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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1999

Experimental Evaluation of CTAS/FMS Integration in TRACON Airspace

A CTAS/FMS integration project at Ames Research Center addresses extensions to the CTAS air traffic management concept, among them the introduction of arrival routes specially designed for the use with a Flight Management System. These FMS arrival routes shall allow for the use of the INS' lateral and vertical navigation capabilities throughout the arrival until final approach. For the use in this project CTAS controller support tools that compliment the concept have been created. These tools offer controllers access to CTAS' prediction and planning capabilities in terms of speed and route advisories. The objective is to allow for a more strategic way of controlling aircraft. Expected benefits are an increase in arrival rate and a reduction of average travel times through TRACER airspace. A real time simulation is being conducted at Ames to investigate how FMS arrivals and approach transitions - with and without the support of CTAS tools - effect the flow of arriving traffic within TRACER airspace and the controllers' task performance. Four conditions will be investigated and compared to today's technique of controlling traffic with tactical vectoring: 1. FMS arrivals and approach transitions are available for controllers to issue to equipped aircraft - traffic permitting; 2. Speed advisories that match CTAS' runway balancing and sequencing plan are displayed to Feeder controllers; 3. Approach transition advisories (e.g., location of the base turn point) are displayed to Final controllers for tactical clearances ("Turn base now"); and 4. Approach transition advisories (voice and data link) are generated by CTAS and displayed to final controllers for strategic voice clearances ("Turn base five miles after waypoint xyz") or prepared in terms of a trajectory description for strategic data link clearance. Scenarios used in the study will represent current traffic and vary in density of arriving traffic and the kind and mix of equipage of arriving aircraft. Data will be collected from experiment runs with active TRACON controllers on the final approach spacing, the aircraft's speed profiles, the controllers interaction with CTAS tools, and number and timing of pilot controllers communications under the described conditions.

Romahn, Stephen↗
NASA NTRS2011

The Proposed Use of Unmanned Aerial System Surrogate Research Aircraft for National Airspace System Integration Research

Research is needed to determine what procedures, aircraft sensors and other systems will be required to allow Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) to safely operate with manned aircraft in the National Airspace System (NAS). This paper explores the use of Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) Surrogate research aircraft to serve as platforms for UAS systems research, development, and flight testing. These aircraft would be manned with safety pilots and researchers that would allow for flight operations almost anywhere in the NAS without the need for a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Certificate of Authorization (COA). With pilot override capability, these UAS Surrogate aircraft would be controlled from ground stations like true UAS s. It would be possible to file and fly these UAS Surrogate aircraft in the NAS with normal traffic and they would be better platforms for real world UAS research and development over existing vehicles flying in restricted ranges or other sterilized airspace. These UAS surrogate aircraft could be outfitted with research systems as required such as computers, state sensors, video recording, data acquisition, data link, telemetry, instrumentation, and Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B). These surrogate aircraft could also be linked to onboard or ground based simulation facilities to further extend UAS research capabilities. Potential areas for UAS Surrogate research include the development, flight test and evaluation of sensors to aide in the process of air traffic "see-and-avoid". These and other sensors could be evaluated in real-time and compared with onboard human evaluation pilots. This paper examines the feasibility of using UAS Surrogate research aircraft as test platforms for a variety of UAS related research.

