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At least 127 records · Page 7

Mission-Clock-Display Software Tool

Displays including images of alarm clocks illustrate temporal statuses of multiple events. MCLK is customizable clock-display computer program with Motif user interface. Used to keep track of such multiple "milestone" events as those occurring during countdowns in spacecraft launches, and alerts user when event time reached. In addition, program displays time from several time zones. Real time measured in Coordinated Universal Time. Written in C language.

Aguilera, Christine↗

Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Delegation of Separation in NextGen Airspace

The purpose of this study was to determine the feasibility of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) performing delegated separation in the national airspace system (NAS). Delegated separation is the transfer of responsibility for maintaining separation between aircraft or vehicles from air navigation service providers to the relevant pilot or flight operator. The effects of delegated separation and traffic display information level were collected through performance, workload, and situation awareness measures. The results of this study show benefits related to the use of conflict detection alerts being shown on the UAS operator's cockpit situation display (CSD), and to the use of full delegation. Overall, changing the level of separation responsibility and adding conflict detection alerts on the CSD was not found to have an adverse effect on performance as shown by the low amounts of losses of separation. The use of conflict detection alerts on the CSD and full delegation responsibilities given to the UAS operator were found to create significantly reduced workload, significantly increased situation awareness and significantly easier communications between the UAS operator and air traffic controller without significantly increasing the amount of losses of separation.

NextGen↗

Evaluation, Analysis and Results of the DANTi Flight Test Data, the DAIDALUS Detect and Avoid Algorithm, and the DANTi Concept for Detect and Avoid in the Cockpit

The DAIDALUS Detect and Avoid Algorithm [1] was developed to address the operational needs of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) and meet the Minimum Operational Performance Standards for Detect and Avoid [2]. The DANTi (Detect and Avoid iN the cockpit) concept [3], developed at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Langley Research Center, leverages advancements achieved in surveillance and Detect and Avoid technologies for unmanned aircraft systems as a safety enhancing capability for pilots of manned aircraft. Pilots operating under Visual Flight Rules and not receiving Air Traffic Control radar services rely on see and avoid to remain well clear of other aircraft and avoid collisions. The DANTi concept has been conceived as a safety enhancement capability to remain well clear and avoid potential collisions. The DANTi concept uses a traffic display to provide situational awareness, conflict detection, alerting, and guidance to remain well clear.

Detect and Avoid↗

An Investigation of Interval Management Displays

NASA's first Air Traffic Management (ATM) Technology Demonstration (ATD-1) was created to transition the most mature ATM technologies from the laboratory to the National Airspace System. One selected technology is Interval Management (IM), which uses onboard aircraft automation to compute speeds that help the flight crew achieve and maintain precise spacing behind a preceding aircraft. Since ATD-1 focuses on a near-term environment, the ATD-1 flight demonstration prototype requires radio voice communication to issue an IM clearance. Retrofit IM displays will enable pilots to both enter information into the IM avionics and monitor IM operation. These displays could consist of an interface to enter data from an IM clearance and also an auxiliary display that presents critical information in the primary field-of-view. A human-in-the-loop experiment was conducted to examine usability and acceptability of retrofit IM displays, which flight crews found acceptable. Results also indicate the need for salient alerting when new speeds are generated and the desire to have a primary field of view display available that can display text and graphic trend indicators.

Swieringa, Kurt A.↗

Oyster Fisheries App

This project is creating a cloud‐enabled, HTML 5 web application to help oyster fishermen and state agencies apply Earth science to improve the management of this important natural and economic resource. The Oyster Fisheries app gathers and analyzes environmental and water quality information, and alerts fishermen and resources managers about problems in oyster fishing waters. An intuitive interface based on Google Maps displays the geospatial information and provides familiar interactive controls to the users. Alerts can be tailored to notify users when conditions in specific leases or public fishing areas require attention. The app is hosted on the Amazon Web Services cloud. It is being developed and tested using some of the latest web development tools such as web components and Polymer.

Perez Guerrero, Geraldo A.↗

Aircraft Capability Management

This presentation presents an overview of work performed at NASA Ames Research Center in 2017. The work concerns the analysis of current aircraft system management displays, and the initial development of an interface for providing information about aircraft system status. The new interface proposes a shift away from current aircraft system alerting interfaces that report the status of physical components, and towards displaying the implications of degradations on mission capability. The proposed interface describes these component failures in terms of operational consequences of aircraft system degradations. The research activity was an effort to examine the utility of different representations of complex systems and operating environments to support real-time decision making of off-nominal situations. A specific focus was to develop representations that provide better integrated information to allow pilots to more easily reason about the operational consequences of the off-nominal situations. The work is also seen as a pathway to autonomy, as information is integrated and understood in a form that automated responses could be developed for the off-nominal situations in the future.

