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NASA NTRS2019

Indoor Ground Testing of a Small UAS Sense and Avoid Airborne Doppler Radar

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) project is researching prototype technologies needed to ensure safe integration of UAS operations into the National Airspace System (NAS). Within the UTM Concept of Operations, UAS would be equipped with on-board Sense and Avoid (SAA) technology to continually monitor for manned and unmanned aircraft in its vicinity while operating beyond visual line of sight in uncontrolled airspace. To support this effort, a candidate commercially available 24.5 GHz Doppler radar was selected and evaluated to determine if the technology could reliably support minimum requirements for SAA applications of small UAS (sUAS). Indoor ground tests were conducted inside the NASA Langley Research Center’s Experimental Test Range (ETR) from a stationary platform to evaluate the Doppler radar performance characteristics and gain operational proficiency before the radar was authorized to transmit outdoors. A high speed linear rail system was developed for the radar evaluation and was shown to be an effective method to generate Doppler radar targets of known radar cross section. The accuracy of the range and velocity reported by the radar was shown to be dependent on the Kalman filter state variance parameter settings. Antenna measurements were collected with the radar installed both on and off a sUAS to quantify the relative antenna gain, beam width and side lobe levels of the radar’s Metamaterial Electronically Scanning Array (MESA) antennas at boresight and extreme field of view pointing vectors. The relative antenna gain measured 2.6 dB lower at extreme field view angles compared to the boresight radiation pattern.

Szatkowski, George N.↗

NASA NTRS2011

Research Of Airborne Precision Spacing to Improve Airport Arrival Operations

In September 2004, the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation (EUROCONTROL) and the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) signed a Memorandum of Cooperation to mutually develop, modify, test, and evaluate systems, procedures, facilities, and devices to meet the need for safe and efficient air navigation and air traffic control in the future. In the United States and Europe, these efforts are defined within the architectures of the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) Program and Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research (SESAR) Program respectively. Both programs have identified Airborne Spacing as a critical component, with Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) as a key enabler. Increased interest in reducing airport community noise and the escalating cost of aviation fuel has led to the use of Continuous Descent Arrival (CDA) procedures to reduce noise, emissions, and fuel usage compared to current procedures. To provide these operational enhancements, arrival flight paths into terminal areas are planned around continuous vertical descents that are closer to an optimum trajectory than those in use today. The profiles are designed to be near-idle descents from cruise altitude to the Final Approach Fix (FAF) and are typically without any level segments. By staying higher and faster than conventional arrivals, CDAs also save flight time for the aircraft operator. The drawback is that the variation of optimized trajectories for different types and weights of aircraft requires the Air Traffic Controller to provide more airspace around an aircraft on a CDA than on a conventional arrival procedure. This additional space decreases the throughput rate of the destination airport. Airborne self-spacing concepts have been developed to increase the throughput at high-demand airports by managing the inter-arrival spacing to be more precise and consistent using on-board guidance. It has been proposed that the additional space needed around an aircraft performing a CDA could be reduced or eliminated when using airborne spacing techniques.

Barmore, Bryan E.↗

NASA NTRS1989

Design of automated system for management of arrival traffic

The design of an automated air traffic control system based on a hierarchy of advisory tools for controllers is described. Compatibility of the tools with the human controller, a key objective of the design, is achieved by a judicious selection of tasks to be automated and careful attention to the design of the controller system interface. The design comprises three interconnected subsystems referred to as the Traffic Management Advisor, the Descent Advisor, and the Final Approach Spacing Tool. Each of these subsystems provides a collection of tools for specific controller positions and tasks. The design of two of these tools, the Descent Advisor, which provides automation tools for managing descent traffic, and the Traffic Management Advisor, which generates optimum landing schedules is focused on. The algorithms, automation modes, and graphical interfaces incorporated in the design are described.

