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NASA NTRS2010

NASA UAS Update

Last year may prove to be a pivotal year for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) arena, especially in relation to routine UAS access to airspace as NASA accepted an invitation to join the UAS Executive Committee (UAS ExCom). The UAS ExCom is a multi-agency, Federal executive-level committee comprised of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Department of Defense (DoD), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and NASA with the goals to: 1) Coordinate and align efforts between key Federal Government agencies to achieve routine safe federal public UAS operations in the National Airspace System (NAS); 2) Coordinate and prioritize technical, procedural, regulatory, and policy solutions needed to deliver incremental capabilities; 3) Develop a plan to accommodate the larger stakeholder community at the appropriate time; and 4) Resolve conflicts between Federal Government agencies (FAA, DoD, DHS, and NASA), related to the above goals. The committee was formed in recognition of the need of UAS operated by these agencies to access to the National Airspace System (NAS) to support operational, training, development and research requirements. In order to meet that need, technical, procedural, regulatory, and policy solutions are required to deliver incremental capabilities leading to routine access. The formation of the UAS ExCom is significant in that it represents a tangible commitment by FAA senior leadership to address the UAS access challenge. While the focus of the ExCom is government owned and operated UAS, civil UAS operations are bound to benefit by the progress made in achieving routine access for government UAS. As the UAS ExCom was forming, NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate began to show renewed interest in UAS, particularly in relation to the future state of the air transportation system under the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen). NASA made funding from the American Recovery and Revitalization Act available in order to continue addressing the issue of routine civil UAS access.

Bauer, Jeffrey Ervin↗
NASA NTRS2006

Projecting Future Scheduled Airline Demand, Schedules and NGATS Benefits Using TSAM

The Transportation Systems Analysis Model (TSAM) developed by Virginia Tech s Air Transportation Systems Lab and NASA Langley can provide detailed analysis of the effects on the demand for air travel of a full range of NASA and FAA aviation projects. TSAM has been used to project the passenger demand for very light jet (VLJ) air taxi service, scheduled airline demand growth and future schedules, Next Generation Air Transportation System (NGATS) benefits, and future passenger revenues for the Airport and Airway Trust Fund. TSAM can project the resulting demand when new vehicles and/or technology is inserted into the long distance (100 or more miles one-way) transportation system, as well as, changes in demand as a result of fare yield increases or decreases, airport transit times, scheduled flight times, ticket taxes, reductions or increases in flight delays, and so on. TSAM models all long distance travel in the contiguous U.S. and determines the mode choice of the traveler based on detailed trip costs, travel time, schedule frequency, purpose of the trip (business or non-business), and household income level of the traveler. Demand is modeled at the county level, with an airport choice module providing up to three airports as part of the mode choice. Future enplanements at airports can be projected for different scenarios. A Fratar algorithm and a schedule generator are applied to generate future flight schedules. This paper presents the application of TSAM to modeling future scheduled air passenger demand and resulting airline schedules, the impact of NGATS goals and objectives on passenger demand, along with projections for passenger fee receipts for several scenarios for the FAA Airport and Airway Trust Fund.

Dollyhigh, Samuel↗
NASA NTRS1972

Systems evaluation of low density air transportation concepts

Methods were studied for improving air transportation to low-density population regions in the U.S. through the application of new aeronautical technology. The low-density air service concepts are developed for selected regions, and critical technologies that presently limit the effective application of low-density air transportation systems are identified.

Bruce, R. W.↗
NASA NTRS1978

Planning for airport access: An analysis of the San Francisco Bay area. The setting

The regional setting for the three San Franscisco Bay area airports is described. The general role of the airports in the national air transportation system, the demand for air transportation, and the relationship of airport location to the demand for air transportation are examined. The problem of airport access is also considered. Various access modes, their destination, frequency, and cost are presented.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2011

Automated Methods to Maintain Aircraft Separation

The air traffic control system in the United States has a great track-record for safety. As more aircraft enter the system at a given time, the situation becomes more complex though. Researchers at NASA are attempting to leverage advances in many fields including optimization, data mining, and numerical modeling of systems to improve the air-transportation system maintaining safety while increasing throughput and reducing delays. This talk will give a brief overview of the research at NASA towards modernizing the air-transportation system. It will then focus on the specific area of automation tools for maintaining physical separation between aircraft known as Separation Assurance.

