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Results from an Interval Management (IM) Flight Test and Its Potential Benefit to Air Traffic Management Operations

NASA's first Air Traffic Management Technology Demonstration (ATD-1) subproject successfully completed a 19-day flight test of an Interval Management (IM) avionics prototype. The prototype was built based on IM standards, integrated into two test aircraft, and then flown in real-world conditions to determine if the goals of improving aircraft efficiency and airport throughput during high-density arrival operations could be met. The ATD-1 concept of operation integrates advanced arrival scheduling, controller decision support tools, and the IM avionics to enable multiple time-based arrival streams into a high-density terminal airspace. IM contributes by calculating airspeeds that enable an aircraft to achieve a spacing interval behind the preceding aircraft. The IM avionics uses its data (route of flight, position, etc.) and Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) state data from the Target aircraft to calculate this airspeed. The flight test demonstrated that the IM avionics prototype met the spacing accuracy design goal for three of the four IM operation types tested. The primary issue requiring attention for future IM work is the high rate of IM speed commands and speed reversals. In total, during this flight test, the IM avionics prototype showed significant promise in contributing to the goals of improving aircraft efficiency and airport throughput.

Baxley, Brian↗

Verbal Workload in Distributed Air Traffic Management

The effects of alternative traffic management possibilities on task performance and pilot controller verbal workloads were studied. Two new rule structures - sequencing and advisory - in addition to vectoring were studied in conjunction with CRT pilot displays incorporating traffic situation displays with and without aircraft flight path predictors. The sequencing and advisory systems gave increasing control responsibility to the pilots. It was concluded that distributed management systems could in practice significantly reduce controller verbal workload without reducing system performance. Implications of this conclusion suggest that distributed management would allow controllers to handle a larger volume of traffic safely either as a normal operating procedure or as a failure mode alternative in a highly automated ground centered system.

Kreifeldt, J. G.↗

A Multi-Operator Simulation for Investigation of Distributed Air Traffic Management Concepts

This paper discusses the current development of an air traffic operations simulation that supports feasibility research for advanced air traffic management concepts. The Air Traffic Operations Simulation (ATOS) supports the research of future concepts that provide a much greater role for the flight crew in traffic management decision-making. ATOS provides representations of the future communications, navigation, and surveillance (CNS) infrastructure, a future flight deck systems architecture, and advanced crew interfaces. ATOS also provides a platform for the development of advanced flight guidance and decision support systems that may be required for autonomous operations.

Peters, Mark E.↗

Scalable Traffic Management for Emergency Response Operations (STEReO)

The Scalable Traffic Management for Emergency Response Operations (STEReO) project aims to apply various NASA technologies, such as Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) services, onboard-vehicle autonomy, novel approaches to communications and connectivity, and remote/virtual collaboration interfaces to current-day emergency response efforts to natural disasters. Today's emergency response efforts are based on long-standing procedures that are manaul in nature, and could benefit from modernization. In particular, the use of UAS vehicles is limited, primarily due to concerns surrounding dangerous interactions between manned/unmanned operations. STEReO hopes to introduce data exchanges that improve shared situation awareness, reduce manual coordination procedures, enable scalable and high-density air operations, collectivley bringing a positive impact to the incident response. When successful, STEReO technologies will improve efficiency and timeliness of the response and recovery phases of a disaster, resulting in substantial reductions to community harm, and will also accelerate NASA’s development of high-density resilient operations, benefitting other projects relying on increasing levels of autonomy and connectivity. The prepared material provides an overview of the STEReO project, for presentation at the 2019 Convergent Aeronautics Solution (CAS) Showcase event. The CAS showcase brings together all of the current CAS execution activities, highlighting NASA's high-risk investments in aeronautics research.

