Airspace Technology Demonstration - 3 (ATD-3)
The presentation goes through a broad high-level overview of ATD-3 Multi-Flight Common Routes (MFCR) and Dynamic Routes for Arrivals in Weather (DRAW).
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The presentation goes through a broad high-level overview of ATD-3 Multi-Flight Common Routes (MFCR) and Dynamic Routes for Arrivals in Weather (DRAW).
The purpose of this document is to capture the core capabilities developed in ATD-2 Phase 2.
A human-in-the-loop (HITL) simulation took place in 2019 at NASA Ames Research Center’s Future Flight Central, an airport simulator with a full-scale 360-degree view that showed real-time airport operations at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW). The HITL was part of the NASA/FAA Airspace Technology Demonstration 2 (ATD-2) project which involves an on-going field demonstration at Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT). In the field demonstration, metering on the airport surface takes place with one of the goals being to reduce runway queue length by holding aircraft at the gate during busy times, thereby reducing fuel burn and CO2 emissions. This goal has been successfully accomplished at CLT by showing Ramp Controllers when to release aircraft at the gate so as to reduce aircraft waiting in the queue. Among the questions that the current simulation at DFW was designed to address were, "Which types of advisories to the Ramp Controllers work best, those that show a ±2 minute window for a release time from the gate, or a ±5 minute window for an arrival time at the spot (where Air Traffic Control takes over) or both?" and "How do these different types of advisories affect Ramp Controller workload and situation awareness?" Another question was, “Does a ramp that is less restrictive than the one at CLT affect compliance with these advisories?”
This paper describes NASA’s Airspace Technology Demonstration 2 (ATD-2) Phase 3 prototype capability that is being tested in the North Texas region through summer 2021. For the first time, a shared Decision Support Tool (DST) provides opportunities for participating Flight Operators (FOs) and Air Traffic Controllers (ATCs) to coordinate using a Trajectory Option Set (TOS). When the metroplex airspace is impacted by demand/capacity imbalances, TOS enables departure flights to be rerouted to alternative departure routes with less surface delay.
This video recorded presentation is about the NASA’s Airspace Technology Demonstration 2 (ATD-2) Phase 3 prototype capability that is being tested in the North Texas region through summer 2021. For the first time, a shared Decision Support Tool (DST) provides opportunities for participating Flight Operators (FOs) and Air Traffic Controllers (ATCs) to coordinate using a Trajectory Option Set (TOS). When the metroplex airspace is impacted by demand/capacity imbalances, TOS enables departure flights to be rerouted to alternative departure routes with less surface delay.
The NASA Airspace Technology Demonstration-2 Phase 3 capabilities extend Integrated Arrival, Departure and Surface scheduling to a Metroplex environment where multiple airports are interacting and sharing resources along the terminal boundary. The Phase 3 coordinated scheduling provides pre-departure reroute recommendations to flight operators which reduce delay caused by terminal restrictions. This paper reports results of the Phase 3 Stormy 2021 Field Evaluation conducted between November 2020 and September 2021 in the North Texas Metroplex. During the field evaluation NASA partnered with the FAA, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and Envoy Airlines to evaluate Phase 3 capabilities in an operational environment. The benefits results are provided as delay savings metrics measured in time and converted to fuel and emissions savings using detailed fuel flow models provided by flight operators.
Enabling efficient arrivals for the NextGen Air Traffic Management System and developing a set of integrated decision support tools to reduce the high cognitive workload so that controllers are able to simultaneously achieve safe, efficient, and expedient operations at high traffic demand levels.
The FAA and NASA conducted an Operational Integration Assessment (OIA) of a prototype Terminal Sequencing and Spacing (formerly TSS, now TSAS) system at the FAA's William J. Hughes Technical Center (WJHTC). The OIA took approximately one year to plan and execute, culminating in a formal data collection, referred to as the Run for Record, from May 12-21, 2015. This report presents quantitative and qualitative results from the Run for Record.
