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NASA NTRS1996

APMS: An Integrated Set of Tools for Measuring Safety

This is a report of work in progress. In it, I summarize the status of the research and development of the Aviation Performance Measuring System (APMS) for managing, processing, and analyzing digital flight-recorded data. The objectives of the NASA-FAA APMS research project are to establish a sound scientific and technological basis for flight-data analysis, to define an open and flexible architecture for flight-data-analysis systems, and to articulate guidelines for a standardized database structure on which to continue to build future flight-data-analysis extensions. APMS will offer to the air transport community an open, voluntary standard for flight-data-analysis software, a standard that will help to ensure suitable functionality, and data interchangeability, among competing software programs. APMS will develop and document the methodologies, algorithms, and procedures for data management and analyses to enable users to easily interpret the implications regarding safety and efficiency of operations. APMS does not entail the implementation of a nationwide flight-data-collection system. It is intended to provide technical tools to ease the large-scale implementation of flight-data analyses at both the air-carrier and the national-airspace levels in support of their Flight Operations and Quality Assurance (FOQA) Programs and Advanced Qualifications Programs (AQP). APMS cannot meet its objectives unless it develops tools that go substantially beyond the capabilities of the current commercially available software and supporting analytic methods that are mainly designed to count special events. These existing capabilities, while of proven value, were created primarily with the needs of air crews in mind. APMS tools must serve the needs of the government and air carriers, as well as air crews, to fully support the FOQA and AQP programs. They must be able to derive knowledge not only through the analysis of single flights (special-event detection), but through statistical evaluation of the performance of large groups of flights. This paper describes the integrated suite of tools that will assist analysts in evaluating the operational performance and safety of the national air transport system, the air carrier, and the air crew.

Statler, Irving C.↗

NASA NTRS1997

APMS: An Integrated Suite of Tools for Measuring Performance and Safety

This is a report of work in progress. In it, I summarize the status of the research and development of the Aviation Performance Measuring System (APMS) for managing, processing, and analyzing digital flight-recorded data. The objectives of the NASA-FAA APMS research project are to establish a sound scientific and technological basis for flight-data analysis, to define an open and flexible architecture for flight-data-analysis systems, and to articulate guidelines for a standardized database structure on which to continue to build future flight-data-analysis extensions . APMS will offer to the air transport community an open, voluntary standard for flight-data-analysis software, a standard that will help to ensure suitable functionality, and data interchangeability, among competing software programs. APMS will develop and document the methodologies, algorithms, and procedures for data management and analyses to enable users to easily interpret the implications regarding safety and efficiency of operations. APMS does not entail the implementation of a nationwide flight-data-collection system. It is intended to provide technical tools to ease the large-scale implementation of flight-data analyses at both the air-carrier and the national-airspace levels in support of their Flight Operations and Quality Assurance (FOQA) Programs and Advanced Qualifications Programs (AQP). APMS cannot meet its objectives unless it develops tools that go substantially beyond the capabilities of the current commercially available software and supporting analytic methods that are mainly designed to count special events. These existing capabilities, while of proven value, were created primarily with the needs of air crews in mind. APMS tools must serve the needs of the government and air carriers, as well as air crews, to fully support the FOQA and AQP programs. They must be able to derive knowledge not only through the analysis of single flights (special-event detection), but through statistical evaluation of the performance of large groups of flights. This paper describes the integrated suite of tools that will assist analysts in evaluating the operational performance and safety of the national air transport system, the air carrier, and the air crew.

Statler, Irving C.↗

NASA NTRS1997

APMS: An Integrated Suite of Tools for Measuring Performance and Safety

Statler, Irving C.↗

NASA NTRS1998

The Aviation Performance Measuring System (APMS): An Integrated Suite of Tools for Measuring Performance and Safety

