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NASA NTRS2019

Overview of the PLEXIL Plan Execution Technology and its Applications in Autonomous Piloting Projects at NASA

Automated planning is a key Artificial Intelligence technology enabling Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) and the eminent reality of Urban Air Mobility (UAM). It produces plans, which formalize procedures often performed by humans. Plans differ from other kinds of computer programs in their ability to react and interact with a dynamically changing environment. Aviation plans must encode the procedural knowledge, reasoning capability, and capacity for multi-tasking held by competent human pilots. Correct execution of these plans (performed by software called an executive) in the dynamic airspace environment is vital to the success of each automated flight, and the safety of the vehicle and all things in its path. In the early 2000s NASA developed a plan representation language and executive called PLEXIL (Plan Execution Interchange Language) that has successfully been applied in several NASA aviation and UAS projects. Autonomy Operating System (AOS), Cockpit Hierarchical Automated Planning and Execution (CHAP-E), and ICAROUS are all projects that have used PLEXIL to help encode and automatically execute flight procedures, some normally performed by human pilots. AOS also automates a subset of pilot/Air Traffic Control communication towards enabling UAS entry into the National Airspace. PLEXIL has been open-source software since 2008 and has seen usage in a wide range of prototypical autonomy applications in academia, government, and industry. In this presentation, we describe PLEXIL and highlight its significant accomplishments in the aviation domain.

Dalal, Michael↗

NASA NTRS2010

Automated Conflict Resolution, Arrival Management and Weather Avoidance for ATM

The paper describes a unified solution to three types of separation assurance problems that occur in en-route airspace: separation conflicts, arrival sequencing, and weather-cell avoidance. Algorithms for solving these problems play a key role in the design of future air traffic management systems such as NextGen. Because these problems can arise simultaneously in any combination, it is necessary to develop integrated algorithms for solving them. A unified and comprehensive solution to these problems provides the foundation for a future air traffic management system that requires a high level of automation in separation assurance. The paper describes the three algorithms developed for solving each problem and then shows how they are used sequentially to solve any combination of these problems. The first algorithm resolves loss-of-separation conflicts and is an evolution of an algorithm described in an earlier paper. The new version generates multiple resolutions for each conflict and then selects the one giving the least delay. Two new algorithms, one for sequencing and merging of arrival traffic, referred to as the Arrival Manager, and the other for weather-cell avoidance are the major focus of the paper. Because these three problems constitute a substantial fraction of the workload of en-route controllers, integrated algorithms to solve them is a basic requirement for automated separation assurance. The paper also reviews the Advanced Airspace Concept, a proposed design for a ground-based system that postulates redundant systems for separation assurance in order to achieve both high levels of safety and airspace capacity. It is proposed that automated separation assurance be introduced operationally in several steps, each step reducing controller workload further while increasing airspace capacity. A fast time simulation was used to determine performance statistics of the algorithm at up to 3 times current traffic levels.

Erzberger, H.↗

NASA NTRS2015

Dynamic Weather Routes: Two Years of Operational Testing at American Airlines

The Dynamic Weather Routes (DWR) tool continuously analyzes active flights in en-route airspace and finds simple route corrections to achieve more time- and fuel-efficient routes around convective weather. A strong partnership between NASA, American Airlines (AA), and the Federal Aviation Administration has enabled testing of DWR in real-world air traffic operations. NASA and AA have been conducting a trial of DWR at AA’s Integrated Operations Center in Fort Worth, Texas since July 2012. This paper describes test results based on AA’s use of DWR for their flights in and around Fort Worth Center (ZFW). Results indicate an actual savings of 3,290 flying minutes for 526 AA revenue flights from January 2013 through September 2014. Of these, 48 flights each indicate a savings of 15 minutes or more. Potential savings for all flights in ZFW airspace, corrected for savings flights achieve today through normal pilot requests and controller clearances, is about 100,000 flying minutes for 15,000 flights in 2013. Results indicate that AA flights with DWR in use realize about 20 percent more savings than non-AA flights. A weather forecast analysis examines the extent to which DWR routes rated acceptable by AA users remain clear of downstream weather. A sector congestion analysis indicates congestion could be reduced 19-38 percent if all flights fly DWR routes rather than nominal weather-avoidance routes.

