Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “DFW Airport”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 37 records · Page 2

Spot and Runway Departure Advisor

The Spot and Runway Departure Advisor (SARDA) is a research prototype of a decision support tool for ATC tower controllers to assist in manging and controlling traffic on the surface of an airport. SARDA employs a scheduler to generate an optimal runway schedule and gate push-back - spot release sequence and schedule that improves efficiency of surface operations. The advisories for ATC tower controllers are displayed on an Electronic Flight Strip (EFS) system. The human-in-the-loop simulation of the SARDA tool was conducted for east operations of Dallas-Ft. Worth International Airport (DFW) to evaluate performance of the SARDA tool and human factors, such as situational awareness and workload. The results indicates noticeable taxi delay reduction and fuel savings by using the SARDA tool. Reduction in controller workload were also observed throughout the scenario runs. The future plan includes modeling and simulation of the ramp operations of the Charlotte International Airport, and develop a decision support tool for the ramp controllers.

decision support tool↗

Development of the Surface Management System Integrated with CTAS Arrival Tools

The Surface Management System (SMS) developed by NASA Ames Research Center in coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is a decision support tool to help tower traffic coordinators and Ground/Local controllers in managing and controlling airport surface traffic in order to increase capacity, efficiency, and flexibility. SMS provides common situation awareness to personnel at various air traffic control facilities such as airport traffic control towers (ATCT s), airline ramp towers, Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON), and Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC). SMS also provides a traffic management tool to assist ATCT traffic management coordinators (TMCs) in making decisions such as airport configuration and runway load balancing. The Build 1 of the SMS tool was installed and successfully tested at Memphis International Airport (MEM) and received high acceptance scores from ATCT controllers and coordinators, as well as airline ramp controllers. NASA Ames Research Center continues to develop SMS under NASA s Strategic Airspace Usage (SAU) project in order to improve its prediction accuracy and robustness under various modeling uncertainties. This paper reports the recent development effort performed by the NASA Ames Research Center: 1) integration of Center TRACON Automation System (CTAS) capability with SMS and 2) an alternative approach to obtain airline gate information through a publicly available website. The preliminary analysis results performed on the air/surface traffic data at the DFW airport have shown significant improvement in predicting airport arrival demand and IN time at the gate. This paper concludes with recommendations for future research and development.

Jung, Yoon C.↗

Design of an Aircraft Vortex Spacing System for Airport Capacity Improvement

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is addressing airport capacity enhancements through the Terminal Area Productivity (TAP) program. Within TAP, the Reduced Spacing Operations element at the NASA Langley Research Center is developing an Aircraft VOrtex Spacing System (AVOSS). AVOSS will integrate the output of several systems to produce weather dependent, dynamic wake vortex spacing criteria. These systems provide current and predicted weather conditions, models of wake vortex transport and decay in these weather conditions, and real-time feedback of wake vortex behavior from sensors. The goal of the NASA program is to provide the research and development to demonstrate an engineering model AVOSS, in real-time operation, at a major airport. A wake vortex system test facility was established at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) in 1997 and tested in 1998. Results from operation of the initial AVOSS system, plus advances in wake vortex prediction and near-term weather forecast models, "nowcast", have been integrated into a second-generation system. This AVOSS version is undergoing final checkout in preparation for a system demonstration in 2000. This paper describes the revised AVOSS system architecture, subsystem enhancements, and initial results with AVOSS version 2 from a deployment at DFW in the fall of 1999.

Hinton, David A.↗

Runway Safety Monitor Algorithm for Runway Incursion Detection and Alerting

The Runway Safety Monitor (RSM) is an algorithm for runway incursion detection and alerting that was developed in support of NASA's Runway Incursion Prevention System (RIPS) research conducted under the NASA Aviation Safety Program's Synthetic Vision System element. The RSM algorithm provides pilots with enhanced situational awareness and warnings of runway incursions in sufficient time to take evasive action and avoid accidents during landings, takeoffs, or taxiing on the runway. The RSM currently runs as a component of the NASA Integrated Display System, an experimental avionics software system for terminal area and surface operations. However, the RSM algorithm can be implemented as a separate program to run on any aircraft with traffic data link capability. The report documents the RSM software and describes in detail how RSM performs runway incursion detection and alerting functions for NASA RIPS. The report also describes the RIPS flight tests conducted at the Dallas-Ft Worth International Airport (DFW) during September and October of 2000, and the RSM performance results and lessons learned from those flight tests.

