALE ROA activity within the NAS represents a potentially significant change to the tasks and concerns of NAS users, service providers and other stakeholders. Due to the complexity of the NAS, and the importance of maintaining current high levels of safety in the NAS, any significant changes must be thoroughly evaluated prior to implementation. The Access 5 community has been tasked with performing this detailed evaluation of routine HALE-ROA activities in the NAS, and providing to key NAS stakeholders a set of recommended policies and procedures to achieve this goal. Extensive simulation, in concert with a directed flight demonstration program are intended to provide the required supporting evidence that these recommendations are based on sound methods and offer a clear roadmap to achieving safe, reliable and routine HALE ROA operations in the NAS. Through coordination with NAS service providers and policy makers, and with significant input from HALE-ROA manufacturers, operators and pilots, this document presents the detailed simulation plan for Step 1 of Access 5. A brief background of the Access 5 project will be presented with focus on Steps 1 and 2, concerning HALE-ROA operations above FL400 and FL180 respectively. An overview of project management structure follows with particular emphasis on the role of the Simulation IPT and its relationships to other project entities. This discussion will include a description of work packages assigned to the Simulation IPT, and present the specific goals to be achieved for each simulation work package, along with the associated deliverables necessary to achieve these goals and the needs of other Access 5 IPTs. The simulation environment chosen for this task is then outlined. This section includes a description of the system architecture, a list of the necessary assumptions made by the Simulation IPT, and the roles, responsibilities and interactions of simulation participants. The method of simulation conduct is presented in the next section with particular emphasis on scenario development and applicability to evaluation of Step 1 HALE-ROA operations. Following, data collection and analysis methods are discussed for air traffic specialists and air vehicle control station operators. Lastly, a schedule of Step 1 simulation activities is presented for reference.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1999

The Effects of Shared Information on Pilot-Controller Situation Awareness And Re-Route Negotiation

The effect of shared information is assessed in terms of pilot-controller negotiating behavior and shared situation awareness. Pilot goals and situation awareness requirements are developed and compared against those of air traffic controllers to identify areas of common and competing interest. An exploratory, part-task simulator experiment is described which evaluates the extent to which shared information may lead pilots and controllers to cooperate or compete when negotiating route amendments. Results are presented which indicate that shared information enhances situation awareness and can engender more collaborative interaction between pilots and air traffic controllers. Furthermore, the value of providing controllers with a good-quality weather overlay on their plan view displays is demonstrated. Observed improvements in situation awareness and separation assurance are discussed.

Farley, Todd C.↗
NASA NTRS2001

Aviation Safety Simulation Model

The Aviation Safety Simulation Model is a software tool that enables users to configure a terrain, a flight path, and an aircraft and simulate the aircraft's flight along the path. The simulation monitors the aircraft's proximity to terrain obstructions, and reports when the aircraft violates accepted minimum distances from an obstruction. This model design facilitates future enhancements to address other flight safety issues, particularly air and runway traffic scenarios. This report shows the user how to build a simulation scenario and run it. It also explains the model's output.

Houser, Scott↗
NASA NTRS2018

Impact of Different Trajectory Option Set Participation Levels within an Air Traffic Management Collaborative Trajectory Option Program

This paper presents the methodology and results of a Human-In-The-Loop (HITL) simulation study conducted in the Airspace Operations Laboratory at NASA Ames Research Center. This study is a part of NASA's ongoing research into developing an Integrated Demand Management (IDM) concept, whose aim is to improve traffic flow management (TFM) by coordinating the FAA's strategic Traffic Flow Management System (TFMS) with its more tactical Time-Based Flow Management (TBFM) system. The purpose of TFM is to regulate air traffic demand so that it is delivered efficiently through constrained airspace resources without exceeding their capacity limits. The IDM concept leverages a new TFMS capability called the Collaborative Trajectory Options Program (CTOP) to strategically pre-condition traffic demand flowing into a TBFM-managed arrival environment, where TBFM is responsible for managing traffic tactically by generating precise arrival schedules. Unlike other TFM tools, CTOP gives flight operators the option of submitting a set of user-preferred alternative trajectories for each flight. CTOP can then use these trajectory option sets (or TOSs) to find user-preferred alternative routes to reduce demand on an overloaded resource. CTOP's effectiveness in redistributing demand is limited, however, by the availability of flights with alternative routes. The research presented in this paper focuses on evaluating the impact on TFM operations by varying the percentage of flights that submit a multiple-option TOS ('TOS participation levels'). Results show the impact on overall system performance and on the rerouted flights themselves. The simulation used a Newark (EWR) airport arrival scenario, with en route weather affecting traffic inbound from the west. Participants were asked to control each of the three arrival flows (north, west, and south) to meet their individual capacity constraints while simultaneously ensuring efficient utilization of the capacity at the destination airport. A large, permeable convective weather cell located southeast of Chicago severely reduced the capacity of the west flow. The study evaluated the impact of five different TOS participation levels on CTOP's ability to re-allocate traffic from the west and improve TFM performance in terms of delay assignment and traffic delivery rate to the airport. Overall, the results showed that increasing TOS submissions allowed the overall system delays to be reduced and fairly distributed among the three arrival flows, at the same time achieving the airport throughput rate. Moreover, it was found that aircraft who submitted a TOS saw a greater reduction in delay, even when they were assigned longer routes. This was particularly true when fewer aircraft submitted a TOS. The results confirm that the CTOP operations with higher TOS participation levels helped utilize the overall National Airspace System (NAS) resources as well as benefited the users who participated.

