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NASA NTRS1986

An investigation of TNAV equipped aircraft in a simulated en route metering environment

This document presents the results of an effort to estimate how often a TNAV (Time Navigation) equipped aircraft could be given a TNAV clearance in the En Route Metering (ERM) system as a function of the percentage of arriving traffic which is TNAV equipped. A fast-time simulation of Denver Stapleton international arrival traffic in the Denver Air Route Traffic Control Center route structure, including en route metering operations, was used to develop data on estimated conflicts, clearance communications and fuel usage for traffic mixes of 25, 50, 75 and 100% TNAV equipped. This study supports an overall effort by NASA to assess the benefits and required technology for using TNAV-equipped aircraft in the ERM environment.

Groce, J. L.↗

NASA NTRS1998

Controller Strategies for Managing Air Traffic in High Altitude Arrival Sectors

Substantial increases in the volume of air traffic in the National Airspace System (NAS) are forecast for the next decade, with the number of passengers travelling on U.S. airlines expected to increase by as much as 60%. This increased demand on system capacity will be accompanied by increases in traffic complexity as air traffic service providers routinely accommodate user preferred routing requests. Changes to the NAS to meet these new demands are currently underway, including development of new decision support tools to aid controllers in monitoring and managing air traffic, and increased air-to-air and air-to-ground information exchange. Changes in roles and responsibilities of pilots and controllers in flight path management will accompany these changes in traffic patterns and information technology, however the ultimate responsibility for maintaining aircraft separation will remain with the air traffic controller. A thorough understanding of the methods controllers use to manage air traffic will help ensure that changes to the NAS are implemented in a way that maintains the controller's ability to separate aircraft as the system evolves. This presentation describes the strategies controllers use today to manage arrival traffic in its descent from cruise altitude to the Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) boundary. Factors that increase the complexity of this task include the presence of overflight traffic, varying aircraft performance characteristics, winds aloft, ground speed variations with altitude, the need to merge arrival traffic into a single stream, and, when arrival traffic exceeds airport runway capacity, the added task of metering flow into the TRACON. Because of the limited information available to controllers to manage arrival traffic, their strategies are often driven by the need to reduce the task's complexity, which can result in de-optimized flight paths for individual aircraft (e.g., sub-optimal descent or speed profiles). Understanding these strategies and the cognitive demands that drive them will support a safe transition to a NAS that relies on enhanced technologies. In addition, it could enable system developers to identify opportunities for new automation-based procedures or information displays that could reduce the controller's workload and increase operational efficiency.

Smith, Nancy↗

NASA NTRS2019

Field Evaluation of the Baseline Integrated Arrival, Departure, and Surface (IADS) Capabilities at Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT)

NASA is currently developing a suite of decision support capabilities for integrated arrival, departure, and surface (IADS) operations in a metroplex environment. The effort is being made in three phases, under NASA's Airspace Technology Demonstration 2 (ATD-2) sub-project, through a strong partnership with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), air carriers, airport, and general aviation community. The Phase 1 Baseline IADS capabilities provide enhanced operational efficiency and predictability of flight operations through data exchange and integration, tactical surface metering, and automated coordination of release time of controlled flights for overhead stream insertion. The users of the IADS system include the personnel at the Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) air traffic control tower, American Airlines ramp tower, CLT terminal radar approach control (TRACON), and Washington Center. This paper describes the Phase 1 Baseline IADS capabilities and field evaluation conducted at CLT from September 2017 for a year. From the analysis of operations data, it is estimated that 538,915 kilograms of fuel savings, and 1,659 metric tons of CO2 emission reduction were achieved during the period with a total of 944 hours of engine run time reduction. The amount of CO2 savings is estimated as equivalent to planting 42,560 urban trees. The results have also shown that the surface metering had no negative impact on on-time arrival performance of both outbound and inbound flights. The technology transfer of Phase 1 Baseline IADS capabilities has been made to the FAA and aviation industry, and the development of additional capabilities for the subsequent phases is underway.