Green, David F., Jr.↗

A New Eddy Dissipation Rate Formulation for the Terminal Area PBL Prediction System(TAPPS)

The TAPPS employs the MASS model to produce mesoscale atmospheric simulations in support of the Wake Vortex project at Dallas Fort-Worth International Airport (DFW). A post-processing scheme uses the simulated three-dimensional atmospheric characteristics in the planetary boundary layer (PBL) to calculate the turbulence quantities most important to the dissipation of vortices: turbulent kinetic energy and eddy dissipation rate. TAPPS will ultimately be employed to enhance terminal area productivity by providing weather forecasts for the Aircraft Vortex Spacing System (AVOSS). The post-processing scheme utilizes experimental data and similarity theory to determine the turbulence quantities from the simulated horizontal wind field and stability characteristics of the atmosphere. Characteristic PBL quantities important to these calculations are determined based on formulations from the Blackadar PBL parameterization, which is regularly employed in the MASS model to account for PBL processes in mesoscale simulations. The TAPPS forecasts are verified against high-resolution observations of the horizontal winds at DFW. Statistical assessments of the error in the wind forecasts suggest that TAPPS captures the essential features of the horizontal winds with considerable skill. Additionally, the turbulence quantities produced by the post-processor are shown to compare favorably with corresponding tower observations.

Charney, Joseph J.↗

NASA Aircraft Vortex Spacing System Development Status

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is addressing airport capacity enhancements during instrument meteorological conditions through the Terminal Area Productivity (TAP) program. Within TAP, the Reduced Spacing Operations (RSO) subelement at the NASA Langley Research Center is developing an Aircraft VOrtex Spacing System (AVOSS). AVOSS will integrate the output of several systems to produce weather dependent, dynamic wake vortex spacing criteria. These systems provide current and predicted weather conditions, models of wake vortex transport and decay in these weather conditions, and real-time feedback of wake vortex behavior from sensors. The goal of the NASA program is to provide the research and development to demonstrate an engineering model AVOSS in real-time operation at a major airport. The demonstration is only of concept feasibility, and additional effort is required to deploy an operational system for actual aircraft spacing reduction. This paper describes the AVOSS system architecture, a wake vortex facility established at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), initial operational experience with the AVOSS system, and emerging considerations for subsystem requirements. Results of the initial system operation suggest a significant potential for reduced spacing.

Hinton, David A.↗

Runway Incursion Prevention System: Demonstration and Testing at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport

A Runway Incursion Prevention System (RIPS) was tested at the Dallas-Ft. Worth International Airport (DFW) in October 2000. The system integrated airborne and ground components to provide both pilots and controllers with enhanced situational awareness, supplemental guidance cues, a real-time display of traffic information, and warning of runway incursions in order to prevent runway incidents while also improving operational capability. A series of test runs was conducted using NASA s Boeing 757 research aircraft and a test van equipped to emulate an incurring aircraft. The system was also demonstrated to over 100 visitors from the aviation community. This paper gives an overview of the RIPS, DFW flight test activities, and quantitative and qualitative results of the testing.

Jones, Denise R.↗

A Terminal Area Analysis of Continuous Ascent Departure Fuel Use at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport

Aircraft departing from the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) encounter vertical restrictions that prevent continuous ascent operations. The result of these restrictions are temporary level-offs at 10,000 feet. A combination of flow direction, specific Area Navigation (RNAV) route geometry, and arrival streams have been found to be the biggest factors in the duration and frequency of a temporary level-offs. In total, 20% of DFW departures are affected by these level-offs, which have an average duration of just over 100 seconds. The use of continuous descent approaches at DFW are shown to lessen the impact arrivals have on the departures and allow more continuous ascents. The fuel used in a continuous ascent and an ascent with a temporary level-off have been calculated using a fuel burn rate model created from a combination of actual aircraft track data, aircraft manufacturer flight operations manuals, and Eurocontrol's Base of Aircraft Data (BADA) simulation tool. This model represents the average aggregate burn rates for the current fleet mix at DFW. Continuous ascents would save approximately seven gallons of fuel out of 450 gallons used to climb to a cruise altitude of 31,000ft per departure.