Lauderdale, Todd↗
NASA NTRS2015

Toward Head-Worn Displays for Equivalent Visual Operations

The Next Generation Air Transportation System represents an envisioned transformation to the U.S. air transportation system that includes an "equivalent visual operations" (EVO) concept, intended to achieve the safety and operational tempos of Visual Flight Rules (VFR) operations independent of visibility conditions. Today, Federal Aviation Administration regulations provide for the use of an Enhanced Flight Visual System (EFVS) as "operational credit" to conduct approach operations below traditional minima otherwise prohibited. An essential element of an EFVS is the Head-Up Display (HUD). NASA has conducted a substantial amount of research investigating the use of HUDs for operational landing "credit", and current efforts are underway to enable manually flown operations as low as 1000 feet Runway Visual Range (RVR). Title 14 CFR 91.175 describes the use of EFVS and the operational credit that may be obtained with airplane equipage of a HUD combined with Enhanced Vision (EV) while also offering the potential use of an “equivalent” display in lieu of the HUD. A Head-Worn Display (HWD) is postulated to provide the same, or better, safety and operational benefits as current HUD-equipped aircraft but for potentially more aircraft and for lower cost. A high-fidelity simulation was conducted that examined the efficacy of HWDs as "equivalent" displays. Twelve airline flight crews conducted 1000 feet RVR approach and 300 feet RVR departure operations using either a HUD or HWD, both with simulated Forward Looking Infra-Red cameras. The paper shall describe (a) quantitative and qualitative results, (b) a comparative evaluation of these findings with prior NASA HUD studies, and (c) describe current research efforts for EFVS to provide for a comprehensive EVO capability.

Prinzel, Lawrence (Lance) J., III↗
NASA NTRS2016

Serious Gaming for Test & Evaluation of Clean-Slate (Ab Initio) National Airspace System (NAS) Designs

Incremental approaches to air transportation system development inherit current architectural constraints, which, in turn, place hard bounds on system capacity, efficiency of performance, and complexity. To enable airspace operations of the future, a clean-slate (ab initio) airspace design(s) must be considered. This ab initio National Airspace System (NAS) must be capable of accommodating increased traffic density, a broader diversity of aircraft, and on-demand mobility. System and subsystem designs should scale to accommodate the inevitable demand for airspace services that include large numbers of autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and a paradigm shift in general aviation (e.g., personal air vehicles) in addition to more traditional aerial vehicles such as commercial jetliners and weather balloons. The complex and adaptive nature of ab initio designs for the future NAS requires new approaches to validation, adding a significant physical experimentation component to analytical and simulation tools. In addition to software modeling and simulation, the ability to exercise system solutions in a flight environment will be an essential aspect of validation. The NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) Autonomy Incubator seeks to develop a flight simulation infrastructure for ab initio modeling and simulation that assumes no specific NAS architecture and models vehicle-to-vehicle behavior to examine interactions and emergent behaviors among hundreds of intelligent aerial agents exhibiting collaborative, cooperative, coordinative, selfish, and malicious behaviors. The air transportation system of the future will be a complex adaptive system (CAS) characterized by complex and sometimes unpredictable (or unpredicted) behaviors that result from temporal and spatial interactions among large numbers of participants. A CAS not only evolves with a changing environment and adapts to it, it is closely coupled to all systems that constitute the environment. Thus, the ecosystem that contains the system and other systems evolves with the CAS as well. The effects of the emerging adaptation and co-evolution are difficult to capture with only combined mathematical and computational experimentation. Therefore, an ab initio flight simulation environment must accommodate individual vehicles, groups of self-organizing vehicles, and large-scale infrastructure behavior. Inspired by Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG) and Serious Gaming, the proposed ab initio simulation environment is similar to online gaming environments in which player participants interact with each other, affect their environment, and expect the simulation to persist and change regardless of any individual player's active participation.