Howell, Charles T., III↗
NASA NTRS2021

Best Practices Identified Through the Completion of UAS Flight Demonstrations

After several years of research into Detect and Avoid (DAA) and Command and Control (C2) systems for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) UAS Integration into the National Airspace System project initiated a focused two-year effort along with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and three industry partners to investigate remaining issues in the specification, test, certification and airspace integration to allow UAS operations in non-segregated airspace. The approach taken had the industry partners propose a flight demonstration approximating a commercial operation, while NASA helped, as needed, the partners through design and test phases and NASA observed interactions with the FAA. During this effort NASA collected best practices intended to be of value to similar UAS endeavors. These best practices can be divided into different sets, including practices that describe the relationship between business considerations to UAS design or describe several UAS development challenges. Another set includes best practices focused on navigating the UAS design and type certification processes. A third set includes best practices that relate to the design of the DAA system. Deploying DAA systems in this timeframe posed unique challenges. Commercial off-the-shelf DAA systems do not exist, necessitating custom development and, for two of the partners, the use of low-size, -weight, and -power (SWaP) sensors not completely specified for DAA. A fourth set of best practices relates to lost-link contingency planning. The final set of best practices relates to the design and testing of C2 systems and obtaining spectrum licenses. The UAS demonstrations were piloted remotely, and for all aspects of flight safety, a C2 system was required to communicate DAA and other UAS subsystem data to the remote pilot and to allow the pilot to issue commands to the vehicle. Throughout the course of this effort, the partners integrated prototype DAA and C2 systems into unmanned aircraft, tested those systems, and laid the groundwork for type certification programs that are expected to continue.

NASA↗
NASA NTRS2017

Airspace Technology Demonstration 2 (ATD-2) Integrated Surface and Airspace Simulation - Experiment Plan

This presentation describes the objectives and high level setup for the human-in-the-loop simulation of the integrated surface and airsapce simulation of the ATD-2 Integrated Arrival, Departure, Surface (IADS) system. The purpose of the simulation is to evaluate the functionality of the IADS system, including tactical surface scheduler, negotiation of departure times for the flights under Traffic Management Initiatives (TMIs), and data exchange between ATC Tower and airline Ramp. The same presentation was presented to serve the experiment review prior to the simulation.

Surface↗
NASA NTRS2019

Application of AI in the NAS - the Rationale for AI-Enhanced Airspace Management

This paper extends on the initial findings of "Application of Artificial Intelligence in the National Airspace System: A Primer" (Stroup & Niewoehner: Herndon, VA; ICNS-2019), and looks at why the current technologies, enterprise architecture, and future program plans may not be enough to address persistent operational challenges. This paper further explores why emergent operational concepts, business models, and demand profiles may necessitate AI-enhanced Communications, Navigation and Communications (CNS) infrastructure to disrupt current operational impediments. European airspace, as well as the NAS, has similar challenges. Key challenges explored in this study include: quantifiable improvements to NAS capacity, efficiency, and resiliency; traffic flow management of diverse users; UTM-ATM airspace integration; equitable access to airspace; and airborne-ground interoperability of AI applications. Finally, we examine why trustworthiness and resiliency will be key mileposts on the regulatory pathway to AI certification.

Aviation↗
NASA NTRS2013

Improved Throughput with Cooperating Futuristic Airspace Management Components

An experiment was conducted to integrate airspace management tools that would typically be confined to either the en route or the terminal airspace to explore the potential benefits of their communication to improve arrival capacity. A NAS-wide simulation was configured with a new concept component that used the information to reconfigure the terminal airspace to the capacity benefit of the airport. Reconfiguration included a dynamically expanding and contracting TRACON area and a varying number of active arrival runways, both automatically selected to accommodate predicted volume of traffic. ATL and DFW were selected for the study. Results showed significant throughput increase for scenarios that are considered to be over-capacity for current day airport configurations. During periods of sustained demand for ATL 2018, throughput increased by 26 operations per hour (30%) and average delay was reduced from 18 minutes to 8 minutes per flight when using the dynamic TRACON. Similar results were obtained for DFW with 2018 traffic levels and for ATL with 2006 traffic levels, but with lower benefits due to lower demand.

Glaab, Patricia C.↗
NASA NTRS2014

Integrated Arrival and Departure Schedule Optimization Under Uncertainty

In terminal airspace, integrating arrivals and departures with shared waypoints provides the potential of improving operational efficiency by allowing direct routes when possible. Incorporating stochastic evaluation as a post-analysis process of deterministic optimization, and imposing a safety buffer in deterministic optimization, are two ways to learn and alleviate the impact of uncertainty and to avoid unexpected outcomes. This work presents a third and direct way to take uncertainty into consideration during the optimization. The impact of uncertainty was incorporated into cost evaluations when searching for the optimal solutions. The controller intervention count was computed using a heuristic model and served as another stochastic cost besides total delay. Costs under uncertainty were evaluated using Monte Carlo simulations. The Pareto fronts that contain a set of solutions were identified and the trade-off between delays and controller intervention count was shown. Solutions that shared similar delays but had different intervention counts were investigated. The results showed that optimization under uncertainty could identify compromise solutions on Pareto fonts, which is better than deterministic optimization with extra safety buffers. It helps decision-makers reduce controller intervention while achieving low delays.