This is a report of work in progress. In it, I summarize the status of the research and development of the Aviation Performance Measuring System (APMS) for managing, processing, and analyzing digital flight-recorded data, The objectives of the NASA-FAA APMS research project are to establish a sound scientific and technological basis for flight-data analysis, to define an open and flexible architecture for flight-data analysis systems, and to articulate guidelines for a standardized database structure on which to continue to build future flight-data-analysis extensions. APMS offers to the air transport community an open, voluntary standard for flight-data-analysis software; a standard that will help to ensure suitable functionality and data interchangeability among competing software programs. APMS will develop and document the methodologies, algorithms, and procedures for data management and analyses to enable users to easily interpret the implications regarding safety and efficiency of operations. APMS does not entail the implementation of a nationwide flight-data-collection system. It is intended to provide technical tools to ease the large-scale implementation of flight-data analyses at both the air-carrier and the national-airspace levels in support of their Flight Operations and Quality Assurance (FOQA) Programs and Advanced Qualifications Programs (AQP). APMS cannot meet its objectives unless it develops tools that go substantially beyond the capabilities of the current commercially available software and supporting analytic methods that are mainly designed to count special events. These existing capabilities, while of proven value, were created primarily with the needs-of aircrews in mind. APMS tools must serve the needs of the government and air carriers, as well as aircrews, to fully support the FOQA and AQP programs. They must be able to derive knowledge not only through the analysis of single flights (special-event detection), but also through statistical evaluation of the performance of large groups of flights. This paper describes the integrated suite of tools that will assist analysts in evaluating the operational performance and safety of the national air transport system, the air carrier, and the aircrew.

Statler, Irving C.↗

NASA NTRS2012

The Effects of Limited Intent Information Availability on Self-Separation in Mixed Operations

This paper presents the results of a computer simulation of the NASA Autonomous Flight Rules (AFR) concept for airborne self-separation in airspace shared with conventional Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) traffic. This study was designed to determine the impact of varying levels of intent information from IFR aircraft on the performance of AFR conflict detection and resolution. The study used Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) to supply IFR intent, but other methods such as an uplink from a ground-based System Wide Information Management (SWIM) network could alternatively supply this information. The independent variables of the study consist of the number of ADS-B trajectory change reports broadcast by IFR aircraft and the time interval between those reports. The conflict detection and resolution metrics include: the number of conflicts and losses of separation, the average conflict warning time, and the amount of time spent in strategic vs. tactical flight modes (i.e., whether the autoflight system was decoupled from the planned route in the Flight Management System in order to respond to a short-notice traffic conflict). The results show a measurable benefit of broadcasting IFR intent vs. relying on state-only broadcasts. The results of this study will inform ongoing separation assurance research and FAA NextGen design decisions for the sharing of trajectory intent information in the National Airspace System.

Lewis, Timothy A.↗

NASA NTRS2017

UAV Inspection of Electrical Transmission Infrastructure with Path Conformance Autonomy and Lidar-Based Geofences NASA Report on UTM Reference Mission Flights at Southern Company Flights November 2016

Flights at low altitudes in close proximity to electrical transmission infrastructure present serious navigational challenges: GPS and radio communication quality is variable and yet tight position control is needed to measure defects while avoiding collisions with ground structures. To advance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) navigation technology while accomplishing a task with economic and societal benefit, a high voltage electrical infrastructure inspection reference mission was designed. An integrated air-ground platform was developed for this mission and tested in two days of experimental flights to determine whether navigational augmentation was needed to successfully conduct a controlled inspection experiment. The airborne component of the platform was a multirotor UAV built from commercial off-the-shelf hardware and software, and the ground component was a commercial laptop running open source software. A compact ultraviolet sensor mounted on the UAV can locate 'hot spots' (potential failure points in the electric grid), so long as the UAV flight path adequately samples the airspace near the power grid structures. To improve navigation, the platform was supplemented with two navigation technologies: lidar-to-polyhedron preflight processing for obstacle demarcation and inspection distance planning, and trajectory management software to enforce inspection standoff distance. Both navigation technologies were essential to obtaining useful results from the hot spot sensor in this obstacle-rich, low-altitude airspace. Because the electrical grid extends into crowded airspaces, the UAV position was tracked with NASA unmanned aerial system traffic management (UTM) technology. The following results were obtained: (1) Inspection of high-voltage electrical transmission infrastructure to locate 'hot spots' of ultraviolet emission requires navigation methods that are not broadly available and are not needed at higher altitude flights above ground structures. (2) The sensing capability of a novel airborne UV detector was verified with a standard ground-based instrument. Flights with this sensor showed that UAV measurement operations and recording methods are viable. With improved sensor range, UAVs equipped with compact UV sensors could serve as the detection elements in a self-diagnosing power grid. (3) Simplification of rich lidar maps to polyhedral obstacle maps reduces data volume by orders of magnitude, so that computation with the resultant maps in real time is possible. This enables real-time obstacle avoidance autonomy. Stable navigation may be feasible in the GPS-deprived environment near transmission lines by a UAV that senses ground structures and compares them to these simplified maps. (4) A new, formally verified path conformance software system that runs onboard a UAV was demonstrated in flight for the first time. It successfully maneuvered the aircraft after a sudden lateral perturbation that models a gust of wind, and processed lidar-derived polyhedral obstacle maps in real time. (5) Tracking of the UAV in the national airspace using the NASA UTM technology was a key safety component of this reference mission, since the flights were conducted beneath the landing approach to a heavily used runway. Comparison to autopilot tracking showed that UTM tracking accurately records the UAV position throughout the flight path.