Yoo, Hyo-Sang↗
NASA NTRS1982

Avoidance maneuevers selected while viewing cockpit traffic displays

Ten airline pilots rates the collision danger of air traffic presented on cockpit displays of traffic information while they monitored simulated departures from Denver. They selected avoidance maneuvers when necessary for separation. Most evasive maneuvers were turns rather than vertical maneuvers. Evasive maneuvers chosen for encounters with low or moderate collision danger were generally toward the intruding aircraft. This tendency lessened as the perceived threat level increased. In the highest threst situations pilots turned toward the intruder only at chance levels. Intruders coming from positions in front of the pilot's own ship were more frequently avoided by turns toward than when intruders approached laterally or from behind. Some of the implications of the pilots' turning-toward tendencies are discussed with respect to automatic collision avoidance systems and coordination of avoidance maneuvers of conflicting aircraft.

Smith, J. D.↗
NASA NTRS2001

Aviation System Capacity Program Terminal Area Productivity Project: Ground and Airborne Technologies

Ground and airborne technologies were developed in the Terminal Area Productivity (TAP) project for increasing throughput at major airports by safely maintaining good-weather operating capacity during bad weather. Methods were demonstrated for accurately predicting vortices to prevent wake-turbulence encounters and to reduce in-trail separation requirements for aircraft approaching the same runway for landing. Technology was demonstrated that safely enabled independent simultaneous approaches in poor weather conditions to parallel runways spaced less than 3,400 ft apart. Guidance, control, and situation-awareness systems were developed to reduce congestion in airport surface operations resulting from the increased throughput, particularly during night and instrument meteorological conditions (IMC). These systems decreased runway occupancy time by safely and smoothly decelerating the aircraft, increasing taxi speed, and safely steering the aircraft off the runway. Simulations were performed in which optimal trajectories were determined by air traffic control (ATC) and communicated to flight crews by means of Center TRACON Automation System/Flight Management System (CTASFMS) automation to reduce flight delays, increase throughput, and ensure flight safety.

Giulianetti, Demo J.↗
NASA NTRS2013

Usability Evaluation of Spot and Runway Departure Advisor (SARDA) Concept in Dallas/Fort Worth Airport Tower Simulation

Spot and Runway Departure Advisor (SARDA) is a proposed decision-support tool for air traffic control tower controllers for reducing taxi delay and optimizing the departure sequence. In the present study, the tool's usability was evaluated to ensure that its claimed performance benefits are not being realized at the cost of increasing the work burden on controllers. For the evaluation, workload ratings and questionnaire responses collected during a human-in-the-loop simulation experiment were analyzed to assess the SARDA advisories' effects on the controllers' ratings on cognitive resources (e.g., workload, spare attention) and satisfaction. The results showed that SARDA reduced the controllers' workload and increased their spare attention. It also made workload and attention levels less susceptible to the effects of increases in the traffic load. The questionnaire responses suggested that the controllers generally were satisfied with the ease of use of the tool and the objectives of the SARDA concept, but with some caution. To gain more trust from controllers, the the reasoning behind advisories may need to be made more transparent to them.

human factors↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Wind-Optimal Trajectories for Multirotor eVTOL Aircraft on UAM Missions