Trajectory Automation↗

NASA NTRS2016

Initial Demonstration of the Real-Time Safety Monitoring Framework for the National Airspace System Using Flight Data

As new operational paradigms and additional aircraft are being introduced into the National Airspace System (NAS), maintaining safety in such a rapidly growing environment becomes more challenging. It is therefore desirable to have an automated framework to provide an overview of the current safety of the airspace at different levels of granularity, as well an understanding of how the state of the safety will evolve into the future given the anticipated flight plans, weather forecast, predicted health of assets in the airspace, and so on. Towards this end, as part of our earlier work, we formulated the Real-Time Safety Monitoring (RTSM) framework for monitoring and predicting the state of safety and to predict unsafe events. In our previous work, the RTSM framework was demonstrated in simulation on three different constructed scenarios. In this paper, we further develop the framework and demonstrate it on real flight data from multiple data sources. Specifically, the flight data is obtained through the Shadow Mode Assessment using Realistic Technologies for the National Airspace System (SMART-NAS) Testbed that serves as a central point of collection, integration, and access of information from these different data sources. By testing and evaluating using real-world scenarios, we may accelerate the acceptance of the RTSM framework towards deployment. In this paper we demonstrate the framework's capability to not only estimate the state of safety in the NAS, but predict the time and location of unsafe events such as a loss of separation between two aircraft, or an aircraft encountering convective weather. The experimental results highlight the capability of the approach, and the kind of information that can be provided to operators to improve their situational awareness in the context of safety.

Real-time Safety Monitoring↗

NASA NTRS2018

Airspace Technology Demonstration 3 (ATD-3) Multi-Flight Common Route (MFCR) Technology Transfer Document Summary Version 2.0

Airspace Technology Demonstration - 3 (ATD-3) is part of NASA's Airspace Operations and Safety Program (AOSP) - specifically, its Airspace Technology Demonstrations (ATD) Project. ATD-3 is a multi-year research and development effort which proposes to develop and demonstrate automation technologies and operating concepts that enable air navigation service providers and airspace users to continuously assess weather, winds, traffic, and other information to identify, evaluate, and implement workable opportunities for flight plan route corrections that can result in significant flight time and fuel savings in en-route airspace. 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. This summary document and accompanying technology artifacts satisfy the second of three Research Transition Products (RTPs) defined in the Applied Traffic Flow Management (ATFM) Research Transition Team (RTT) Plan. The original transfer, completed in December 2017, consisted of NASA's Multi-Flight Common Route (MFCR) research for efficient route corrections for en-route weather avoidance. This transfer updates the Concept of Operations document to a publicly-available NASA Technical Memorandum. The MFCR concept builds on the experience of the legacy Dynamic Weather Routes (DWR) and focuses on a better balance of potential savings with ATC acceptability, common route corrections options for multiple flights on similar routings, and better use of existing and/or modern automation for communication and coordination of route change options. All of these capabilities are expected to improve system performance significantly in terms of actual delay-reducing clearances issued to flights compared to that of the DWR tool and operating concept.

Tech transfer↗

NASA NTRS2019

Airspace Technology Demonstration 3 (ATD-3): Dynamic Routes for Arrivals in Weather (DRAW) Technology Transfer Document Summary Version 2.0