stochastic optimization↗
NASA NTRS2015

A Stochastic Scheduler for Integrated Arrival, Departure and Surface Operations in Los Angeles

In terminal airspace, integrating arrivals, departures, and surface operations with competing resources provides the potential of improving operational efficiency by removing barriers between different operations. This work develops a centralized stochastic scheduler for operations in a terminal area including airborne and surface operations using Non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm and Monte Carlo simulations. The scheduler handles completing resources between different flows, such as runway allocations, runway crossing, departure fixes, and other interaction way points between arrivals and departures. Meanwhile, the scheduler also takes time-varied uncertainties into account when optimizing schedules. The scheduler is run sequentially to identify the best and robust schedule for the next planning window. Resulting schedules decide the routes, speed or delays, and runway assignments with separation constraints at mergingdiverging waypoints in the air and crossing and separations on runways. The Los Angels terminal area was used as an example. The implementation of this stochastic scheduler for integrated arrival, departure and surface operations is completed. And several preliminary runs are finished for over 1,200 flights in LAX in a typical day. Sensitivity studies on various planning window sizes are presented, which shows that trade-off exits between planning window size and achievable minimum delay. Preliminary results on runway usage are also presented in this abstract. Because arrivals on the outer runways have to be followed by crossings on the inner runways, algorithmic runway allocation prefers inner runways for arrivals and outer runways for departures. More results will be presented in the final paper. And current terminal arrival and departure procedures based on first-come-first-serve procedure will also be set up and used as a baseline for comparison.

integrated scheduler↗
NASA NTRS2018

Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Integration in the National Airspace System (NAS) Project - Systems Integration and Operationalization (SIO) Demonstration

The UAS-NAS Project hosted a Systems Integration Operationalization (SIO) Industry Day for the SIO Request for Information (RFI) on November 30, 2017 in San Diego, California. This presentation is being presented to the same group as a follow up regarding the progress that the UAS-NAS project has made on the SIO RFI. The presentation will be virtual with a teleconference

outreach↗
NASA NTRS2017

Assessing Tactical Scheduler Options for Time-Based Surface Metering

NASA is committed to demonstrating a concept of integrated arrival, departure, and surface operations by 2020 under the Airspace Technology Demonstration 2 (ATD2) sub-project. This will be accomplished starting with a demonstration of flight specific time-based departure metering at Charlotte Douglass International Airport (CLT). ATD2 tactical metering capability is based on NASAs Spot And Runway Departure Advisor (SARDA) which has been tested successfully in human-in-the-loop simulations of CLT. SARDA makes use of surface surveillance data and surface modeling to estimate the earliest takeoff time for each flight active on the airport surface or ready for pushback from the gate. The system then schedules each flight to its assigned runway in order of earliest takeoff time and assigns a target pushback time, displayed to ramp controllers as an advisory gate hold time. The objective of this method of departure metering is to move as much delay as possible to the gate to minimize surface congestion and engine on-time, while keeping sufficient pressure on the runway to maintain throughput. This flight specific approached enables greater flight efficiency and predictability, facilitating trajectory-based operations and surface-airspace integration, which ATD2 aims to achieve.Throughout ATD2 project formulation and system development, researchers have continuously engaged with stakeholders and future users, uncovering key system requirements for tactical metering that SARDA did not address. The SARDA scheduler is updated every 10 seconds using real-time surface surveillance data to ensure the most up-to-date information is used to predict runway usage. However, rapid updates also open the potential for fluctuating advisories, which Ramp controllers at a busy airport like CLT find unacceptable. Therefore, ATD2 tactical metering requires that all advisories freeze once flights are ready so that Ramp controllers may communicate a single hold time when responding to pilot ready calls.