Distributed electric propulsion powered electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft are expected to enable urban air mobility. Low specific energy of onboard lithium-ion polymer batteries and wind conditions impose constraints on flight endurance. Therefore, from the safety and efficiency perspective, planning and flying minimum energy trajectories are important.The primary motivation for this paper is to determine if there is an operational benefit to flying wind-optimal trajectories for short flights (less than 60 miles) in the urban environment. This study employs wind-optimal trajectories for a NASA-proposed conceptual multirotor aircraft flight in the urban environment. The optimal control model presented includes a wind model for quantifying the effect of wind on the trajectory. The optimal control problem is numerically solved using the direct method. Energy consumption and flight duration flying wind-optimal trajectories between origins and destinations in a metropolitan area are compared with energy consumption and flight duration flying on the great-circle paths between the same origin and destination pairs to determine the operational benefit of wind-optimal routing for short flights.The flight duration results for different scenarios are validated using a simulation tool designed and developed by NASA for exploring advanced air traffic management concepts. In summary,this research study suggests that for short flights in an urban environment, the wind-optimal trajectories have a very slight (insignificant) operational advantage over the great-circle trajectories in terms of energy consumption and flight duration. As expected, headwinds and tailwinds along the route of flight have a significant impact on energy consumption and flight duration.

Urban Air Mobility↗
NASA NTRS2022

Wind-Optimal Lateral Trajectories for a Multirotor Aircraft in Urban Air Mobility

The primary motivation for this paper is to quantify the operational benefits (energy consumption and flight duration) of flying wind-optimal lateral trajectories for short flights (less than 60 miles) anticipated in the urban environment. The optimal control model presented includes a wind model for quantifying the effect of wind on the lateral trajectory. The optimal control problem is numerically solved using the direct collocation method. Energy consumption and flight duration flying wind-optimal lateral trajectories are compared with corresponding values obtained flying great-circle paths between the same origin and destination pairs to determine the operational benefits of wind-optimal routing for short flights. The flight duration results for different scenarios are validated using a simulation tool designed and developed at NASA for exploring advanced air traffic management concepts. This research study suggests that for short flights in an urban environment, operational benefits of the wind-optimal lateral trajectories over the corresponding great-circle trajectories in terms of energy consumption and flight duration per flight are dependent on: i) wind field’s spatial variability, ii) wind magnitude, iii) the direction of route relative to the wind field, and iv) cruise segment length. The operational benefits observed in realistic flyable wind scenarios are less than 2.5%; these could be translated to an equivalent of a maximum of 2 min of cruise flight duration savings in the urban air mobility environment. As expected, headwinds and tailwinds along the flight route most significantly impact energy consumption and flight duration.

Wind-Optimal Trajectory, Lateral Path, Urban Air M↗
NASA NTRS2014

ACES Study of DAA-Mitigated UAS Operations SC-228 Requirements Sub Group

Realization of the expected proliferation of Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) operations in the National Airspace System (NAS) depends on the development and validation of performance standards for UAS Detect and Avoid (DAA) Systems. The RTCA Special Committee 228 is charged with leading the development of draft Minimum Operational Performance Standards (MOPS) for UAS DAA Systems. NASA, as a participating member of RTCA SC-228 is committed to supporting the development and validation of draft requirements as well as the safety substantiation and end-to-end assessment of DAA system performance. A recent study conducted using NASA's ACES (Airspace Concept Evaluation System) simulation capability begins to address questions surrounding the development of draft MOPS for DAA systems by assessing DAA performance in a NAS-wide context. ACES analyses were conducted to determine the impact of varying elements of UAS pilot performance and uncertainty mitigations on DAA system performance. Simulations were conducted with recorded cooperative and non-cooperative VFR (Visual Flight Rules) traffic to accurately model UAS encounters with other NAS traffic (ATC (Air Traffic Control) being responsible for separation with other IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) aircraft) and with roughly 25, 000 simulated UAS operations The number of Loss of Well Clear (LoWC) events were recorded across the range of independent variables: pilot response time, horizontal LoWC prediction buffer and horizontal LoWC resolution buffer. The number of LoWC events was compared to the unmitigated case (without the benefit of a DAA system) to determine the resultant risk-ratio for each of 8 simulation conditions. The parameter trades presented by the resultant DAA system performance (risk ratio) will be used by SC 228 to inform decisions about future requirements development and validation efforts.