and Surface (IADS)↗

NASA NTRS2015

Methodology to Define Delivery Accuracy Under Current Day ATC Operations

In order to enable arrival management concepts and solutions in a NextGen environment, ground- based sequencing and scheduling functions have been developed to support metering operations in the National Airspace System. These sequencing and scheduling algorithms as well as tools are designed to aid air traffic controllers in developing an overall arrival strategy. The ground systems being developed will support the management of aircraft to their Scheduled Times of Arrival (STAs) at flow-constrained meter points. This paper presents a methodology for determining the undelayed delivery accuracy for current day air traffic control operations. This new method analyzes the undelayed delivery accuracy at meter points in order to understand changes of desired flow rates as well as enabling definition of metrics that will allow near-future ground automation tools to successfully achieve desired separation at the meter points. This enables aircraft to meet their STAs while performing high precision arrivals. The research presents a possible implementation that would allow delivery performance of current tools to be estimated and delivery accuracy requirements for future tools to be defined, which allows analysis of Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) accuracy for Time-Based Flow Management (TBFM) and the FAA's Traffic Management Advisor (TMA). TMA is a deployed system that generates scheduled time-of-arrival constraints for en- route air traffic controllers in the US. This new method of automated analysis provides a repeatable evaluation of the delay metrics for current day traffic, new releases of TMA, implementation of different tools, and across different airspace environments. This method utilizes a wide set of data from the Operational TMA-TBFM Repository (OTTR) system, which processes raw data collected by the FAA from operational TMA systems at all ARTCCs in the nation. The OTTR system generates daily reports concerning ATC status, intent and actions. Due to its availability, ease of use, and vast collection of data across several airspaces it was determined that the OTTR data set would be the best method to utilize moving forward with this analysis. The particular variables needed for further analysis were determined along with the necessary OTTR reports, by working closely with the repository team additional analysis reports were developed that provided key ETA and STA information at the freeze horizon. One major benefit of the OTTR data is that using the correct reports the data across several airports could be analyzed over large periods of time. The OTTR data processes the TBFM data daily and is stored in various formats across several airspaces. This allowed us to develop our own parsing methods and raw data processing that would not rely on other computationally expensive tools that perform more in depth analysis of similar sets of data. The majority of this work consisted of the development of the ability to filter flights to create a subset of flights that could be considered undelayed, which is defined as a flight at the freeze horizon with an ETA and STA difference that was minimal or close to zero. This was a broad method that allowed the consideration of a large data set which consisted of all the traffic across a two month period in 2013, the hottest and coldest months, arriving into four airports: George Bush Intercontinental, Denver International, Los Angeles International, and Phoenix Sky Harbor.

delivery accuracy↗

NASA NTRS2019

Fast-Time Simulation for Evaluating the Impact of Estimated Flight Ready Time Uncertainty on Surface Metering

NASA has been developing and demonstrating new concepts and technologies for Integrated Arrival, Departure, and Surface (IADS) traffic management capabilities under the Airspace Technology Demonstration 2 (ATD-2) project. One of the IADS capabilities in the ATD-2 project is surface metering enabled by a tactical surface scheduler to provide controllers with the pushback advisories for departures at gates. The tactical surface scheduler uses the estimated flight ready times provided by airlines, called Earliest Off-Block Times (EOBTs), as input to calculate the target off-block times for pushback advisories. However, the EOBTs are often inaccurate and deviate from the actual flight ready times, which may reduce the benefits of surface metering. In this paper, a linear regression model is developed to model the EOBT uncertainty distribution over time based on actual EOBT data collected at Charlotte airport. This EOBT model is integrated with a tactical surface scheduler and a fast-time simulation tool. To evaluate the impact of the EOBT accuracy on airport surface operations, fast-time simulations are implemented for selected traffic scenarios under different levels of modelled EOBT accuracy. The simulation results show that the EOBT uncertainty affects several performance metrics related to the surface metering, such as gate hold, taxi time reduction, and target takeoff time predictability, which in turn influences ATD-2's scheduler performance.

tactical surface scheduler↗

NASA NTRS2019

Fast-Time Simulation for Evaluating the Impact of Estimated Flight Ready Time Uncertainty on Surface Metering

tactical surface scheduler↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Objective Measurement Assessment of Departure Advisories for Ramp Controllers from a Human-In-The-Loop Simulation