No abstract available
NASA's Multi Flight Common Route (MFCR) automation represents one element of those technologies focusing primarily on delay recovery in the en route phase of flight. Delay recovery is an attenuation of flight-time delay, accomplished by periodically revising weather-avoidance routing as the convective weather system evolves. MFCR is intended for use by Traffic Management Coordinators (TMCs) in Air Route Traffic Control Centers (ARTCCs, or Centers) and traffic management specialists (TMSs) in the Air Traffic Control System Command Center (ATCSCC). MFCR leverages existing weather, airspace, and traffic data, as well as improvements in navigation, surveillance, communication, and digital information technologies, to build on existing ATM automation and address some of the shortcomings associated with strategic traffic flow management initiatives and weather forecasting uncertainties. These capabilities provide significant potential benefits in the form of time, fuel, and cost savings. The concept of operations described in this document describes MFCR functionality as delivered by NASA to the FAA in December 2017, including a list of potential enhancements that may be realized when the system is fielded.
This summary document and accompanying technology artifacts satisfy the first of three Research Transition Products (RTPs) defined in the Applied Traffic Flow Management (ATFM) Research Transition Team (RTT) Plan. The original transfer, completed in September 2016, consisted of NASA's legacy Dynamic Weather Routes (DWR) work for efficient routing for en-route weather avoidance. This transfer updates the Concept of Operations document to a publicly-available NASA Technical Memorandum. Dynamic Weather Routes (DWR) is a ground-based trajectory automation system that continuously and automatically analyzes active in-flight aircraft in en route airspace to identify opportunities for simple corrections to flight plan routes that can save significant flying time, at least five minutes wind-corrected, while avoiding weather and considering traffic conflicts, airspace sector congestion, special use airspace, and FAA routing restrictions.
This summary document and accompanying technology artifacts satisfy the fourth of five Research Transition Products (RTPs) defined in the Applied Traffic Flow Management (ATFM) Research Transition Team (RTT) Plan. This transfer consists of NASA's Traffic Aware Strategic Aircrew Requests (TASAR). NASA's concept of TASAR offers onboard automation for the purpose of advising the pilot of traffic-compatible trajectory changes that would be beneficial to the flight.
No abstract available
This presentation describes on-going work to quantify accuracy of different sources of landing time predictions as actual arrival event approaches.
Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) simulation was conducted to explore the impacts of various surface metering goals on operations and Ramp Controllers at Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT). Three conditions were compared: Baseline, with no surface metering, instructions to meet advisory times at the gate only, and instructions to meet advisory times at the gate as well as the times at the scheduled taxiway spot, where aircraft are delivered to Air Traffic Control (ATC). Results showed increased compliance for taxiway spot times when compliance was first met for gate advisories. Instructing Ramp Controllers to meet advisory times at the gate improves spot time compliance and therefore surface scheduling predictability at CLT. Results also demonstrated there was increased compliance overall with gate and spot times in the second condition. This was likely due to higher Ramp Controller workload in the third condition.
This presentation describes on-going work to leverage high quality data and predictive analytics to improve understanding and performance of IADS system.
A Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) simulation was conducted to explore whether Ramp Controllers at Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) could both release departing aircraft at an advised time at the gate and also meet an advised time at the spot, where Air Traffic Control (ATC) takes control. Three conditions were compared: (1) Baseline, with no scheduling advisories, (2) instructions to meet advisory times at the gate only, and (3) instructions to meet advisory times at both the gate and the spot. Surprisingly, results showed increased compliance with advisories at the spot in the second condition. This was likely due to increased ramp congestion in the third condition as well as higher Ramp Controller workload and lower situation awareness. Instructing Ramp Controllers to meet scheduling times at the spots, in addition to the gates, is therefore not likely to improve surface scheduling predictability at CLT and may indeed worsen it.