Detect-and-Avoid↗
NASA NTRS2014

NASA Tech Briefs, March 2014

Topics include: Data Fusion for Global Estimation of Forest Characteristics From Sparse Lidar Data; Debris and Ice Mapping Analysis Tool - Database; Data Acquisition and Processing Software - DAPS; Metal-Assisted Fabrication of Biodegradable Porous Silicon Nanostructures; Post-Growth, In Situ Adhesion of Carbon Nanotubes to a Substrate for Robust CNT Cathodes; Integrated PEMFC Flow Field Design for Gravity-Independent Passive Water Removal; Thermal Mechanical Preparation of Glass Spheres; Mechanistic-Based Multiaxial-Stochastic-Strength Model for Transversely-Isotropic Brittle Materials; Methods for Mitigating Space Radiation Effects, Fault Detection and Correction, and Processing Sensor Data; Compact Ka-Band Antenna Feed with Double Circularly Polarized Capability; Dual-Leadframe Transient Liquid Phase Bonded Power Semiconductor Module Assembly and Bonding Process; Quad First Stage Processor: A Four-Channel Digitizer and Digital Beam-Forming Processor; Protective Sleeve for a Pyrotechnic Reefing Line Cutter; Metabolic Heat Regenerated Temperature Swing Adsorption; CubeSat Deployable Log Periodic Dipole Array; Re-entry Vehicle Shape for Enhanced Performance; NanoRacks-Scale MEMS Gas Chromatograph System; Variable Camber Aerodynamic Control Surfaces and Active Wing Shaping Control; Spacecraft Line-of-Sight Stabilization Using LWIR Earth Signature; Technique for Finding Retro-Reflectors in Flash LIDAR Imagery; Novel Hemispherical Dynamic Camera for EVAs; 360 deg Visual Detection and Object Tracking on an Autonomous Surface Vehicle; Simulation of Charge Carrier Mobility in Conducting Polymers; Observational Data Formatter Using CMOR for CMIP5; Propellant Loading Physics Model for Fault Detection Isolation and Recovery; Probabilistic Guidance for Swarms of Autonomous Agents; Reducing Drift in Stereo Visual Odometry; Future Air-Traffic Management Concepts Evaluation Tool; Examination and A Priori Analysis of a Direct Numerical Simulation Database for High-Pressure Turbulent Flows; and Resource-Constrained Application of Support Vector Machines to Imagery.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2001

Aeronautical-Satellite-Assisted Process Being Developed for Information Exchange Through Network Technologies (Aero-SAPIENT)

Communications technologies are being developed to address safety issues during aviation travel. Some of these technologies enable the aircraft to be in constant bidirectional communications with necessary systems, people, and other aircraft that are not currently in place today. Networking technologies, wireless datalinks, and advanced avionics techniques are areas of particular importance that the NASA Glenn Research Center has contributed. Glenn, in conjunction with the NASA Ames Research Center, NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, and NASA Langley Research Center, is investigating methods and applications that would utilize these communications technologies. In mid-June 2000, the flight readiness of the network and communications technologies were demonstrated via a simulated aircraft. A van simulating an aircraft was equipped with advanced phased-array antennas (Advanced Communications/Air Traffic Management (AC/ATM) Advanced Air Transportation Technologies (AATT) project) that used commercial Ku-band satellite communications to connect Glenn, Dryden, and Ames in a combined system ground test. This test simulated air-ground bidirectional transport of real-time digital audio, text, and video data via a hybrid network configuration that demonstrated the flight readiness of the network and communications technologies. Specifically, a Controller Pilot Data Link Communications application was used with other applications to demonstrate a multiprotocol capability via Internet-protocol encapsulated ATN (Aeronautical Telecommunications Network) data packets. The significance of this combined ground test is its contribution to the Aero Information Technology Base Program Level I milestone (Software Technology investment area) of a real-time data link for the National Airspace System. The objective of this milestone was to address multiprotocol technology applicable for real-time data links between aircraft, a satellite, and the ground as well as the ability to distribute flight data with multilevel priorities among several sites.