Mercer, Joey↗

Roadmap to Cooperative Operating Practices for Strategic Conflict Detection and Resolution in the Upper Class E Traffic Management Concept

As the governing body of flight operations in the highly anticipated emergent area of Upper Class E airspace (60,000 ft and above), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has recognized the potential for a possible extensible traffic management system for new entrants into this domain. Following the successes with Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) and Advanced / Urban Air Mobility (AAM / UAM) Traffic Management programs, FAA put forth an initial concept of operations for supporting the start of the Upper Class E Traffic Management (ETM) concept. Like UTM and AAM / UAM, ETM is envisioned to also be a community-based, industry driven cooperative management concept. However, tailoring it to be adaptable to the atmospheric communication, navigation, and surveillance deficits, as well as the diverse vehicle and mission profiles operating in the ETM environment will be the challenge. As such, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Ames Research Center has been investigating several technologies that will help enable industry in the development of this new type of cooperative operating environment. These technologies are being prototyped and will be tested in a collaborative evaluation of an initial ETM system in late 2023. The evaluation will concentrate on building out ETM system technologies that will inform the participants regarding operational intent sharing, strategic conflict detection, and the resultant deconfliction process. In addition to the technical aspects, key roles and responsibilities will need to be defined. This will be done through exploring community-agreed upon Cooperative Operating Practices (COPs) that include procedures and capabilities to aid in timely, strategic conflict identification and resolution to be developed during the evaluation. As an initial step to the evaluation, the ETM research team at NASA Ames solicited industry feedback on various aspects of ETM operations from subject matter experts. A virtual tabletop walkthrough session was held over a two-day period to follow a roadmap through the functional steps needed to build COPs, focusing on strategic conflict detection and resolution.

Upper Class E Traffic Management (ETM)↗

Roadmap to Cooperative Operating Practices for Strategic Conflict Detection and Resolution in the Upper Class-E Traffic Management Concept

As the governing body of flight operations in the highly anticipated emergent area of Upper Class E airspace (60,000 ft and above), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has recognized the potential for a possible extensible traffic management system for new entrants into this domain. Following the successes with Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) and Advanced / Urban Air Mobility (AAM / UAM) Traffic Management programs, FAA put forth an initial concept of operations for supporting the start of the Upper Class E Traffic Management (ETM) concept. Like UTM and AAM / UAM, ETM is envisioned to also be a community-based, industry driven cooperative management concept. However, tailoring it to be adaptable to the atmospheric communication, navigation, and surveillance deficits, as well as the diverse vehicle and mission profiles operating in the ETM environment will be the challenge. As such, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Ames Research Center has been investigating several technologies that will help enable industry in the development of this new type of cooperative operating environment. These technologies are being prototyped and will be tested in a collaborative evaluation of an initial ETM system in late 2023. The evaluation will concentrate on building out ETM system technologies that will inform the participants regarding operational intent sharing, strategic conflict detection, and the resultant deconfliction process. In addition to the technical aspects, key roles and responsibilities will need to be defined. This will be done through exploring community-agreed upon Cooperative Operating Practices (COPs) that include procedures and capabilities to aid in timely, strategic conflict identification and resolution to be developed during the evaluation. As an initial step to the evaluation, the ETM research team at NASA Ames solicited industry feedback on various aspects of ETM operations from subject matter experts. A virtual tabletop walkthrough session was held over a two-day period to follow a roadmap through the functional steps needed to build COPs, focusing on strategic conflict detection and resolution. Overall, the ETM tabletop provided insights into how the community wanted to instantiate the generation and sharing of operational intent, detect strategic conflicts and resolve those conflicts using a preliminary set of procedural community-agreed upon COPs.

Upper Class-E Traffic Management (ETM)↗

System Autonomy for Space Traffic Management

This paper proposes an initial architecture for a Space Traffic Management (STM) system, based on openApplication Programming Interfaces (APIs) and drawing on previous work by the NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) to develop an architecture for low-altitude Unmanned Aerial System Traffic Management (UTM). The authors explore how autonomy could be used to enhance an STM system, and how constraints inherent in STM complicate and challenge certain applications of autonomy. We conceptually explore how autonomy could be used within an STM architecture, with multiple non-authoritative catalogs of resident space objects, and to determine which oftwo conjuncting spacecraft moves. NASA ARC is developing a software research environment for STM, along with a physical laboratory and visualization space. We invite STM stakeholders to collaborate in our infrastructure, to help inform the design of the proposed STM architecture, and to participate in the refinement and validation of its concept of operations using the software research platform.