Airspace Technology Demonstration – 3 (ATD-3) is part of NASA’s Airspace Operations and Safety Program (AOSP) – specifically, its Airspace Technology Demonstrations (ATD) Project. ATD-3 is a multi-year research and development effort which proposes to develop and demonstrate automation technologies and operating concepts that enable air navigation service providers and airspace users to continuously assess weather, winds, traffic, and other information to identify, evaluate, and implement workable opportunities for flight plan route corrections that can result in significant flight time and fuel savings in en route airspace. 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. This summary document and accompanying technology artifacts satisfy the third Research Transition Product (RTP) defined in the Applied Traffic Flow Management (ATFM) Research Transition Team (RTT) Plan, which is Dynamic Routes for Arrivals in Weather (DRAW). This technology transfer consists of artifacts for DRAW Arrival Metering (AM) Operations delivered in June 2018, DRAW AM updates, and DRAW Extended Metering (XM) Operations. Blue highlighting indicates the new or modified deliverables. Some of the artifacts in this technology transfer have distribution restrictions that need to be followed. Distribution information is noted in each section. DRAW is a trajectory-based system that combines the legacy Dynamic Weather Routes (DWR) weather avoidance technology with an arrival-specific rerouting algorithm and arrival scheduler to improve traffic flows on weather-impacted arrival routes into major airports. First, DRAW identifies flights that could be rerouted to more efficient Standard Terminal Arrival Routes (STARs) that may have previously been impacted by weather. Second, when weather is impacting the arrival routing, DRAW proposes simple arrival route corrections that enable aircraft to stay on their flight plan while avoiding weather. The DRAW system proposes reroutes early enough to allow Time Based Flow Management (TBFM) to make the necessary schedule adjustments. As a result, metering operations can be sustained longer and more consistently in the presence of weather because the arrival schedule accounts for the dynamic routing intent of arrival flights to deviate around weather. The first DRAW tech transfer in June 2018 focused on arrival metering operations with the DRAW algorithm implemented in the NASA Center TRACON Automation System (CTAS) automation software. This tech transfer delivery includes updates for DRAW implemented in FAA’s TBFM 4.7 automation software and preliminary research into DRAW for XM operations.

Isaacson, Douglas R.↗

NASA NTRS2022

PAAV Concept Document

The Pathfinding for Airspace with Autonomous Vehicles (PAAV) Concept Document, version 1.0, lays out the key challenges and potential solutions for the use of uncrewed aircraft (UA) technology for future regional air cargo operations. The challenges and solutions described in this document were informed by communications with the UA industry community (e.g., RTCA, the Federal Aviation Administration, and regional air cargo business operators), as well as the PAAV team’s research activities during the last two years including four tabletop exercises, a human-in-the-loop simulation study, a numerical simulation study, a functional allocation study, and flight data analysis (Appendix A). This document first describes the expected operational context of PAAV (Section 2), such as the flight mission, baseline UAS components, nominal operations, m:N operations (i.e., "m" remote pilots per "N" aircraft), and off-nominal operations. This context sets the scope for the PAAV concept development work. PAAV concept development assumes that UA operations will be increasingly autonomous. Thus, near- and far-term assumptions are defined (Section 3). PAAV identified seven key challenges for UA operations (Section 4): - Flight route planning - Separation and flow management - Traffic pattern integration - Contingency management - Taxi, takeoff, and landing - m:N operations - Communications operations The following 13 potential solutions to these challenges are then described (Section 5): - Scalable communications architecture - Data link - Designated UAS corridors - Crew planning for m:N operations - Flight route optimization - Traffic load-level control - Trajectory solutions with data link - Automated hazard avoidance for m:N operations - Traffic pattern integration (TPI) tool - Standard lost command and control (C2) link (LC2L) procedures - Automated hazard avoidance under LC2L - Auto-taxi, auto-takeoff, and auto-land - Ground control station (GCS) user interface for m:N operations The document attempts to link each of these solutions to one or more of the challenge areas. Novel solutions involving numerous automation technologies are needed to mitigate traffic and airspace management challenges, especially for realizing m:N operations and ensuring safety under LC2L conditions. The purpose of this document is to help understand alternatives and tradeoffs among potential solutions and provide a foundation for a cohesive PAAV concept that will be described and refined in subsequent concept versions.