Allen, B. Danette↗
NASA NTRS2021

Advanced Air Mobility and Safety Management Systems

Our current air transportation system has underserved markets, including local, regional, intraregional, and urban transportation of both people and cargo. Recent advances in aviation technology such as small highly-automated vehicles, electric aircraft, and automated air traffic are enabling business opportunities in these markets. Advanced Air Mobility, or AAM, refers to a community effort to overcome the gaps in operational rules, safety analysis, and overall acceptance, so that these new operations will be possible. For full details, please see: https://www.nasa.gov/aam As we think about how we can safely introduce these new operations, fundamental questions about how the structure of Safety Management Systems can be applied to AAM, and how that structure can be used to help us overcome the necessary technical and societal obstacles arise. Two of these questions are: • How do we tailor the requirements and desired level of monitoring and assessment to achieve safety given the breadth of possible operations and the associated risk of those operations? • How do we aid innovation by rapidly evaluating the safety of novel operations without losing associated rigor? We assume that a Safety Management System that enables these future systems will incorporate knowledge of the acceptable level of risk, and will utilize data science to automate the core monitor, assess and mitigate functions that will allow us to respond to risks and hazards in time to prevent safety incidents. In 2018, the National Academies proposed an In-Time Aviation Safety Management System (IASMS) that would advance these goals. (https://www.nap.edu/catalog/24962/in-time-aviation-safety-management-challenges-and-research-for-an) The National Academies made a clear distinction between in-time systems, in which hazards could be identified and risks mitigated in time to prevent incidents, and real-time systems, since many hazards and risks do not need real-time data and analysis to detect and mitigate.

In-Time Aviation Safety Management System↗
NASA NTRS2012

Airport Traffic Conflict Detection and Resolution Algorithm Evaluation

A conflict detection and resolution (CD&R) concept for the terminal maneuvering area (TMA) was evaluated in a fast-time batch simulation study at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Langley Research Center. The CD&R concept is being designed to enhance surface situation awareness and provide cockpit alerts of potential conflicts during runway, taxi, and low altitude air-to-air operations. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the performance of aircraft-based CD&R algorithms in the TMA, as a function of surveillance accuracy. This paper gives an overview of the CD&R concept, simulation study, and results. The Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) concept for the year 2025 and beyond envisions the movement of large numbers of people and goods in a safe, efficient, and reliable manner [1]. NextGen will remove many of the constraints in the current air transportation system, support a wider range of operations, and provide an overall system capacity up to three times that of current operating levels. Emerging NextGen operational concepts [2], such as four-dimensional trajectory based airborne and surface operations, equivalent visual operations, and super density arrival and departure operations, require a different approach to air traffic management and as a result, a dramatic shift in the tasks, roles, and responsibilities for the flight deck and air traffic control (ATC) to ensure a safe, sustainable air transportation system.

Jones, Denise R.↗
NASA NTRS2013

Work Practice Simulation of Complex Human-Automation Systems in Safety Critical Situations: The Brahms Generalized berlingen Model