space situational awareness↗

Human-Centered Technologies and Procedures for Future Air Traffic Management

The use of various methodologies to predict the impact of future Air Traffic Management (ATM) concepts and technologies is explored. The emphasis has been on the importance of modeling coordination and cooperation among multiple agents within this system, and on understanding how the interactions among these agents will be influenced as new roles, responsibilities, procedures and technologies are introduced. To accomplish this, we have been collecting data on performance under the current air traffic management system, identifying critical problem areas and looking for examples suggestive of general approaches for solving such problems. Using the results of these field studies, we have developed a set of concrete scenarios centered around future designs, and have studied performance in these scenarios with a set of 40 controllers, dispatchers, pilots and traffic managers.

Smith, Philip↗

Integrating Upper Class E Traffic Management (ETM) Operations into the National Airspace System: Use Cases and Research Questions

As new categories of vehicles are introduced in the National Airspace System, so too are novel concepts for a cooperative approach to traffic management environments. One of these new environments, Upper Class E Traffic Management (ETM), is expected to include a variety of high altitude, long endurance vehicles with a range of performance capabilities and mission profiles that operate in cooperative areas above 60,000 feet. In addition to developing the rules, architecture, and systems for operations within the ETM environment itself, it is also important to consider how ETM vehicles will integrate with traditional Air Traffic Management and interact with Air Traffic Control (ATC) as they traverse ATC-controlled airspace and transition in and out of cooperative ETM operating areas. As a first step toward future ETM demonstrations at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Ames Research Center’s Airspace Operations Laboratory, use cases with step-by-step procedures were developed to identify both nominal and off-nominal scenarios in which ETM operations will interact with ATC. As NASA prepares to develop a simulation platform to demonstrate ETM cooperative practices and ETM-ATC interactions, the procedures, ATC roles and responsibilities, data exchange requirements, and research questions that were identified as part of use case development will inform scenario and system architecture design. The upcoming simulation work will include initial prototype ETM-ATC coordination tools to support ATC controllers’ interactions with ETM operations. This paper will briefly discuss NASA’s upcoming ETM development work and then provide background on ETM-ATC interactions, describe each ETM-ATC interaction use case, and discuss open questions on concept, procedures, and assumptions.

ATC↗

Integrating Upper Class E Traffic Management (ETM) Operations into the National Airspace System: Use Cases and Research Questions

As new categories of vehicles are introduced in the National Airspace System, so too are novel concepts for a cooperative approach to traffic management environments. One of these new environments, Upper Class E Traffic Management (ETM), is expected to include a variety of high altitude, long endurance vehicles with a range of performance capabilities and mission profiles that operate in cooperative areas above 60,000 feet. In addition to developing the rules, architecture, and systems for operations within the ETM environment itself, it is also important to consider how ETM vehicles will integrate with traditional Air Traffic Management and interact with Air Traffic Control (ATC) as they traverse ATC-controlled airspace and transition in and out of cooperative ETM operating areas. As a first step toward future ETM demonstrations at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Ames Research Center’s Airspace Operations Laboratory, use cases with step-by-step procedures were developed to identify both nominal and off-nominal scenarios in which ETM operations will interact with ATC. As NASA prepares to develop a simulation platform to demonstrate ETM cooperative practices and ETM-ATC interactions, the procedures, ATC roles and responsibilities, data exchange requirements, and research questions that were identified as part of use case development will inform scenario and system architecture design. The upcoming simulation work will include initial prototype ETM-ATC coordination tools to support ATC controllers’ interactions with ETM operations. This paper will briefly discuss NASA’s upcoming ETM development work and then provide background on ETM-ATC interactions, describe each ETM-ATC interaction use case, and discuss open questions on concept, procedures, and assumptions.