Unmanned aircraft, uncrewed aircraft, regional air↗

NASA NTRS2018

Airspace Technology Demonstration 3 (ATD-3): Dynamic Routes for Arrivals in Weather (DRAW) Technology Transfer Document Summary Version 1.0

DRAW↗

NASA NTRS2010

A Controller-in-the Loop Simulation of Ground-Based Automated Separation Assurance in a NextGen Environment

A controller-in-the-loop simulation was conducted in the Airspace Operations Laboratory (AOL) at the NASA Ames Research Center to investigate the functional allocation aspects associated with ground-based automated separation assurance in a far-term NextGen environment. In this concept, ground-based automation handled the detection and resolution of strategic and tactical conflicts and alerted the controller to deferred situations. The controller was responsible for monitoring the automation and managing situations by exception. This was done in conditions both with and without arrival time constraints across two levels of traffic density. Results showed that although workload increased with an increase in traffic density, it was still manageable in most situations. The number of conflicts increased similarly with a related increase in the issuance of resolution clearances. Although over 99% of conflicts were resolved, operational errors did occur but were tied to local sector complexities. Feedback from the participants revealed that they thought they maintained reasonable situation awareness in this environment, felt that operations were highly acceptable at the lower traffic density level but were less so as it increased, and felt overall that the concept as it was introduced here was a positive step forward to accommodating the more complex environment envisioned as part of NextGen.

Homola, J.↗

NASA NTRS1998

Development and Preliminary Results of CTAS on Airline Operational Control Center Operations

Continued growth and expansion of air traffic and increased air carrier economic pressures have mandated greater flexibility and collaboration in air traffic management. The ability of airspace users to select their own routes, so called "free-flight", and to more actively manage their fleet operations for maximum economic advantage are receiving great attention. A first step toward greater airspace user and service provider collaboration is information sharing. In this work, arrival scheduling and airspace management data generated by the NASA/FAA Center/TRACON Automation System (CTAS) and used by the FAA service provider is shared with an airline with extensive operations within the CTAS operational domain. The design and development of a specialized airline CTAS "repeater" system is described, as well as some preliminary results of the impact and benefits of this information on the air carrier's operations. FAA controller per aircraft scheduling information, such as that provided by CTAS, has never before been shared in real-time with an airline. Expected airline benefits include improved fleet planning and arrival gate management, more informed "hold-go" decisions, and avoidance of costly aircraft diversions to alternate airports when faced with uncertain airborne arrival delays.

Zelenka, Richard↗

NASA NTRS2004

Development and Preliminary Results of CTAS on Airline Operational Control Center Operations

Continued growth and expansion of air traffic and increased air carrier economic pressures have mandated greater flexibility and collaboration in air traffic management. The ability of airspace users to select their own routes, so called "free-flight", and to more actively manage their fleet operations for maximum economic advantage are receiving great attention. A first step toward greater airspace user and service provider collaboration is information sharing. In this work, arrival scheduling and airspace management data generated by the NASA/FAA Center/TRACON Automation System (CTAS) and used by the FAA service provider is shared with an airline with extensive operations within the CTAS operational domain. The design and development of a specialized airline CTAS "repeater" system is described, as well as some preliminary results of the impact and benefits of this information on the air carrier's operations. FAA controller per aircraft scheduling information, such as that provided by CTAS, has never before been shared in real-time with an airline. Expected airline benefits include improved fleet planning and arrival gate management, more informed "hold-go decisions, and avoidance of costly aircraft diversions to alternate airports when faced with uncertain airborne arrival delays.

Zelenka, Richard↗

NASA NTRS2017

Benefits of Using Pairwise Trajectory Management in the Central East Pacific

Pairwise Trajectory Management (PTM) is a concept that utilizes airborne and ground-based capabilities to enable airborne spacing operations in procedural airspace. This concept makes use of updated ground automation, Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) and on board avionics generating real time guidance. An experiment was conducted to examine the potential benefits of implementing PTM in the Central East Pacific oceanic region. An explanation of the experiment and some of the results are included in this paper. The PTM concept allowed for an increase in the average time an aircraft is able to spend at its desired flight level and a reduction in fuel burn.