The transition from the current air traffic system to the next generation air traffic system will require the introduction of new automated systems, including transferring some functions from air traffic controllers to on­-board automation. This report describes a new design verification and validation (V&V) methodology for assessing aviation safety. The approach involves a detailed computer simulation of work practices that includes people interacting with flight-critical systems. The research is part of an effort to develop new modeling and verification methodologies that can assess the safety of flight-critical systems, system configurations, and operational concepts. The 2002 Ueberlingen mid-air collision was chosen for analysis and modeling because one of the main causes of the accident was one crew's response to a conflict between the instructions of the air traffic controller and the instructions of TCAS, an automated Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System on-board warning system. It thus furnishes an example of the problem of authority versus autonomy. It provides a starting point for exploring authority/autonomy conflict in the larger system of organization, tools, and practices in which the participants' moment-by-moment actions take place. We have developed a general air traffic system model (not a specific simulation of Überlingen events), called the Brahms Generalized Ueberlingen Model (Brahms-GUeM). Brahms is a multi-agent simulation system that models people, tools, facilities/vehicles, and geography to simulate the current air transportation system as a collection of distributed, interactive subsystems (e.g., airports, air-traffic control towers and personnel, aircraft, automated flight systems and air-traffic tools, instruments, crew). Brahms-GUeM can be configured in different ways, called scenarios, such that anomalous events that contributed to the Überlingen accident can be modeled as functioning according to requirements or in an anomalous condition, as occurred during the accident. Brahms-GUeM thus implicitly defines a class of scenarios, which include as an instance what occurred at Überlingen. Brahms-GUeM is a modeling framework enabling "what if" analysis of alternative work system configurations and thus facilitating design of alternative operations concepts. It enables subsequent adaption (reusing simulation components) for modeling and simulating NextGen scenarios. This project demonstrates that BRAHMS provides the capacity to model the complexity of air transportation systems, going beyond idealized and simple flights to include for example the interaction of pilots and ATCOs. The research shows clearly that verification and validation must include the entire work system, on the one hand to check that mechanisms exist to handle failures of communication and alerting subsystems and/or failures of people to notice, comprehend, or communicate problematic (unsafe) situations; but also to understand how people must use their own judgment in relating fallible systems like TCAS to other sources of information and thus to evaluate how the unreliability of automation affects system safety. The simulation shows in particular that distributed agents (people and automated systems) acting without knowledge of each others' actions can create a complex, dynamic system whose interactive behavior is unexpected and is changing too quickly to comprehend and control.

complex systems↗
NASA NTRS1980

Vehicle expectations in air transportation for the year 2000

This paper is intended to provide an overview of the air transportation system for the year 2000 in terms of vehicle expectations. Emphasis is placed on civil air transportation with the time period approached from the standpoint of evolutionary changes for the near term and also with the assumption of more revolutionary changes for the far term. The view along the evolutionary path begins with a historical review of airline market growth and the impact that technologies have had on airplane designs. Projections of the life expectancy of existing, derivative, and new airplanes are examined in terms of their productivity and fuel efficiency in view of the present and projected fuel usage and availability. The factors influencing airline growth are outlined and some views on whether another new generation of subsonic airplanes are in the offing are given along with an assessment of the economic viability of an advanced commercial supersonic transport in terms of its higher speed, higher productivity, and higher fuel usage. With regard to revolutionary changes, major technology breakthroughs are assumed to occur at a specified date. As an example, the impact of a dramatic reduction in skin friction drag is examined in terms of its effect on the airplane configuration, its propulsion systems, it projected fuel usage, and the air transportation system in which it must operate.

Hearth, D. P.↗
NASA NTRS2008

Application of the Iridium Satellite System to Aeronautical Communications

The next generation air transportation system will require greater air-ground communications capacity to accommodate more air traffic with increased safety and efficiency. Communications will remain primarily terrestrially based, but satellite communications will have an increased role. Inmarsat s aeronautical services have been approved and are in use for aeronautical safety communications provided by geostationary satellites. More recently the approval process for the Iridium low earth orbit constellation is nearing completion. The current Iridium system will be able to provide basic air traffic services communications suitable for oceanic, remote and polar regions. The planned second generation of the Iridium system, called Iridium NEXT, will provide enhanced capabilities and enable a greater role in the future of aeronautical communications. This paper will review the potential role of satellite communications in the future of air transportation, the Iridium approval process and relevant system testing, and the potential role of Iridium NEXT.