Erzberger, Heinz↗

NASA NTRS2010

Impact of Conflict Avoidance Responsibility Allocation on Pilot Workload in a Distributed Air Traffic Management System

Pilot workload was examined during simulated flights requiring flight deck-based merging and spacing while avoiding weather. Pilots used flight deck tools to avoid convective weather and space behind a lead aircraft during an arrival into Louisville International airport. Three conflict avoidance management concepts were studied: pilot, controller or automation primarily responsible. A modified Air Traffic Workload Input Technique (ATWIT) metric showed highest workload during the approach phase of flight and lowest during the en-route phase of flight (before deviating for weather). In general, the modified ATWIT was shown to be a valid and reliable workload measure, providing more detailed information than post-run subjective workload metrics. The trend across multiple workload metrics revealed lowest workload when pilots had both conflict alerting and responsibility of the three concepts, while all objective and subjective measures showed highest workload when pilots had no conflict alerting or responsibility. This suggests that pilot workload was not tied primarily to responsibility for resolving conflicts, but to gaining and/or maintaining situation awareness when conflict alerting is unavailable.

Ligda, Sarah V.↗

NASA NTRS2004

Airborne-Managed Spacing in Multiple Arrival Streams

A significant bottleneck in the current air traffic system occurs at the runway. Expanding airports and adding new runways will help solve this problem; however, this comes at a significant cost, financially, politically and environmentally. A complementary solution is to safely increase the capacity of current runways. This can be achieved by precise spacing at the runway threshold with a resulting reduction in the spacing buffer required under today s operations. At the NASA Langley Research Center, the Advanced Air Transportation Technologies (AATT) Project is investigating airborne technologies and procedures that will assist the pilot in achieving precise spacing behind another aircraft. This new spacing clearance instructs the pilot to follow speed cues from a new on-board guidance system called Airborne Merging and Spacing for Terminal Arrivals (AMSTAR). AMSTAR receives Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) reports from the leading aircraft and calculates the appropriate speed for the ownership to fly in order to achieve the desired spacing interval, time or distance-based, at the runway threshold. Since the goal is overall system capacity, the speed guidance algorithm is designed to provide system benefit over individual efficiency. This paper discusses the concept of operations and design of AMSTAR to support airborne precision spacing. Results from the previous stage of development, focused only on in-trail spacing, are discussed along with the evolution of the concept to include merging of converging streams of traffic. This paper also examines how this operation might support future wake vortex-based separation and other advances in terminal area operations. Finally, the research plan for the merging capabilities, to be performed during the summer and fall of 2004 is presented.

Barmore, Bryan↗

NASA NTRS1992

Final-Approach-Spacing Subsystem For Air Traffic

Automation subsystem of computers, computer workstations, communication equipment, and radar helps air-traffic controllers in terminal radar approach-control (TRACON) facility manage sequence and spacing of arriving aircraft for both efficiency and safety. Called FAST (Final Approach Spacing Tool), subsystem enables controllers to choose among various levels of automation.

Davis, Thomas J.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Cryogenic propellant management system requirements for Space Station Freedom

Specific propellant management system requirements have been identified for each facility category of SSF. Distributed systems have been analyzed to indentify momentum management, guidance, and traffic management requirements associated with the guidance, navigation, and control system; space-to-space communications and enhanced tracking requirements associated with the communications and tracking system; and propellant management system utility requirements associated with the electrical power system. Flight element analyses determined attach structure, utility distribution, and structural integrity requirements for the pre-integrated truss and high mass manipulation and translation requirements for the mobile base system.

Saucillo, R. J.↗

NASA NTRS2014

Air Traffic Management Technology Demonstration 1 (ATD-1) Tech Transfer Document Summary: Version 3.0

This document summarizes transfer of NASA's terminal sequencing and spacing (TSS) and interval management (IM) technologies to the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration), as part of its Air Traffic Management Technology (ATM) Demonstration 1 activity. This activity, referred to as ATD-1, is part of NASA's Airspace Systems Program (ASP) specifically, its System Analysis, Integration, and Evaluation (SAIE) Project. ATD-1 is a multi-year research and development effort aimed at accelerating implementation and deployment of NASA-developed ATM technologies by the FAA. These technologies are designed to improve the utilization of Performance-Based Navigation (PBN) procedures inside congested terminal airspace. In terms of NASA's Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs), ATD-1 is focused on maturing its associated technologies from the Technology Development stage (TRL 4) to the Technology Demonstration stage (TRL 6). In order to ensure that the products of this tech-transfer are relevant and useful, NASA has created strong partnerships with the FAA and key industry stakeholders.