Chartrand, Ryan↗

NASA NTRS2018

2nd Workshop of Human-Automation Interaction Considerations for UAS Integration

NASA's Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Integration in the National Airspace System (NAS) Project (UAS-NAS) and the UAS Executive Committee (EXCOM) Science and Research Panel (SARP) invite you to attend the 2nd Workshop on Human-Automation Interaction Considerations for UAS Integration. A follow on to the workshop hosted by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, this two-day workshop aims to tackle two critical issues for UAS integration in the NAS being addressed by NASA and the SARP: control of multiple UAS by a single, or multiple, operators (multi-UAS), and automatic collision avoidance (auto-CA). Attendees will be asked to generate real human-automation architecture and human machine interface solutions for these problems during interactive breakout sessions. Attendance is limited to select government and academia invitees only. This presentation is outlines the objectives of the workshop.

human-automation interaction↗

NASA NTRS2018

Predicting the Operational Acceptance of Airborne Flight Reroute Requests Using Data Mining

For tools that generate more efficient flight routes or reroute advisories, it is important to ensure compatibility of automation and autonomy decisions with human objectives so as to ensure acceptability by the human operators. In this paper, the authors developed a proof of concept predictor of operational acceptability for route changes during a flight. Such a capability could have applications in automation tools that identify more efficient routes around airspace impacted by weather or congestion and that better meet airline preferences. The predictor is based on applying data mining techniques, including logistic regression, a decision tree, a support vector machine, a random forest and Adaptive Boost, to historical flight plan amendment data reported during operations and field experiments. Cross validation was used for model development, while nested cross validation was used to validate the models. The model found to have the best performance in predicting air traffic controller acceptance or rejection of a route change, using the available data from Fort Worth Air Traffic Control Center and its adjacent Centers, was the random forest, with an F-score of 0.77. This result indicates that the operational acceptance of reroute requests does indeed have some level of predictability, and that, with suitable data, models can be trained to predict the operational acceptability of reroute requests. Such models may ultimately be used to inform route selection by decision support tools, contributing to the development of increasingly autonomous systems that are capable of routing aircraft with less human input than is currently the case.

Operational Acceptability↗

NASA NTRS2022

National Campaign (NC)-1 Strategic Conflict Management Simulation (X4) Community Based Rules

Projected demand for transportation services in the urban environment has led to the development of several Concepts of Operation for Urban Air Mobility, or UAM. UAM is a concept for the transportation of people and goods in the metropolitan environment using small, efficient aircraft over short distances as part of an expanding multimodal transportation network. UAM will leverage emerging technologies including electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft, increasing levels of automation and a new operational paradigm in dense airspace where a set of agreed-upon rules govern the procedures and interactions defining a cooperative environment in which operators are entrusted with a range of functions typically conducted by Air Traffic Control (ATC). These rules, proposed in the FAA NextGen Office’s UAM Concept of Operations [1], were originally termed Community Based Rules or Community Business Rules (CBRs), and will in the future termed Cooperative Operating Practices (COPs); this document uses the original term, CBR. CBRs are a set of rules, developed by the UAM community and (where necessary) approved by the FAA that govern the interactions between UAM entities and limit the need for ATC services including, but not limited to, separation control by ATC, addressing a fundamental challenge to scaling UAM operations. UAM community development of CBRs is anticipated to accelerate the adoption of new practices while retaining the regulatory authority of the FAA within required domains (e.g., NAS safety, security and equal access). However, there currently exists no agreed industry forum or defined procedures for CBR development. Investigation of best practices for the development of UAM CBRs was identified by NASA and the FAA NextGen Office as a research need. In collaboration with seven industry partners, NASA participated in a series of simulations that investigated elements of the envisioned UAM operations, with a primary focus on Strategic Conflict Management (SCM). The development and conduct of cooperative UAM simulations with seven industry partners provided a unique opportunity to investigate CBR development practices. Development of CBRs for the UAM SCM simulations was conducted in parallel with simulation capability development and was closely related to requirements definition for the simulations. As such, the CBR development effort presented herein had two objectives: explore CBR development practices in collaboration with the industry partners and develop an initial set of UAM CBRs to support simulation requirements definition and development. Consensus was achieved among NASA and the industry partners on 24 CBRs that were developed to support the cooperative simulation operations across five topic areas: General (related to test requirements), Operational Intent, Conformance Monitoring, Demand Capacity Balancing, and Airspace Constraint Management. Additional topic areas and CBRs were discussed but were deemed outside the scope of the simulation; these are included in the appendices. A collaborative, iterative process was employed for developing the CBRs engaging both NASA and Industry; because CBR development is envisioned to be community-driven, opportunities were sought that provided industry partners leadership roles in developing CBRs. The following key observations and recommendations may aid the UAM industry in future CBR development efforts: - The lack of a defined process proved challenging initially. Stakeholder engagement in the early stages of CBR development was intermittent and may have been due to the lack of a clear definition of roles and responsibilities of those involved in the effort. - Industry leadership of CBR topic areas proved successful. Discussions in these topic areas were engaging, with alternate viewpoints freely discussed and detailed CBRs resulting. This points to the importance of identifying the best-suited leadership in technical areas for CBR development. - Discussions within a CBR topic area were typically dominated by only a few participants. Whereas all industry partners contributed to CBR development, within each topic area, technical leadership was evident even when not formally established. This observation may indicate that smaller, focused groups may be more effective in initial CBR development than an open forum or large standards development effort (although both maybe required prior to FAA review and approval for some CBRs). - Identifying suitable forums for initial UAM CBR development and identifying the most effective industry participants and leadership will be crucial for successful CBR development. Although the operational need for UAM CBRs may not be immediate, establishing the forums and leadership to define the processes for CBR development is a prudent early step to UAM realization.