Kerczewski, Robert J.↗
NASA NTRS2005

Demonstration of Four Operating Capabilities to Enable a Small Aircraft Transportation System

The Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS) project has been a five-year effort fostering research and development that could lead to the transformation of our country s air transportation system. It has become evident that our commercial air transportation system is reaching its peak in terms of capacity, with numerous delays in the system and the demand keeps steadily increasing. The SATS vision is to increase mobility in our nation s transportation system by expanding access to more than 3400 small community airports that are currently under-utilized. The SATS project has focused its efforts on four key operating capabilities that have addressed new emerging technologies and procedures to pave the way for a new way of air travel. The four key operating capabilities are: Higher Volume Operations at Non-Towered/Non-Radar Airports, En Route Procedures and Systems for Integrated Fleet Operations, Lower Landing Minimums at Minimally Equipped Landing Facilities, and Increased Single Pilot Performance. These four capabilities are key to enabling low-cost, on-demand, point-to-point transportation of goods and passengers utilizing small aircraft operating from small airports. The focus of this paper is to discuss the technical and operational feasibility of the four operating capabilities and demonstrate how they can enable a small aircraft transportation system.

Viken, Sally A.↗
NASA NTRS2001

Evaluation of the National Throughput Benefits of the Civil Tilt Rotor

The air transportation system is a key part of the U.S. and global economic infrastructure. In recent years, this system, by any measure of usage - operations, enplanements, or revenue passenger miles (RPMs) - has grown rapidly. The rapid growth in demand has not been matched; however, by commensurate increases in the ability of airports and the airspace system to handle the additional traffic. As a result, the air transportation system is approaching capacity and airlines will face excessive delays or significant constraints on service unless capacity is expanded. To expand capacity, the air traffic management system must be improved. To improve the air traffic management system, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Aerospace Technology Enterprise developed the strategic goal of tripling air traffic throughput over the next 10 years, in all weather conditions, while at least maintaining current safety standards. As the first step in meeting that goal, the NASA Intercenter Systems Analysis Team (ISAT) is evaluating the contribution of existing programs to meet that goal. A major part of the study is an examination of the ability of the National Airspace System (NAS) to meet the predicted growth in travel demand and the potential benefits of technology infusion to expand NAS capacity. We previously analyzed the effects of the addition of two technology elements - Terminal Area Productivity (TAP) and Advanced Air Transportation Technologies (AATT). The next program we must analyze is not specific to airspace or aircraft technology. The program incorporates a fundamentally different vehicle to improve throughput: the civil tilt rotor (CTR). The CTR has the unique operating characteristic of being able to take off and land like a rotorcraft (vertical take off and landing, or VTOL, capability) but cruises like a traditional fixed-wing aircraft. The CTR also can operate in a short take off and landing (STOL) mode; generally, with a greater payload capacity (i.e., more passengers) than when operating in the VTOL mode. CTR could expand access to major airports without interfering with fixed-wing aircraft operating on congested runways and it could add service to new markets without the infrastructure support needed for fixed-wing aircraft. During FY 1999, we preliminarily assessed the feasibility of operating CTRs at two major U.S. airports as part of the annual review of NASA aerospace goals by the ISAT. This current study expands the analysis and concepts of that study to the complete NAS to quantify the national throughput effects of the CTR.

Johnson, Jesse↗
NASA NTRS2005

A Potentially Useful for Airborne Separation in 4D-Trajectory ATM Operations

An aircraft equipped with Airborne Separation Assistance System functions and 4- dimensional trajectory management capabilities can have significant, potentially transforming, value to Air Traffic Management at the local and system levels. This paper discusses how certain vital characteristics envisioned in the Next Generation Air Transportation System enable some Air Traffic Management functions to be distributed to properly equipped aircraft, and it defines and illustrates this equipage level in a potential application. The new equipage level, perhaps the most capable of many levels permitted, enables an effective implementation of both near- and long-term 4-dimensional trajectory operations in complex airspace, with the aircraft providing the near-term tactical functions and conforming to the long-term trajectory attributes coordinated with ground-based Traffic Flow Management authorities. NASA s recent research and development of this proposed aircraft equipage for en-route and terminal-arrival operations is summarized. The role the equipage level may play in addressing key implementation challenges of reducing ground infrastructure cost, building in security and safety, and scaling to traffic demand is discussed.