Zelinski, Shannon↗
NASA NTRS2018

UTM and D-NET: NASA and JAXA's Collaborative Research on Integrating Small UAS with Disaster Response Efforts

Natural disasters, such as flooding, wildfire, hurricane, tornadoes, earthquakes and tsunamis, pose challenges in preserving human life and minimizing the damages to a region. During catastrophic events, timely response of disaster relief personnel, an efficient deployment of resources in the recovery effort, and coordinated information sharing amongst different relief agencies can make a substantial difference in responding to those impacted by the disaster. Many relief activities currently utilize both ground personnel and manned airborne assets during different phases of the disaster response. Typically, multiple organizations support relief activities and this often creates logistics coordination challenges between agencies which can result in wasted time or resources. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has been developing an "Integrated aircraft operation system for disaster relief (D-NET)", which assists collection and sharing of disaster information through the integrated operation of aircraft such as helicopters, aircraft, and satellites, for efficient and safe rescue operations by disaster relief aircraft. Due to the advancement in unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) technologies, public safety organizations have started incorporating small UAS (sUAS) as an asset in their disasters response activities. To address the airspace integration challenges of the influx of sUAS in the United States the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), under the UAS Traffic Management (UTM) project, has been engaged in research to enable large-scale commercial applications of sUAS operating in low altitude airspace. This paper presents the integration of D-NET, which incorporate sUAS in the planning, information sharing, and operation support of disasters response activities, and UTM, which provides airspace management to enable large scale high density operations. The integration of the DNET and UTM systems enables coordination, data sharing, and airspace management to improve the timeliness of the disaster response, enable relief organization to reduce cost and overhead by using UAS assets and still maintain airspace safety during the relief activities.

UTM↗
NASA NTRS2016

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

Currently, there is no established infrastructure to enable and safely manage the widespread use of low-altitude airspace and UAS flight operations. Given this, and understanding that the FAA faces a mandate to modernize the present air traffic management system through computer automation and significantly reduce the number of air traffic controllers by FY 2020, the FAA maintains that a comprehensive, yet fully automated UAS traffic management (UTM) system for low-altitude airspace is needed. The concept of UTM is to begin by leveraging concepts from the system of roads, lanes, stop signs, rules and lights that govern vehicles on the ground today. Building on its legacy of work in air traffic management (ATM), NASA is working with industry to develop prototype technologies for a UAS Traffic Management (UTM) system that would evolve airspace integration procedures for enabling safe, efficient low-altitude flight operations that autonomously manage UAS operating in an approved low-altitude airspace environment. UTM is a cloud-based system that will autonomously manage all traffic at low altitudes to include UASs being operated beyond visual line of sight of an operator. UTM would thus enable safe and efficient flight operations by providing fully integrated traffic management services such as airspace design, corridors, dynamic geofencing, severe weather and wind avoidance, congestion management, terrain avoidance, route planning re-routing, separation management, sequencing spacing, and contingency management. UTM removes the need for human operators to continuously monitor aircraft operating in approved areas. NASA envisions concepts for two types of UTM systems. The first would be a small portable system, which could be moved between geographical areas in support of operations such as precision agriculture and public safety. The second would be a Persistent system, which would support low-altitude operations in an approved area by providing continuous automated coverage. Both would require persistent communication, navigation, and surveillance (CNS) coverage to track, ensure, and monitor conformance. UTM is creating an airspace management tool that allows the ATM system to accommodate the number of UAS that will operate in the low altitude airspace. The analogy is just because we have a car, whether its autonomous or someone is driving, does not diminish the need for a road or road signs or rules of the road.

traffic management↗
NASA NTRS2019

UAS Concept of Operations and Vehicle Technologies Demonstration

In 2017 and 2018, under National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) sponsorship, the New York Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Test Site and Northeast UAS Airspace Integration Research (NUAIR) Alliance conducted a year-long research project that culminated in a UAS technology flight demonstration. The research project included the creation of a concept of operations, and development and demonstration of UAS technologies. The concept of operations was focused on an unmanned aircraft transiting from cruise through Class E airspace into a high-density urban terminal environment. The terminal environment in which the test was conducted was Griffiss International Airport, under Syracuse Air Traffic Control (ATC) approach control and Griffiss control tower. Employing an Aurora Centaur optionally piloted aircraft (OPA), this project explored six scenarios aimed at advancing UAS integration into the National Airspace System (NAS) under both nominal and off-nominal conditions. Off-nominal conditions were defined to include complete loss of the communications link between the remote pilot’s control station on the ground and the aircraft. The off-nominal scenarios that were investigated included lost-link conditions with and without link recovery, an automated ATC initiated go-around, autonomous rerouting around a dynamic airspace obstruction (in this case simulated weather), and autonomous taxi operations to clear the runway.