Technology transfer↗

NASA NTRS2020

Air Traffic Management TestBed Traffic Viewer: Developer's Guide

The Air Traffic Management (ATM) TestBed is a Platform as a Service that is being developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to help design, configure, integrate, run, and monitor air traffic simulations. The platform is designed to provide cloud services including back-end, big-data analytics tools, on-demand computing resource management, data storage, and communication middleware. The ATM TestBed reduces the time to test concepts and technologies, supports interactions among various methods such as human-in-the-loop and automation-in-the-loop simulations, and enables collaborative simulations by sharing technologies and tools in the ATM community. The Traffic Viewer application provides a graphical user interface tool for visualizing real and simulated air traffic as well as airspace definition in two-dimensional space. This guide describes a high-level design and implementation of Traffic Viewer and provides information for a new developer or a user to add new capabilities by following the software design and leveraging existing capabilities.

Lai, Chok Fung↗

NASA NTRS2000

Next Generation CTAS Tools

The FAA's Free Flight Phase 1 Office is in the process of deploying the current generation of CTAS tools, which are the Traffic Management Advisor (TMA) and the passive Final Approach Spacing Tool (pFAST), at selected centers and airports. Research at NASA is now focussed on extending the CTAS software and computer human interfaces to provide more advanced capabilities. The Multi-center TMA (McTMA) is designed to operate at airports where arrival flows originate from two or more centers whose boundaries are in close proximity to the TRACON boundary. McTMA will also include techniques for routing arrival flows away from congested airspace and around airspace reserved for arrivals into other hub airports. NASA is working with FAA and MITRE to build a prototype McTMA for the Philadelphia airport. The active Final Approach Spacing Tool (aFAST) provides speed and heading advisories to help controllers achieve accurate spacing between aircraft on final approach. These advisories will be integrated with those in the existing pFAST to provide a set of comprehensive advisories for controlling arrival traffic from the TRACON boundary to touchdown at complex, high-capacity airports. A research prototype of aFAST, designed for the Dallas-Fort Worth is in an advanced stage of development. The Expedite Departure Path (EDP) and Direct-To tools are designed to help controllers guide departing aircraft out of the TRACON airspace and to climb to cruise altitude along the most efficient routes.

Erzberger, Heinz↗

NASA NTRS2018

Air Traffic Management-eXploration Testbed for Urban Air Mobility Research and Development