NASA has developed and demonstrated an integrated arrival, departure, and surface concept and technology for efficient air traffic management in busy terminal environments under the Airspace Technology Demonstration 2 (ATD-2) subproject. In April/May 2019, NASA conducted a human-in-the-loop (HITL) simulation with ramp and tower controllers having experience at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW). The purpose of this HITL was to evaluate the impacts of various surface metering goals in ramp operations at DFW and test new features of the ATD-2 ramp controller decision support tools. This paper evaluates the quantitative metrics from the simulation results related to airport performance and surface metering given various departure scheduling advisories for ramp controllers. The objective measurements compared include the controller’s compliance with the target times for pushback and spot arrival, the number of metered flights, aircraft gate hold and taxi time, runway throughput, and the number of aircraft on the surface. The simulation results show that there were no statistically significant benefits from surface metering at DFW for airport performance due to several simulation artifacts notably different from real operations. Considering controller workload and situation awareness, following either gate pushback or spot arrival advisory could be a better metering option than utilizing both advisories when surface metering is applied at DFW.

airport ramp traffic control decision support↗

NASA NTRS1998

A Fast-Time Study of Aircraft Reordering in Arrival Sequencing and Scheduling

In order to ensure that the safe capacity of the terminal area is not exceeded, Air Traffic Management ATM often places restrictions on arriving flights transitioning from en route airspace to terminal airspace. This restriction of arrival traffic is commonly referred to as arrival flow management, and includes techniques such as metering, vectoring, fix-load balancing, and the imposition of miles-in-trail separations. These restrictions are enacted without regard for the relative priority which airlines may be placing on individual flights based on factors such as crew criticality, passenger connectivity, critical turn times, gate availability, on-time performance, fuel status, or runway preference. The development of new arrival flow management techniques which take into consideration priorities expressed by air carriers will likely reduce the economic impact of ATM restrictions on the airlines and lead to increased airline economic efficiency by allowing airlines to have greater control over their individual arrival banks of aircraft. NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have designed and developed a suite of software decision support tools (DSTs) collectively known as the Center TRACON Automation System (CTAS). One of these tools, the Traffic Management Advisor (TMA) is currently being used at the Fort Worth Air Route Traffic Control Center to perform arrival flow management of traffic into the Dallas/Fort Worth airport (DFW). The TMA is a time-based strategic planning tool that assists Traffic Management Coordinators (TMCs) and En Route Air Traffic Controllers in efficiently balancing arrival demand with airport capacity. The primary algorithm in the TMA is a real-time scheduler which generates efficient landing sequences and landing times for arrivals within about 200 no a. from touchdown. This scheduler will sequence aircraft so that they arrive in a first- come - first-served (FCFS) order. While FCFS sequencing establishes a fair order based on estimated times of arrival, it does not take into account individual airline priorities among incoming flights. NASA is exploring the possibility of allowing airlines to express relative arrival priorities to air traffic management through the development of new CTAS scheduling algorithms which take into consideration airline arrival preferences. The accommodation of airline priorities in arrival sequencing and scheduling would under most circumstances result in a deviation from a "natural" or FCFS arrival order. As a First step toward developing airline influenced sequencing algorithms, an investigation was conducted to determine the feasibility of reordering arrival traffic from a strict FCFS sequence. A fast-time simulation has been developed which allows statistical evaluation of sequencing and scheduling algorithms for arrival traffic at the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. In contrast to real-time simulation or field tests, which would require on the order of ninety minutes to examine a single traffic rush period, the fast-time simulation allows examination of multiple rush periods in a matter of seconds.

Carr, Greg↗

NASA NTRS2014

Case Study: Influences of Uncertainties and Traffic Scenario Difficulties in a Human-in-the-Loop Simulation

This paper presents a case study of how factors such as wind prediction errors and metering delays can influence controller performance and workload in Human-In-The-Loop simulations. Retired air traffic controllers worked two arrival sectors adjacent to the terminal area. The main tasks were to provide safe air traffic operations and deliver the aircraft to the metering fix within +/- 25 seconds of the scheduled arrival time with the help of provided decision support tools. Analyses explore the potential impact of metering delays and system uncertainties on controller workload and performance. The results suggest that trajectory prediction uncertainties impact safety performance, while metering fix accuracy and workload appear subject to the scenario difficulty.

air traffic control↗

NASA NTRS2019

Field Evaluation of the Baseline Integrated Arrival, Departure, and Surface Capabilities at Charlotte Douglas International Airport

Jung, Yoon C.↗

NASA NTRS2004

ADS-B within a Multi-Aircraft Simulation for Distributed Air-Ground Traffic Management

Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) is an enabling technology for NASA s Distributed Air-Ground Traffic Management (DAG-TM) concept. DAG-TM has the goal of significantly increasing capacity within the National Airspace System, while maintaining or improving safety. Under DAG-TM, aircraft exchange state and intent information over ADS-B with other aircraft and ground stations. This information supports various surveillance functions including conflict detection and resolution, scheduling, and conformance monitoring. To conduct more rigorous concept feasibility studies, NASA Langley Research Center s PC-based Air Traffic Operations Simulation models a 1090 MHz ADS-B communication structure, based on industry standards for message content, range, and reception probability. The current ADS-B model reflects a mature operating environment and message interference effects are limited to Mode S transponder replies and ADS-B squitters. This model was recently evaluated in a Joint DAG-TM Air/Ground Coordination Experiment with NASA Ames Research Center. Message probability of reception vs. range was lower at higher traffic levels. The highest message collision probability occurred near the meter fix serving as the confluence for two arrival streams. Even the highest traffic level encountered in the experiment was significantly less than the industry standard "LA Basin 2020" scenario. Future studies will account for Mode A and C message interference (a major effect in several industry studies) and will include Mode A and C aircraft in the simulation, thereby increasing the total traffic level. These changes will support ongoing enhancements to separation assurance functions that focus on accommodating longer ADS-B information update intervals.

Barhydt, Richard↗

NASA NTRS2016

Differing Air Traffic Controller Responses to Similar Trajectory Prediction Errors

A Human-In-The-Loop simulation was conducted in January of 2013 in the Airspace Operations Laboratory at NASA's Ames Research Center. The simulation airspace included two en route sectors feeding the northwest corner of Atlanta's Terminal Radar Approach Control. The focus of this paper is on how uncertainties in the study's trajectory predictions impacted the controllers ability to perform their duties. Of particular interest is how the controllers interacted with the delay information displayed in the meter list and data block while managing the arrival flows. Due to wind forecasts with 30-knot over-predictions and 30-knot under-predictions, delay value computations included errors of similar magnitude, albeit in opposite directions. However, when performing their duties in the presence of these errors, did the controllers issue clearances of similar magnitude, albeit in opposite directions?

trajectory prediction uncertainty↗

NASA NTRS2015

Differing Air Traffic Controller Responses to Similar Trajectory Prediction Errors: An Interrupted Time-Series Analysis of Controller Behavior

A Human-In-The-Loop simulation was conducted in January of 2013 in the Airspace Operations Laboratory at NASAs Ames Research Center. The simulation airspace included two en route sectors feeding the northwest corner of Atlantas Terminal Radar Approach Control. The focus of this paper is on how uncertainties in the studys trajectory predictions impacted the controllers ability to perform their duties. Of particular interest is how the controllers interacted with the delay information displayed in the meter list and data block while managing the arrival flows. Due to wind forecasts with 20-knot over-predictions and 20-knot under-predictions, delay value computations included errors of similar magnitude, albeit in opposite directions. However, when performing their duties in the presence of these errors, did the controllers issue clearances of similar magnitude, albeit in opposite directions?

human-automation interaction↗

NASA NTRS2016

Assessment of Delivery Accuracy in an Operational-Like Environment

In order to enable arrival management concepts and solutions in a Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) environment, ground-based sequencing and scheduling functions were developed to support metering operations in the National Airspace System. These sequencing and scheduling tools are designed to assist air traffic controllers in developing an overall arrival strategy, from enroute down to the terminal area boundary. NASA developed a ground system concept and protoype capability called Terminal Sequencing and Spacing (TSAS) to extend metering operations into the terminal area to the runway. To demonstrate the use of these scheduling and spacing tools in an operational-like environment, the FAA, NASA, and MITRE conducted an Operational Integration Assessment (OIA) of a prototype TSAS system at the FAA's William J. Hughes Technical Center (WJHTC). This paper presents an analysis of the arrival management strategies utilized and delivery accuracy achieved during the OIA. The analysis demonstrates how en route preconditioning, in various forms, and schedule disruptions impact delivery accuracy. As the simulation spanned both enroute and terminal airspace, the use of Ground Interval Management - Spacing (GIM-S) enroute speed advisories was investigated. Delivery accuracy was measured as the difference between the Scheduled Time of Arrival (STA) and the Actual Time of Arrival (ATA). The delivery accuracy was computed across all runs conducted during the OIA, which included deviations from nominal operations which are known to commonly occur in real operations, such as schedule changes and missed approaches. Overall, 83% of all flights were delivered into the terminal airspace within +/- 30 seconds of their STA and 94% of flights were delivered within +/- 60 seconds. The meter fix delivery accuracy standard deviation was found to be between 36 and 55 seconds across all arrival procedures. The data also showed when schedule disruptions were excluded, the percentage of aircraft delivered within +/- 30 seconds was between 85 and 90% across the various arrival procedures at the meter fix. This paper illustrates the ability to meet new delivery accuracy requirements in an operational-like environment using operational systems and NATCA controller participants, while also including common events that might cause disruptions to the schedule and overall system.