Wing, David J.↗
NASA NTRS2004

Fourth Integrated Communications, Navigation, and Surveillance (ICNS) Conference and Workshop 2004: Conclusions and Recommendations

The NASA Glenn Research Center organized and hosted the Fourth Integrated Communications, Navigation, and Surveillance (ICNS) Technologies Conference and Workshop, which took place April 26-30, 2004 at the Hyatt Fair Lakes Hotel in Fairfax, Virginia. This fourth conference of the annual series followed the very successful first ICNS Conference (May 1-3, 2001 in Cleveland, Ohio), second ICNS conference (April 29-May 2, 2002 in Vienna, Virginia), and third ICNS conference (May 19-22, 2003 in Annapolis, Maryland). The purpose of the Fourth ICNS Conference was to assemble government, industry and academic communities performing research and development for advanced digital communications, surveillance and navigation systems and associated applications supporting the national and global air transportation systems to: 1) Understand current efforts and recent results in near- and far-term R&D and technology demonstration; 2) Identify integrated digital communications, navigation and surveillance R&D requirements necessary for a safe, secure and reliable, high-capacity, advanced air transportation system; 3) Provide a forum for fostering collaboration and coordination; and 4) Discuss critical issues and develop recommendations to achieve the future integrated CNS vision for national and global air transportation. The workshop attracted 316 attendees from government, industry and academia to address these purposes through technical presentations, breakout sessions, and individual and group discussions during the workshop and after-hours events, and included 16 international attendees. An Executive Committee consisting of representatives of several key segments of the aviation community concerned with CNS issues met on the day following the workshop to consider the primary outcomes and recommendations of the workshop. This report presents an overview of the conference, workshop breakout session results, and the findings of the Executive Committee.

Phillips, Brent↗
NASA NTRS2014

Using Vision System Technologies to Enable Operational Improvements for Low Visibility Approach and Landing Operations

Flight deck-based vision systems, such as Synthetic and Enhanced Vision System (SEVS) technologies, have the potential to provide additional margins of safety for aircrew performance and enable the implementation of operational improvements for low visibility surface, arrival, and departure operations in the terminal environment with equivalent efficiency to visual operations. To achieve this potential, research is required for effective technology development and implementation based upon human factors design and regulatory guidance. This research supports the introduction and use of Synthetic Vision Systems and Enhanced Flight Vision Systems (SVS/EFVS) as advanced cockpit vision technologies in Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) operations. Twelve air transport-rated crews participated in a motion-base simulation experiment to evaluate the use of SVS/EFVS in NextGen low visibility approach and landing operations. Three monochromatic, collimated head-up display (HUD) concepts (conventional HUD, SVS HUD, and EFVS HUD) and two color head-down primary flight display (PFD) concepts (conventional PFD, SVS PFD) were evaluated in a simulated NextGen Chicago O'Hare terminal environment. Additionally, the instrument approach type (no offset, 3 degree offset, 15 degree offset) was experimentally varied to test the efficacy of the HUD concepts for offset approach operations. The data showed that touchdown landing performance were excellent regardless of SEVS concept or type of offset instrument approach being flown. Subjective assessments of mental workload and situation awareness indicated that making offset approaches in low visibility conditions with an EFVS HUD or SVS HUD may be feasible.

Kramer, Lynda J.↗
NASA NTRS2005

Air Traffic Management Research at NASA Ames Research Center

Since the late 1980's, NASA Ames researchers have been investigating ways to improve the air transportation system through the development of decision support automation. These software advances, such as the Center-TRACON Automation System (eTAS) have been developed with teams of engineers, software developers, human factors experts, and air traffic controllers; some ASA Ames decision support tools are currently operational in Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) facilities and some are in use by the airlines. These tools have provided air traffic controllers and traffic managers the capabilities to help reduce overall delays and holding, and provide significant cost savings to the airlines as well as more manageable workload levels for air traffic service providers. NASA is continuing to collaborate with the FAA, as well as other government agencies, to plan and develop the next generation of decision support tools that will support anticipated changes in the air transportation system, including a projected increase to three times today's air-traffic levels by 2025. The presentation will review some of NASA Ames' recent achievements in air traffic management research, and discuss future tool developments and concepts currently under consideration.

Lee, Katharine↗