The presentation will describe the architecture, current capabilities and some future enhancements of the testbed that is being developed at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to enable benefit, impact, safety and cost assessments for accelerating the deployment of air traffic management concept and technologies in the national airspace system. The testbed will support analysis of operational feasibility of urban air mobility operations, a part of NASA's Air Traffic Management eXploration project, and provide the data needed by regulatory agencies charged with public safety. Introduction of concepts and technologies, especially new concepts and technologies, is difficult and often takes decades because of the inability to assess the operational impact of the interaction between the proposed concept and technology and operationally deployed systems in terms of system-wide safety, traffic flow efficiency, roles and workload of controllers and traffic managers, and impact on airlines and other operators. To overcome these limitations, the testbed is developing infrastructure to enable mathematical modeling, human-in-the-loop evaluations and testing with operational systems in a simulated environment. In addition to the difficulty of establishing communications between geographically distributed systems, downloading/installing software, and management of startup, error-handling and shutdown, a major impediment for conducting simulations and human-in-the-loop testing with operational systems is the tedious manual scenario generation process. Several of these difficulties have been addressed in the current state of the testbed. The testbed can be described in terms of the following elements (1) web-based frontend and backend, (2) Testbed Builder, (3) Data Distribution Service, (4) Component Library, (5) Simulation Management, and (6) Scenario Generation. The web-based frontend and backend enable the user to interact with the testbed for tasks such as composing a simulation, running a simulation and retrieving output data. The Testbed Builder application launched from the web frontend is a graphical user interface for the user to drag-and-drop and connect predefined blocks for composing a simulation/scenario generation task. The Builder writes a set of instructions for Simulation Management based on the links between the blocks and the block properties such as the component (executable) associated with a particular block. Management of the distributed simulation is accomplished by Execution and Component Managers. Execution Manager interprets the instructions provided by the Builder to instruct the Component Managers to download components from the Component Library to specified computers and to start them up. Once started, the components communicate with each other by publishing messages and subscribing to messages that are delivered by the Data Distribution Service. The Scenario Generation capability can be used for creating traffic scenarios for Multi-Aircraft Control System, which has been used extensively at NASA for human-in-the-loop-based concept evaluations. The presentation will provide a testbed enabled example scenario of Multi-Aircraft Control System based simulation in which the urban air mobility pilot using the conflict detection and resolution system would interact with the air traffic controllers for resolving conflicts with other aircraft during terminal area operations.

Testbed↗

NASA NTRS2018

Air Traffic Management-eXploration Testbed for Urban Air Mobility Research and Development

The presentation will describe the architecture, current capabilities and some future enhancements of the testbed that is being developed at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to enable benefit, impact, safety and cost assessments for accelerating the deployment of air traffic management concept and technologies in the national airspace system. The testbed will support analysis of operational feasibility of urban air mobility operations, a part of NASA's Air Traffic Management eXploration project, and provide the data needed by regulatory agencies charged with public safety. Introduction of concepts and technologies, especially new concepts and technologies, is difficult and often takes decades because of the inability to assess the operational impact of the interaction between the proposed concept and technology and operationally deployed systems in terms of system-wide safety, traffic flow efficiency, roles and workload of controllers and traffic managers, and impact on airlines and other operators. To overcome these limitations, the testbed is developing infrastructure to enable mathematical modeling, human-in-the-loop evaluations and testing with operational systems in a simulated environment. In addition to the difficulty of establishing communications between geographically distributed systems, downloading/installing software, and management of startup, error-handling and shutdown, a major impediment for conducting simulations and human-in-the-loop testing with operational systems is the tedious manual scenario generation process. Several of these difficulties have been addressed in the current state of the testbed. The testbed can be described in terms of the following elements- (1) web-based frontend and backend, (2) Testbed Builder, (3) Data Distribution Service, (4) Component Library, (5) Simulation Management, and (6) Scenario Generation. The web-based frontend and backend enable the user to interact with the testbed for tasks such as composing a simulation, running a simulation and retrieving output data. The Testbed Builder application launched from the web frontend is a graphical user interface for the user to drag-and-drop and connect predefined blocks for composing a simulation/scenario generation task. The Builder writes a set of instructions for Simulation Management based on the links between the blocks and the block properties such as the component (executable) associated with a particular block. Management of the distributed simulation is accomplished by Execution and Component Managers. Execution Manager interprets the instructions provided by the Builder to instruct the Component Managers to download components from the Component Library to specified computers and to start them up. Once started, the components communicate with each other by publishing messages and subscribing to messages that are delivered by the Data Distribution Service. The Scenario Generation capability can be used for creating traffic scenarios for Multi-Aircraft Control System, which has been used extensively at NASA for human-in-the-loop-based concept evaluations. The presentation will provide a testbed enabled example scenario of Multi-Aircraft Control System based simulation in which the urban air mobility pilot using the conflict detection and resolution system would interact with the air traffic controllers for resolving conflicts with other aircraft during terminal area operations.