Air Traffic Scheduling↗

NASA NTRS1981

Preliminary comparison of material charging properties using single-energy and multienergy electron beams

Results of tests designed to compare the charging properties of spacecraft material under a monoenergetic beam and under a continuously distributed beam are summarized. In the test setup the electron source was mounted in the top of a cylindrical vacuum chamber. A sheet of 5-mil-thick Kapton was placed on an insulated metal substrate at the bottom of the vacuum chamber. The dc current arriving on the substrate was measured and a field meter measured the potential of the test sample. A retarding potential analyzer measured the energy spectrum of the incident electron beam. With the monoenergetic beam, the sample charged to 12 kV and electrical discharges occurred. With the multi-energy spectra the samples charged to only 6 kV and 4 kV, and no discharger were observed. In these experiments, no effort was made to duplicate the spectra occurring in space. The tests were intended to simply to compare spacecraft material charging properties using monoenergetic and continuous multi-energy beams.

Adamo, R. C.↗

NASA NTRS2018

On-Time Performance ASPM Non-Parametric Statistical Analysis

The purpose of this analysis is to provide a data-driven examination of two selected flight metrics, i.e., (1) total taxi-out time and (2) actual off time minus scheduled off block time. More specifically, Aviation System Performance Metrics (ASPM) data were analyzed to determine any possible differences in CLT (Charlotte Douglas International Airport) departure flights on these two metrics when comparing pre-IADS (Integrated Arrival, Departure, and Surface Operations) against post-IADS metering operations. This was originally presented to the ATD-2 (Airspace Technology Demonstration-2) Analytics team in August 2018.

tech transfer↗

NASA NTRS1986

Algorithm for Fuel-Conservative Airplane Descents

Federal Aviation Administration implementing automated, time-based metering form of air-traffic control (ATC) with profile-descent procedures for arrivals into terminal area. Measures provide fuel savings by matching arrival of airplanes to airport acceptance rate through time-control computations and allowing pilot to descend at his discretion from cruise altitude to designated metering-fix altitude in idle-thrust clean configuration. Airborne descent algorithm developed compatible with time-based metering and profile-descent procedures and designed to improve accuracy of delivering airplane during fuel-efficient descent to metering fix at time designated by the ATC system.

Knox, C. E.↗

NASA NTRS2015

Enabling Performance-Based Navigation Arrivals: Development and Simulation Testing of the Terminal Sequencing and Spacing System

NASA has developed an advanced arrival management capability for terminal controllers, known as Terminal Sequencing and Spacing (TSS). TSS increases use of performance-based navigation (PBN) arrival procedures during periods of high traffic demand. It extends two Federal Aviation Administration's operational systems with terminal metering and controller spacing tools. Sixteen high-fidelity human-in-the-loop simulations, involving more than five hundred hours of evaluation time, were conducted to mature TSS from proof-of- concept design to fully functional prototype. These simulations modeled arrival procedures at several U.S. airports, incorporated a broad range of traffic demand profiles and wind conditions, and used controllers with extensive operational experience. Two fundamental metrics are evaluated for these simulations: PBN Success Rate and Inter-Arrival Spacing Error. The PBN Success Rate shows a definitive trend when TSS is used. It increases from 42 percent for today's operations to 68 percent for terminal metering only and 92 percent for terminal metering with controller-managed spacing tools. Meanwhile, the Inter-Arrival Spacing Error improves 25 to 35 percent when TSS is used compared to not used. The TSS technology was transferred to the FAA and, and it is targeted for deployment to several busy airports in the U.S. starting in 2018.

terminal metering↗