Roach, Keenan↗

Strategies for Choosing Descent Flight-Path Angles for Small Jets

Three candidate strategies for choosing the descent flight path angle (FPA) for small jets are proposed, analyzed, and compared for fuel efficiency under arrival metering conditions. The strategies vary in operational complexity from a universally fixed FPA, or FPA function that varies with descent speed for improved fuel efficiency, to the minimum-fuel FPA computed for each flight based on winds, route, and speed profile. Methodologies for selecting the parameter for the first two strategies are described. The differences in fuel burn are analyzed over a year s worth of arrival traffic and atmospheric conditions recorded for the Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) Airport during 2011. The results show that the universally fixed FPA strategy (same FPA for all flights, all year) burns on average 26 lbs more fuel per flight as compared to the minimum-fuel solution. This FPA is adapted to the arrival gate (direction of entry to the terminal) and various timespans (season, month and day) to improve fuel efficiency. Compared to a typical FPA of approximately 3 degrees the adapted FPAs vary significantly, up to 1.3 from one arrival gate to another or up to 1.4 from one day to another. Adapting the universally fixed FPA strategy to the arrival gate or to each day reduces the extra fuel burn relative to the minimum-fuel solution by 27% and 34%, respectively. The adaptations to gate and time combined shows up to 57% reduction of the extra fuel burn. The second strategy, an FPA function, contributes a 17% reduction in the 26 lbs of extra fuel burn over the universally fixed FPA strategy. Compared to the corresponding adaptations of the universally fixed FPA, adaptations of the FPA function reduce the extra fuel burn anywhere from 15-23% depending on the extent of adaptation. The combined effect of the FPA function strategy with both directional and temporal adaptation recovers 67% of the extra fuel relative to the minimum-fuel solution.

Wu, Minghong Gilbert↗

TCAS Alerts from Simulated Urban Air Mobility Flights Along FAA Helicopter Routes in Dallas-Fort Worth

This is a presentation of the current state of a TCAS study being conducted by the ATM-X project. This study examines the rate at which an urban air mobility vehicle flying along existing helicopter routes near DFW will trigger alerts on the TCAS II systems equipped on commercial airliners flying in the D10 TRACON of DFW airspace. The presentation will cover initial results, as well as next steps on the path towards producing a full paper. These initial results show that some aircraft could fly along published helicopter routes, while obeying published restrictions, and fly into and out of DFW airport without triggering any TCAS RAs, so long as the airport is operating in South Flow and the UAM vehicles approach and depart; the airport in the same direction as commercial traffic. Attempting to take off opposite the direction of commercial traffic produces a large number of TCAS RAs. Future work will examine North Flow, check sensitivity to aircraft performance, and examine alternative routes.

helicopter routes↗

Modeling and Simulation of an Integrated Gate Turnaround Management Concept

An Integrated Gate Turnaround Management (IGTM) prototype was developed at NASA Ames Simulation Laboratories (SimLabs) using Dallas Ft. Worth International Airport (DFW) to demonstrate the IGTM concepts feasibility and benefits. The simulation architecture includes: the IGTM controller, an Airline Operations Control (AOC) application, Big DataAnalytics Input (BAI) application, a terminal traffic simulation or known as NASA-developed Surface Operation Simulator and Scheduler (SOSS), and a Database Server. ActiveMQ, a Java messaging service, was used to emulate the System Wide Information Management (SWIM) data network messaging. This paper describes the modeling and simulation of the IGTM concept, and illustrates selected use cases to demonstrate the feasibility and benefits of the IGTM concept for optimizing gate turnaround operations.

gate turnaround management↗

Assessment of Ramp Times 4 (ART-4) Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) Simulation - Final Results

Airspace Technology Demonstration 2 (ATD-2) sub-project conducted a Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) simulation to assess Ramp Controllers ability to deliver aircraft to the spot within the compliance window (+/- 5 min) under various metering conditions. Compliance at the spot was similar between the different metering conditions ranging between 83% - 85% and increased to 92% - 99% when aircraft were initially compliant with gate advisories. Metering benefits that exist in the field did not appear in the simulation due to simulation artifacts such as gate holding departures in Baseline, which effectively metered the demand. The combined Target Off-Block Time (TOBT) +Target Movement Area entry Time (TMAT) condition resulted in higher workload on the Workload Assessment Keypad (WAK) than the Baseline and TOBT alone conditions, and lower situation awareness than the Baseline condition. Metering at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) with TOBT only or TMAT only could be equally effective, and either would be a better option than TOBT + TMAT due to increased workload and reduced situation awareness.