Simulation↗

NASA NTRS2008

Analysis of a Dynamic Multi-Track Airway Concept for Air Traffic Management

The Dynamic Multi-track Airways (DMA) Concept for Air Traffic Management (ATM) proposes a network of high-altitude airways constructed of multiple, closely spaced, parallel tracks designed to increase en-route capacity in high-demand airspace corridors. Segregated from non-airway operations, these multi-track airways establish high-priority traffic flow corridors along optimal routes between major terminal areas throughout the National Airspace System (NAS). Air traffic controllers transition aircraft equipped for DMA operations to DMA entry points, the aircraft use autonomous control of airspeed to fly the continuous-airspace airway and achieve an economic benefit, and controllers then transition the aircraft from the DMA exit to the terminal area. Aircraft authority within the DMA includes responsibility for spacing and/or separation from other DMA aircraft. The DMA controller is responsible for coordinating the entry and exit of traffic to and from the DMA and for traffic flow management (TFM), including adjusting DMA routing on a daily basis to account for predicted weather and wind patterns and re-routing DMAs in real time to accommodate unpredicted weather changes. However, the DMA controller is not responsible for monitoring the DMA for traffic separation. This report defines the mature state concept, explores its feasibility and performance, and identifies potential benefits. The report also discusses (a) an analysis of a single DMA, which was modeled within the NAS to assess capacity and determine the impact of a single DMA on regional sector loads and conflict potential; (b) a demand analysis, which was conducted to determine likely city-pair candidates for a nationwide DMA network and to determine the expected demand fraction; (c) two track configurations, which were modeled and analyzed for their operational characteristic; (d) software-prototype airborne capabilities developed for DMA operations research; (e) a feasibility analysis of key attributes in the concept design; (f) a near-term, transitional application of the DMA concept as a proving ground for new airborne technologies; and (g) conclusions. The analysis indicates that the operational feasibility of a national DMA network faces significant challenges, especially for interactions between DMAs and between DMA and non-DMA traffic. Provided these issues are resolved, sectors near DMAs could experience significant local capacity benefits.

Wing, David J.↗

NASA NTRS2001

Air Traffic Control Decision Support Tools for Noise Mitigation

NASA has initiated a new five year program this year, the Quiet Aircraft Technology (QAT) Program, a program which will investigate airframe and engine system noise reduction. QAT will also address community noise impact. As part of this community noise impact component, NASA will investigate air traffic management (ATM) challenges in reducing noise. In particular, controller advisory automation aids will be developed to aid the air traffic controller in addressing noise concerns as he/she manages traffic in busy terminal areas. NASA has developed controller automation tools to address capacity concerns and the QAT strategy for ATM Low Noise Operations is to build upon this tool set to create added advisories for noise mitigation. The tools developed for capacity will be briefly reviewed, followed by the QAT plans to address ATM noise concerns. A major NASA goal in global civil aviation is to triple the aviation system throughput in all-weather conditions while maintaining safety. A centerpiece of this activity is the Center/TRACON Automation System (CTAS), an evolving suite of air traffic controller decision support tools (DSTs) to enhance capacity of arrivals and departures in both the enroute center and the TRACON. Two of these DSTs, the Traffic Management Advisor (TMA) and the passive Final approach Spacing Tool (pFAST), are in daily use at the Fort Worth Center and the Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) TRACON, respectively, where capacity gains of 5-13% have been reported in recent NASA evaluations. Under the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) Free Flight Phase One Program, TMA and pFAST are each being implemented at six to eight additional sites. In addition, other DSTs are being developed by NASA under the umbrella of CTAS. This means that new software will be built upon CTAS, and the paradigm of real-time simulation evaluation followed by field site development and evaluation will be the pathway for the new tools. Additional information is included in the original extended abstract.