ATC↗

Unmanned Autonomous Systems (UAS) Traffic Management

This presentation is for the Plenary Session: "Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) and the Future of Unmanned Systems in Urban Airspace" at the ASCE flagship 2019 International Conference on Transportation and Development, "Engineering Smart Mobility for the Smart City", June 9-12, 2019. The Panel is at 8:00 am on Wednesday, June 12 and moderated by Brent Ingraham (DOD). This presentation supplements Dr. Kopardekar's short introduction on how NASA is developing an Unmanned Traffic Management system and how this UTM will change the future of shared airspace.

Kopardekar, Parimal H.↗

Traffic Management for Satellite-ATM Networks

Various issues associated with "Traffic Management for Satellite-ATM Networks" are presented in viewgraph form. Specific topics include: 1) Traffic management issues for TCP/IP based data services over satellite-ATM networks; 2) Design issues for TCP/IP over ATM; 3) Optimization of the performance of TCP/IP over ATM for long delay networks; and 4) Evaluation of ATM service categories for TCP/IP traffic.

Goyal, Rohit↗

Multi-Center Traffic Management Advisor Operational Field Test Results

The Multi-Center Traffic Management Advisor (McTMA) is a research prototype system which seeks to bring time-based metering into the mainstream of air traffic control (ATC) operations. Time-based metering is an efficient alternative to traditional air traffic management techniques such as distance-based spacing (miles-in-trail spacing) and managed arrival reservoirs (airborne holding). While time-based metering has demonstrated significant benefit in terms of arrival throughput and arrival delay, its use to date has been limited to arrival operations at just nine airports nationally. Wide-scale adoption of time-based metering has been hampered, in part, by the limited scalability of metering automation. In order to realize the full spectrum of efficiency benefits possible with time-based metering, a much more modular, scalable time-based metering capability is required. With its distributed metering architecture, multi-center TMA offers such a capability.

Farley, Todd↗

Air traffic management evaluation tool

Methods for evaluating and implementing air traffic management tools and approaches for managing and avoiding an air traffic incident before the incident occurs. A first system receives parameters for flight plan configurations (e.g., initial fuel carried, flight route, flight route segments followed, flight altitude for a given flight route segment, aircraft velocity for each flight route segment, flight route ascent rate, flight route descent route, flight departure site, flight departure time, flight arrival time, flight destination site and/or alternate flight destination site), flight plan schedule, expected weather along each flight route segment, aircraft specifics, airspace (altitude) bounds for each flight route segment, navigational aids available. The invention provides flight plan routing and direct routing or wind optimal routing, using great circle navigation and spherical Earth geometry. The invention provides for aircraft dynamics effects, such as wind effects at each altitude, altitude changes, airspeed changes and aircraft turns to provide predictions of aircraft trajectory (and, optionally, aircraft fuel use). A second system provides several aviation applications using the first system. Several classes of potential incidents are analyzed and averted, by appropriate change en route of one or more parameters in the flight plan configuration, as provided by a conflict detection and resolution module and/or traffic flow management modules. These applications include conflict detection and resolution, miles-in trail or minutes-in-trail aircraft separation, flight arrival management, flight re-routing, weather prediction and analysis and interpolation of weather variables based upon sparse measurements. The invention combines these features to provide an aircraft monitoring system and an aircraft user system that interact and negotiate changes with each other.

Sridhar, Banavar↗

Incorporating UAS Traffic Management into Wildland Firefighting Operations: Initial Findings of Subject Matter Expert Interviews

Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (UASs) are being utilized throughout the disaster and emergency response domain, including in wildland firefighting operations. While UASs can offer safety benefits in comparison to crewed aircraft, such as removing the human pilot from the vehicle so that they are not exposed to the same risks and the ability to operate in low-visibility conditions, they are not without tradeoffs. For example, it can be challenging for UAS pilots (UASPs) to build situation awareness of the airspace in which their UAS is operating. In order to address some of the challenges associated with using UASs and provide greater assistance to the firefighters and incident personnel in the wildland firefighting environment, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched the Advanced Capabilities for Emergency Response Operations (ACERO) project. Building on previous NASA research, ACERO will explore the implementation of a traffic management system in the wildland fire environment to enhance safety and support situation awareness. ACERO draws on the UAS Traffic Management (UTM) system previously demonstrated in an urban environment. However, a traffic management system implemented in the wildland fire environment is expected to look and function much differently in order to meet the unique needs of this domain. At the outset of the ACERO project, interviews were conducted with five UASPs who operate UASs at wildland fire incidents. The interviews focused on exploring UASPs’ initial insights about the application of a traffic management system in wildland firefighting and understanding the unique needs of this environment. The UASPs discussed a range of topics including, the shape, size, and organization of UAS operations in the wildland fire environment, information needs for a user interface, such as traffic and map information, an alerting function when other traffic nears their operation area, and the importance of conformance monitoring. The UASPs also discussed their willingness to share operational information to support safety. In this paper, we describe the foundational work upon which ACERO will build and summarize the information and insights gathered during the UASP interviews, some of which have already informed the development of the ACERO work.

Uncrewed Aircraft System (UAS)↗

Incorporating UAS Traffic Management into Wildland Firefighting Operations: Initial Findings of Subject Matter Expert Interviews

Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (UASs) are being utilized throughout the disaster and emergency response domain, including in wildland firefighting operations. While UASs can offer safety benefits in comparison to crewed aircraft, such as removing the human pilot from the vehicle so that they are not exposed to the same risks and the ability to operate in low-visibility conditions, they are not without tradeoffs. For example, it can be challenging for UAS pilots (UASPs) to build situation awareness of the airspace in which their UAS is operating. In order to address some of the challenges associated with using UASs and provide greater assistance to the firefighters and incident personnel in the wildland firefighting environment, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched the Advanced Capabilities for Emergency Response Operations (ACERO) project. Building on previous NASA research, ACERO will explore the implementation of a traffic management system in the wildland fire environment to enhance safety and support situation awareness. ACERO draws on the UAS Traffic Management (UTM) system previously demonstrated in an urban environment. However, a traffic management system implemented in the wildland fire environment is expected to look and function much differently in order to meet the unique needs of this domain. At the outset of the ACERO project, interviews were conducted with five UASPs who operate UASs at wildland fire incidents. The interviews focused on exploring UASPs’ initial insights about the application of a traffic management system in wildland firefighting and understanding the unique needs of this environment. The UASPs discussed a range of topics including, the shape, size, and organization of UAS operations in the wildland fire environment, information needs for a user interface, such as traffic and map information, an alerting function when other traffic nears their operation area, and the importance of conformance monitoring. The UASPs also discussed their willingness to share operational information to support safety. In this presentation, we describe the foundational work upon which ACERO will build and summarize the information and insights gathered during the UASP interviews, some of which have already informed the development of the ACERO work.

Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (UAS)↗

Scalable Traffic Management for Emergency Response Operations (STEReO)

STEReO brings together several technologies in Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM), Autonomy, Communications, Human Factors, and Domain Expertise & Tools, aimed at providing scalability and flexibility, as well as operational resiliency to dynamic changes during a disaster event. Some of the concepts STEReO explores are: collaborative tools to ingest remote sensing information and distribute a common mission operating picture, apply ad-hoc communication networks to facilitate timely information sharing and communication of changes, vehicle-to-vehicle and onboard autonomy technologies ensure the safety and resiliency of operations, and apply NASA’s UAS traffic management system (UTM) as a public safety UAS Service Supplier (USS) to access and coordinate use of the airspace by both manned and unmanned operations. The potential benefits of STEReO include: standardized, cross-platform communication means increased interoperability and ease of cooperation/collaboration, increased situation awareness and common operating picture allow for earlier detection and decision making, and scalable to size and complexity of environment, operations, and mission objectives. This flyer gives an overview of the STEReO project, to be used a handout given to atteendees of the ARMD Wildfire Management Workshop.

traffic management↗