Jung, Yoon C.↗

Aircraft Wake Vortex Spacing System (AVOSS) Performance Update and Validation Study

An analysis has been performed on data generated from the two most recent field deployments of the Aircraft Wake VOrtex Spacing System (AVOSS). The AVOSS provides reduced aircraft spacing criteria for wake vortex avoidance as compared to the FAA spacing applied under Instrument Flight Rules (IFR). Several field deployments culminating in a system demonstration at Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) International Airport in the summer of 2000 were successful in showing a sound operational concept and the system's potential to provide a significant benefit to airport operations. For DFW, a predicted average throughput increase of 6% was observed. This increase implies 6 or 7 more aircraft on the ground in a one-hour period for DFW operations. Several studies of performance correlations to system configuration options, design options, and system inputs are also reported. The studies focus on the validation performance of the system.

Rutishauser, David K.↗

Air Traffic Management Technology Demostration Phase 1 (ATD) Interval Management for Near-Term Operations Validation of Acceptability (IM-NOVA) Experiment

The Interval Management for Near-term Operations Validation of Acceptability (IM-NOVA) experiment was conducted at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Langley Research Center (LaRC) in support of the NASA Airspace Systems Program's Air Traffic Management Technology Demonstration-1 (ATD-1). ATD-1 is intended to showcase an integrated set of technologies that provide an efficient arrival solution for managing aircraft using Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) surveillance, navigation, procedures, and automation for both airborne and ground-based systems. The goal of the IMNOVA experiment was to assess if procedures outlined by the ATD-1 Concept of Operations were acceptable to and feasible for use by flight crews in a voice communications environment when used with a minimum set of Flight Deck-based Interval Management (FIM) equipment and a prototype crew interface. To investigate an integrated arrival solution using ground-based air traffic control tools and aircraft Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) tools, the LaRC FIM system and the Traffic Management Advisor with Terminal Metering and Controller Managed Spacing tools developed at the NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) were integrated into LaRC's Air Traffic Operations Laboratory (ATOL). Data were collected from 10 crews of current 757/767 pilots asked to fly a high-fidelity, fixed-based simulator during scenarios conducted within an airspace environment modeled on the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) Terminal Radar Approach Control area. The aircraft simulator was equipped with the Airborne Spacing for Terminal Area Routes (ASTAR) algorithm and a FIM crew interface consisting of electronic flight bags and ADS-B guidance displays. Researchers used "pseudo-pilot" stations to control 24 simulated aircraft that provided multiple air traffic flows into the DFW International Airport, and recently retired DFW air traffic controllers served as confederate Center, Feeder, Final, and Tower controllers. Analyses of qualitative data revealed that the procedures used by flight crews to receive and execute interval management (IM) clearances in a voice communications environment were logical, easy to follow, did not contain any missing or extraneous steps, and required the use of an acceptable workload level. The majority of the pilot participants found the IM concept, in addition to the proposed FIM crew procedures, to be acceptable and indicated that the ATD-1 procedures could be successfully executed in a nearterm NextGen environment. Analyses of quantitative data revealed that the proposed procedures were feasible for use by flight crews in a voice communications environment. The delivery accuracy at the achieve-by point was within +/-5 sec, and the delivery precision was less than 5 sec. Furthermore, FIM speed commands occurred at a rate of less than one per minute, and pilots found the frequency of the speed commands to be acceptable at all times throughout the experiment scenarios.

Kibler, Jennifer L.↗

A model and plan for a longitudinal study of community response to aircraft noise

A new approach is discussed for the study of the effects of aircraft noise on people who live near large airports. The approach was an outgrowth of a planned study of the reactions of individuals exposed to changing aircraft noise conditions around the Dallas-Ft. Worth (DFW) regional airport. The rationale, concepts, and methods employed in the study are discussed. A critical review of major past studies traces the history of community response research in an effort to identify strengths and limitations of the various approaches and methodologies. A stress-reduction model is presented to provide a framework for studying the dynamics of human response to a changing noise environment. The development of the survey instrument is detailed, and preliminary results of pretest data are discussed.

Gunn, W. J.↗