Swieringa, Kurt↗
NASA NTRS2018

Performing a Comprehensive Unmanned Aircraft System Full Integration Analysis for NASA ARMD

For many years, the concept of routinely flying unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) within the national airspace system (NAS) has been a long-term goal with numerous known and unknown technology and policy obstacles. Just within the last few years, the efforts and advancements from government, industry, and academia-sponsored research and development have greatly shortened the distance to the goal. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) has recognized that it is uniquely positioned to play a lead role in addressing the remaining UAS airspace integration (AI) challenges. To fully understand the magnitude and scope of these challenges, NASA ARMD initiated a study in 2015 to identify what would be needed to enable full integration of UAS for civil/commercial operations within the NAS by 2025. The desired outcome was a comprehensive analysis framework that ARMD could use to develop a research portfolio focused on retiring the remaining gaps and challenges standing in the way of full UAS integration. This document is a comprehensive assessment of UAS integration research to date.

UAS in the NAS↗
NASA NTRS2009

Feasibility of Mixed Equipage Operations in the Same Airspace

This study used a human-in-the-loop simulation to examine the feasibility of mixed equipage operations in an automated separation assurance environment under higher traffic densities. The study involved two aircraft equipage alternatives with and without data link and four traffic conditions. In all traffic conditions the unequipped traffic count was increased linearly throughout the scenario from approximately 5 to 20 aircraft. Condition One consisted solely of this unequipped traffic, while the remaining three conditions also included a constant number of equipped aircraft operating within the same airspace: 15 equipped aircraft in condition two, 30 in condition three, and 45 in condition four. If traffic load became excessive during any run, participants were instructed to refuse sector entry to inbound unequipped aircraft until sector load became manageable. Results showed a progressively higher number of unequipped aircraft turned away under the second, third, and fourth scenario conditions. Controller workload also increased progressively. Participants rated the mixed operations concept as acceptable, with some qualifications about procedures and information displays. These results showed that mixed operations might be feasible in the same airspace, if unequipped aircraft count is held to a workable level. This level will decrease with increasing complexity. The results imply that integrated airspace configuration is feasible to a limit. The results also indicate that the conflict detection and resolution automation, equipage, and traffic density are important factors that will need to be considered for airspace configuration.

Kopardekar, Parimal↗
NASA NTRS2009

Feasibility of Mixed Equipage Operations in the Same Airspace

This study used a human-in-the-loop simulation to examine the feasibility of mixed equipage operations in an automated separation assurance environment under higher traffic densities. The study involved two aircraft equipage alternatives - with and without data link- and four traffic conditions. In all traffic conditions the unequipped traffic count was increased linearly throughout the scenario from approximately 5 to 20 aircraft. Condition One consisted solely of this unequipped traffic, while the remaining three conditions also included a constant number of equipped aircraft operating within the same airspace: 15 equipped aircraft in condition two, 30 in condition three, and 45 in condition four. If traffic load became excessive during any run, participants were instructed to refuse sector entry to inbound unequipped aircraft until sector load became manageable. Results showed a progressively higher number of unequipped aircraft turned away under the second, third, and fourth scenario conditions. Controller workload also increased progressively. Participants rated the mixed operations concept as acceptable, with some qualifications about procedures and information displays. These results showed that mixed operations might be feasible in the same airspace, if unequipped aircraft count is held to a workable level. This level will decrease with increasing complexity. The results imply that integrated airspace configuration is feasible to a limit. The results also indicate that the conflict detection and resolution automation, equipage, and traffic density are important factors that will need to be considered for airspace configuration.

Kopardekar, Parimal↗