Moore, Andrew J.↗

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 NTRSDate not supplied

Designing for Advanced Aerial Mobility: Human-Autonomy Teaming and In-Time System-Wide Safety Assurance

The continued growth of aviation shall require new innovative technologies and operational concepts to meet the ever-increasing demands on air transportation. The NASA Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) project focuses on emerging aviation markets, such as Urban Air Mobility (UAM). UAM is defined as “...a safe and efficient system for air passenger and cargo transportation within an urban area. It is inclusive of small package delivery and other urban unmanned aerial system services and supports a mix of onboard/ground-piloted and increasingly autonomous operations” ([1]). The AAM project emphasizes technology development and validating system-level concepts and solutions in coordination with other NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) projects to enable UAM metro- and micro-plex vertiport and airspace concepts of operations. The NASA AAM research portfolio includes the concepts of Remote Supervisor-in-Command (RSC) and Fleet and Airspace Manager (FAM) as possible human roles for consumer fleet providers. NASA research in RSC is focused on development of guidelines and standards for remote pilots/operators passively and actively controlling a large fleet of autonomous aircraft. For FAM, flight and ground system concepts and technologies to enable high density homogeneous operations at increased scale from vertiport(s), and coordination with other humans in the systems (e.g., UAM urban airspace manager, Air Traffic Control) are key research areas. The envisioned UAM operations are posited to require autonomous systems to enable functions ranging from fleet and resource management to vehicle control. Although automation has become increasingly sophisticated and ubiquitous in civil aviation, autonomy represents a significant evolution in automation, which has generally been limited in functional scope and capability. As autonomy takes on increasing responsibilities, humans and machines will be required to work together in new and different ways [2], rather than traditional design approaches focused on how machines (i.e., autonomy) can do the work of people. The emerging field of human-autonomy teaming (HAT) represents a comprehensive and prioritized research-driven approach to enable the success of future emerging aviation market applications through capabilities and principles that facilitate humans and machine working and thinking better together. The NASA Transformational Tools and Technologies (TTT) Autonomous System (AS) Sub-project was created to assist with the transition into higher levels of autonomy to enable new modes of air transportation, such as UAM. TTT-AS has identified HAT as a key research need to enable UAM while maintaining today’s ultra-safe aviation system safety levels. The latter challenge has been taken up by the NASA System-Wide Safety (SWS) Project, which recognizes that aviation safety, as it evolves, shall require new ways of thinking about safety to include integration of a wide-range of existing and new safety systems and practices, enhanced tools and technologies, increased access to data and data fusion, improved data analysis capabilities, enhanced in-time risk monitoring and detection, hazard prioritization and mitigation, safety assurance decision-support, and in-time integrated system analytics [3].The operational concept of UAM represents a variety of work that has been termed, “work-as-imagined” to characterize the idea that how people think that work is done and how work is actually done are often not the same [4]. To ensure design success and system safety, looking at “work-as-done” provides a comparative approach toward UAM concept and technology design through examination of corresponding analogs found today in aviation (e.g., on-demand operations) and other transportation domains (e.g., port operations). The paper shall discuss various alternative applications with specific focus on airline operation center (AOC) operations, and unmanned aerial system (UAS) command-and-control to inform scaled-versions of FAM and RSC, respectively, and with consideration of the national airspace system contextual environment. The tenets and principles of the HAT field and current NASA research efforts under the TTT-AS sub-project shall also be described. Finally, the SWS sub-project efforts to develop In-Time System-Wide Safety Assurance (ISSA) and In-Time Safety Management Systems (IASMS) are discussed in terms of how “in-time” safety assurance may be conceptualized for the on-demand mobility air taxi “work-as-imagined” operational concept [5]. As part of this effort, concepts from the emerging field of resilience engineering, are being studied. Traditional approaches to aviation safety have focused on what can go wrong and how to prevent it. Another approach to thinking about system safety should reflect not only “avoiding things that go wrong” (protective safety) but also “ensuring that things go right” (productive safety), that enables a system to exhibit the resilient performance [6] necessary for the success of the future aviation system emerging concepts of operations. The paper shall describe efforts focused on how productive safety and resilience may enable a more complete approach to system safety thinking and design of ISSA and IASMS for UAM. Future directions and research needs shall also be discussed.