Zernic, Michael J.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Surface Operations Simulator and Scheduler (SOSS) Presentation

NASA - KAIA (Korea Agency for Infrastructure Technology Advancement) - KARI (Korea Aerospace Research Institute) collaboration surface air traffic management research has been ongoing since May 2015. In the first year collaboration, NASA's SOSS software has been transferred to KAIA and KARI teams to provide fast time simulation capability. Incheon International Airport model has been developed for SOSS.

surface traffic management↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Pathfinding for Airspace with Autonomous Vehicles (PAAV) ACAS Xr Terminal Area Simulation Overview

This presentation provides an overview of an upcoming human-in-the-loop simulation planned by the Pathfinding for Airspace with Autonomous Vehicles (PAAV) subproject, as part of the Air Traffic Management eXploration project. The study will investigate Detect and Avoid (DAA) concepts in and around the DAA terminal area (DTA). The DTA has received little investigation in real-time, pilot-in-the-loop simulation. This study proposes to use current remotely piloted aircraft system (RPAS) pilots to investigate the effectiveness of current DTA requirements using the FAA's Airborne Collision Avoidance System X for Rotorcraft (ACAS Xr) as the DAA system under test. The findings of this stufy will be used to inform DTA and ACAS Xr standards development. This presentation will be provided to RTCA Special Committee 228 as an overview and as an opportunity to collect feedback from the larger RPAS/DAA community on the study design and key scenarios and metrics. The presentation provides a brief overview of open areas of research with ACAS Xr, the experimental design, the simulation environment and the simulation schedule.

advanced air mobility↗
NASA NTRS2000

FACET: Future ATM Concepts Evaluation Tool

FACET (Future ATM Concepts Evaluation Tool) is an Air Traffic Management research tool being developed at the NASA Ames Research Center. This paper describes the design, architecture and functionalities of FACET. The purpose of FACET is to provide E simulation environment for exploration, development and evaluation of advanced ATM concepts. Examples of these concepts include new ATM paradigms such as Distributed Air-Ground Traffic Management, airspace redesign and new Decision Support Tools (DSTs) for controllers working within the operational procedures of the existing air traffic control system. FACET is currently capable of modeling system-wide en route airspace operations over the contiguous United States. Airspace models (e.g., Center/sector boundaries, airways, locations of navigation aids and airports) are available from databases. A core capability of FACET is the modeling of aircraft trajectories. Using round-earth kinematic equations, aircraft can be flown along flight plan routes or great circle routes as they climb, cruise and descend according to their individual aircraft-type performance models. Performance parameters (e.g., climb/descent rates and speeds, cruise speeds) are obtained from data table lookups. Heading, airspeed and altitude-rate dynamics are also modeled. Additional functionalities will be added as necessary for specific applications. FACET software is written in Java and C programming languages. It is platform-independent, and can be run on a variety of computers. FACET has been designed with a modular software architecture to enable rapid integration of research prototype implementations of new ATM concepts. There are several advanced ATM concepts that are currently being implemented in FACET airborne separation assurance, dynamic density predictions, airspace redesign (re-sectorization), benefits of a controller DST for direct-routing, and the integration of commercial space transportation system operations into the U.S. National Airspace System (NAS).

Bilmoria, Karl D.↗
NASA NTRS1983

Time-based self-spacing techniques using cockpit display of traffic information during approach to landing in a terminal area vectoring environment

A simulation study was undertaken to evaluate two time-based self-spacing techniques for in-trail following during terminal area approach. An electronic traffic display was provided in the weather radarscope location. The displayed self-spacing cues allowed the simulated aircraft to follow and to maintain spacing on another aircraft which was being vectored by air traffic control (ATC) for landing in a high-density terminal area. Separation performance data indicate the information provided on the traffic display was adequate for the test subjects to accurately follow the approach path of another aircraft without the assistance of ATC. The time-based technique with a constant-delay spacing criterion produced the most satisfactory spacing performance. Pilot comments indicate the workload associated with the self-separation task was very high and that additional spacing command information and/or aircraft autopilot functions would be desirable for operational implementational of the self-spacing task.

Williams, D. H.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Flight deck benefits of integrated data link communication

A fixed-base, piloted simulation study was conducted to determine the operational benefits that result when air traffic control (ATC) instructions are transmitted to the deck of a transport aircraft over a digital data link. The ATC instructions include altitude, airspeed, heading, radio frequency, and route assignment data. The interface between the flight deck and the data link was integrated with other subsystems of the airplane to facilitate data management. Data from the ATC instructions were distributed to the flight guidance and control system, the navigation system, and an automatically tuned communication radio. The co-pilot initiated the automation-assisted data distribution process. Digital communications and automated data distribution were compared with conventional voice radio communication and manual input of data into other subsystems of the simulated aircraft. Less time was required in the combined communication and data management process when data link ATC communication was integrated with the other subsystems. The test subjects, commercial airline pilots, provided favorable evaluations of both the digital communication and data management processes.

Waller, Marvin C.↗