Community Based Rules↗

NASA NTRS2023

Pilots’ Perspectives on Urban Air Mobility Safety Challenges and Potential Solutions

As electric vertical takeoff and landing air taxis make their way to urban airspace operations within the United States National Airspace System, many research efforts are underway to identify and understand pertinent issues needed to support the influx of new, passenger-carrying, air vehicles over highly dense, urban communities. The primary focus of the Urban Air Mobility (UAM) Pilot/Provider of Services for UAM Information Exchange and Contingency Airspace Management Procedures study was to gather subjective data from subject matter experts concerning current-day airspace operations to identify potential gaps and improvements needed to support and sustain near-term UAM operations. These potential gaps and improvements will form the foundation for the development of initial information exchange requirements between the on-board pilot in command and other key entities. This paper focuses on the in-flight incapacitated pilot scenario from Phase I of the study, which gathered data from helicopter and general aviation fixed-wing pilots.

Urban Air Mobility↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Pilots’ Perspectives on Urban Air Mobility Safety Challenges and Potential Solutions

Urban Air Mobility↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Airspace Research and Development Portfolio Assessment of Urban Air Mobility using Knowledge Graph Data Science

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is spearheading an innovative digital engineering approach to integrate, communicate, and facilitate the research of Urban Air Mobility (UAM) operations. The UAM vision is one in which advanced technologies and new operational procedures enable practical and cost-effective air transport as an integrated mode of movement of people and goods throughout metropolitan areas. To safely support UAM operations at scale in the National Airspace System (NAS), NASA’s Air Traffic Management-Exploration (ATM-X) project has been conducting research that evolves the UAM air traffic management system towards a highly automated and operationally flexible system of the future. The complexity of UAM airspace evolution to accommodate the increasing tempo of UAM operations over time is managed through the UAM airspace research roadmap, which is a system engineering approach to the R&D of complex system-of-systems, where system’s interdependencies make it nearly impossible to define requirements for individual elements of the system in isolation. These interdependencies form a knowledge graph (node-link network) with a highly complex structure far beyond the human user’s ability to extract insights for project management’s research portfolio assessment. This study applies advanced data analytics in knowledge graph to the UAM knowledge graph to facilitate the portfolio assessment.

ATM↗