resilience↗

DOE OSTI2023

Minimizing Ground Risk in Cellular-Connected Drone Corridors With mmWave Links

Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UASs) have been receiving significant interest and support from academia, industry, and regulatory bodies over the past decade due to their various use cases. To safely integrate UAS operations into the national airspace, particularly overpopulated regions, the risk posed to ground users, buildings, and vehicles due to unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flight should be minimized. This risk can be represented by a numerical metric, which we refer to in this article as the “ground risk.” Many UAS applications also depend on the presence of a reliable wireless communication link between the UAV and a control station for the transmission of UAV position, surveillance video, UAV payload commands, and other mission-related data. Such wireless communication requirements also need to be considered in the design of UAS operations. In this article, we consider both these aspects and study the design of nonintersecting trajectories for UAS operations to minimize ground risk, subject to constraints on the wireless signal strength and geometry of the trajectory, specified in terms of: 1) an enclosing cylinder within which the trajectory must lie and 2) an integrated angular change along the UAV's trajectory. The performance of a computationally expensive optimal algorithm is compared with that of a computationally faster heuristic approach within the dense urban environment of Manhattan, NY, USA. Performance evaluation using ray-tracing simulations shows that the heuristic approach performs close to the optimal algorithm at a reduced computation cost. In conclusion, this research can be utilized to make UAS operations safe and reliable and accelerate their adoption.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

NASA NTRS1974

Avionics systems in the management of air transportation

Aspects of aircraft operating systems technology are discussed along with the requirements of the National Airspace System and the system requirements for transport and light aircraft. Attention is given to problems regarding man's role as systems become increasingly complex. It is pointed out that science does not know enough concerning the operation of the human body to provide information for an optimal exploitation of man's unique capabilities as manager of his aircraft.

Berkstresser, B. K.↗

NASA NTRS1981

Meteorology impact on ATC system design

The impact of meteorology on air traffic control (ATC) system design for designs, and for cost benefit evaluations is discussed. The myriad of choices for implementation is a problem of great magnitude, given the economic climate of today. Cost versus benefit requires greater emphasis. Expanding and improving weather data acquisition, increasing the speed of weather data transmission and automating those actions that lend themselves to standardization for automated data processing are outlined. Three programs are mentioned: (1) automated weather observations, (2) weather radar and improvements to the national airspace system as related to the handling of weather data; and (3) products.

Vandemark, F. E.↗

NASA NTRS1980

Technical approaches for measurement of human errors

Human error is a significant contributing factor in a very high proportion of civil transport, general aviation, and rotorcraft accidents. The technical details of a variety of proven approaches for the measurement of human errors in the context of the national airspace system are presented. Unobtrusive measurements suitable for cockpit operations and procedures in part of full mission simulation are emphasized. Procedure, system performance, and human operator centered measurements are discussed as they apply to the manual control, communication, supervisory, and monitoring tasks which are relevant to aviation operations.