Tobias, Leonard↗

NASA NTRS2018

Assessing C2 Communications

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) project works to develop tools and technologies essential for safely enabling civilian low-altitude UAS operations. Currently there is no established infrastructure to enable and safely manage the widespread use of low-altitude airspace and UAS operations, regardless of the type of UAS. The UTM technical challenge will develop comprehensive and validated airspace operations and integration requirements to safely enable large-scale persistent access to visual line of sight and autonomous beyond visual line of sight small UAS in low-altitude airspace. Within the UTM project, a number of communications technologies to support UTM command and control (C2) are under investigation. In particular, commercial networked cellular systems are being tested and assessed for their ability to meet the reliability, scalability, cybersecurity and redundancy required. NASA Glenn Research Center is studying some of the aspects of employing such networks for UTM C2 communications. This includes the development of a test platform for sensing and characterizing the airborne C2 communications environment at various altitudes and in various terrains and topologies, measuring such aspects as received signal strength and interference. System performance aspects such as latency in the link, handover performance, packet error loss rate, drop outs, coverage gaps and other aspects impacting UTM operation will also be assessed. In this paper we explore some of the C2 approaches being proposed and demonstrated in the UTM project, the reliability, availability and other general C2 performance requirements, and approaches to evaluating and analyzing UTM C2 links based on commercial cellular networks.

aircraft communications↗

NASA NTRS1999

En route Spacing Tool: Efficient Conflict-free Spacing to Flow-Restricted Airspace

This paper describes the Air Traffic Management (ATM) problem within the U.S. of flow-restricted en route airspace, an assessment of its impact on airspace users, and a set of near-term tools and procedures to resolve the problem. The FAA is committed, over the next few years, to deploy the first generation of modem ATM decision support tool (DST) technology under the Free-Flight Phase-1 (FFp1) program. The associated en route tools include the User Request Evaluation Tool (URET) and the Traffic Management Advisor (TMA). URET is an initial conflict probe (ICP) capability that assists controllers with the detection and resolution of conflicts in en route airspace. TMA orchestrates arrivals transitioning into high-density terminal airspace by providing controllers with scheduled times of arrival (STA) and delay feedback advisories to assist with STA conformance. However, these FFPl capabilities do not mitigate the en route Miles-In-Trail (MIT) restrictions that are dynamically applied to mitigate airspace congestion. National statistics indicate that en route facilities (Centers) apply Miles-In-Trail (MIT) restrictions for approximately 5000 hours per month. Based on results from this study, an estimated 45,000 flights are impacted by these restrictions each month. Current-day practices for implementing these restrictions result in additional controller workload and an economic impact of which the fuel penalty alone may approach several hundred dollars per flight. To mitigate much of the impact of these restrictions on users and controller workload, a DST and procedures are presented. The DST is based on a simple derivative of FFP1 technology that is designed to introduce a set of simple tools for flow-rate (spacing) conformance and integrate them with conflict-probe capabilities. The tool and associated algorithms are described based on a concept prototype implemented within the CTAS baseline in 1995. A traffic scenario is used to illustrate the controller's use of the tool, and potential display options are presented for future controller evaluation.

Green, S.↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Subjective Assessment of Initial and Mid-Term UAM Operations and the Impact on Air Traffic Controllers' Workload

The emergence of Urban Air Mobility (UAM) marks a new era of aviation that will be characterized by a shift in transportation dynamics marked by safe, efficient, and sustainable air travel within urban areas. Although UAM will provide significant advantages, increased air travel demand has the potential to impact air traffic controllers (ATCo) workload. Therefore, industry, government, and academia in the UAM ecosystem are actively working to overcome potential implementation challenges that include airspace integration and air traffic management. As part of this effort, researchers from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are studying the challenges associated with UAM operations’ interactions with air traffic control (ATC). The present research paper presents an analysis of subjective assessments to determine the usability and acceptability of airspace procedures under two different operating conditions – Initial and Mid-Term – and two different levels of UAM traffic. The completion of these investigations will be a steppingstone in supporting the successful implementation of UAM operations into the National Airspace System.

Urban Air Mobility, Air Traffic Control, Workload↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Subjective Assessment of Initial and Mid-Term UAM Operations and the Impact on Air Traffic Controllers' Workload

Urban Air Mobility↗