Clement, W. F.↗

NASA NTRS1982

Federal Aviation Administration weather program to improve aviation safety

The implementation of the National Airspace System (NAS) will improve safety services to aviation. These services include collision avoidance, improved landing systems and better weather data acquisition and dissemination. The program to improve the quality of weather information includes the following: Radar Remote Weather Display System; Flight Service Automation System; Automatic Weather Observation System; Center Weather Processor, and Next Generation Weather Radar Development.

Robert W. Wedan↗

NASA NTRS1983

Flight management systems - What are they and why are they being developed?

This paper presents the motivation for developing and using flight management systems. The architecture and theoretical basis of these systems is presented and their typical operation during a flight is described. Two computer programs developed to support flight management research are used to obtain numerical results which illustrate significant potential reductions in fuel used and/or airline operating costs which can be achieved through use of flight management systems. The specific levels of savings depend on the nature of the air traffic control system in which the aircraft operates. Accordingly, results are presented both for operations in the existing air traffic control system and in an air traffic control environment with reduced restrictions on airplane operations. The capability of airplanes equipped with suitable flight management systems to operate in a time-based (4-D) environment is also discussed. Programs of the Federal Aviation Administration which may influence the operation of flight management system equipped aircraft in the evolving National Airspace System are also briefly reviewed.

Creedon, J. F.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Development concerns for satellite-based air traffic control surveillance systems

Preliminary results of an investigation directed toward the configuration of a practical system design which can form the baseline for assessing the applications and value of a satellite based air traffic surveillance system for future use in the National Airspace System (NAS) are described. This work initially studied the characteristics and capabilities of a satellite configuration which would operate compatibly with the signal structure and avionics of the next generation air traffic control secondary surveillance radar system, the Mode S system. A compatible satellite surveillance system concept is described and an analysis is presented of the link budgets for the various transmission paths. From this, the satellite characteristics are established involving a large multiple feed L band antenna of approximately 50 meter aperture dimension. Trade offs involved in several of the alternative large aperture antennas considered are presented as well as the influence of various antenna configurations on the performance capabilities of the surveillance system. The features and limitations of the use of large aperture antenna systems for air traffic surveillance are discussed. Tentative results of this continuing effort are summarized with a brief description of follow on investigations involving other space based antenna systems concepts.

Mcdonald, K. D.↗

NASA NTRS1984

Operational air traffic control requirements for the new Voice Switching and Control System

Final user requirements defined for the Voice Switching and Control System (VSCS) to be implemented for ATC functions as part of the Area Control Facility (ACF) concept for the National Airspace System (NAS) are described. The VSCS will be communications equipment at operational stations, supervisory positions, and support systems, the switching system itself, and interfaces between the VSCS and other systems. Supervisory users will include the Area Manager, Traffic Management Coordinator, a Military Operations Specialists, a Weather Coordinator, a NAS manager, Maintenance, and a flight Data Communications Specialist. The VSCS will supply computerized communications capability within and among ATC centers. Details of the efforts used to define the system requirements are recounted, noting the heavy reliance on recommendations from active ATC personnel.

Leon, N.↗

NASA NTRS1986

Advanced ATC - An aircraft perspective

The principal operational improvements desired by commercial aircraft operators in the United States are efficient aircraft operations and delay reductions at the major terminals. This paper describes efforts underway within the Advanced Transport Operating Systems Program at the Langley Research Center to provide a technology basis for reducing delay while improving aircraft efficiency. The principal thrust is the development of time-based traffic control concepts which could be used within the framework of the upgraded National Airspace System and which would allow conventionally equipped aircraft to operate in a manner compatible with advanced aircraft.

Credeur, L.↗

NASA NTRS1986

Advanced ATC: An aircraft perspective

The principal operational improvements desired by commercial aircraft operators in the United States are efficient aircraft operations and delay reductions at the major terminals. Efforts underway within the Advanced Transport Operating Systems Program at the Langley Research Center to provide a technology basis for reducing delay while improving aircraft efficiency are discussed. The principal thrust is the development of time-based traffic control concepts which could be used within the framework of the upgraded National Airspace System and which would allow conventionally equipped aircraft to operate in a manner compatible with advanced aircraft.

Credeur, Leonard↗