airplane capabilities↗

Information Requirements for Supervisory Air Traffic Controllers in Support of a Wake Vortex Departure System

Closely Space Parallel Runway (CSPR) configurations are capacity limited for departures due to the requirement to apply wake vortex separation standards from traffic departing on the adjacent parallel runway. To mitigate the effects of this constraint, a concept focusing on wind dependent departure operations has been developed, known as the Wake Turbulence Mitigation for Departures (WTMD). This concept takes advantage of the fact that crosswinds of sufficient velocity blow wakes generated by aircraft departing from the downwind runway away from the upwind runway. Consequently, under certain conditions, wake separations on the upwind runway would not be required based on wakes generated by aircraft on the downwind runway, as is currently the case. It follows that information requirements, and sources for this information, would need to be determined for airport traffic control tower (ATCT) supervisory personnel who would be charged with decisions regarding use of the procedure. To determine the information requirements, data were collected from ATCT supervisors and controller-in-charge qualified individuals at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport (STL) and George Bush Houston Intercontinental Airport (IAH). STL and IAH were chosen as data collection sites based on the implementation of a WTMD prototype system, operating in shadow mode, at these locations. The 17 total subjects (STL: 5, IAH: 12) represented a broad-base of air traffic experience. Results indicated that the following information was required to support the conduct of WTMD operations: current and forecast weather information, current and forecast traffic demand and traffic flow restrictions, and WTMD System status information and alerting. Subjects further indicated that the requisite information is currently available in the tower cab with the exception of the WTMD status and alerting. Subjects were given a demonstration of a display supporting the prototype systems and unanimously stated that the WTMD status information they felt important was represented. Overwhelmingly, subjects felt that approving, monitoring and terminating the WTMD procedure could be integrated into their supervisory workload.

Lohr, Gary W.↗

Situation Awareness and Workload Measures for SAFOR

The present research was conducted in support of the NASA Safe All-Weather Flight Operations for Rotorcraft (SAFOR) program. The purpose of the work was to investigate the utility of two measurement tools developed by the British Defense Evaluation Research Agency. These tools were a subjective workload assessment scale, the DRA Workload Scale (DRAWS), and a situation awareness measurement tool in which the crews self-evaluation of performance is compared against actual performance. These two measurement tools were evaluated in the context of a test of an innovative approach to alerting the crew by way of a helmet mounted display. The DRAWS was found to be usable, but it offered no advantages over extant scales, and it had only limited resolution. The performance self-evaluation metric of situation awareness was found to be highly effective.

DeMaio, Joe↗

Objective Situation Awareness Measurement Based on Performance Self-Evaluation

The research was conducted in support of the NASA Safe All-Weather Flight Operations for Rotorcraft (SAFOR) program. The purpose of the work was to investigate the utility of two measurement tools developed by the British Defense Evaluation Research Agency. These tools were a subjective workload assessment scale, the DRA Workload Scale and a situation awareness measurement tool. The situation awareness tool uses a comparison of the crew's self-evaluation of performance against actual performance in order to determine what information the crew attended to during the performance. These two measurement tools were evaluated in the context of a test of innovative approach to alerting the crew by way of a helmet mounted display. The situation assessment data are reported here. The performance self-evaluation metric of situation awareness was found to be highly effective. It was used to evaluate situation awareness on a tank reconnaissance task, a tactical navigation task, and a stylized task used to evaluated handling qualities. Using the self-evaluation metric, it was possible to evaluate situation awareness, without exact knowledge the relevant information in some cases and to identify information to which the crew attended or failed to attend in others.

DeMaio, Joe↗

Hazard alerting and situational awareness in advanced air transport cockpits

Advances in avionics and display technology have significantly changed the cockpit environment in current 'glass cockpit' aircraft. Recent developments in display technology, on-board processing, data storage, and datalinked communications are likely to further alter the environment in second and third generation 'glass cockpit' aircraft. The interaction of advanced cockpit technology with human cognitive performance has been a major area of activity within the MIT Aeronautical Systems Laboratory. This paper presents an overview of the MIT Advanced Cockpit Simulation Facility. Several recent research projects are briefly reviewed and the most important results are summarized.

Hansman, R. John↗

Prototype Software for Future Spaceflight Tested at Mars Desert Research Station

NASA scientists in MDRS Crew 49 (April 23-May 7, 2006) field tested and significantly extended a prototype monitoring and advising system that integrates power system telemetry with a voice commanding interface. A distributed, wireless network of functionally specialized agents interacted with the crew to provide alerts (e.g., impending shut-down of inverter due to low battery voltage), access md interpret historical data, and display troubleshooting procedures. In practical application during two weeks, the system generated speech over loudspeakers and headsets lo alert the crew about the need to investigate power system problems. The prototype system adapts the Brahms/Mobile Agents toolkit to receive data from the OneMeter (Brand Electronics) electric metering system deployed by Crew 47. A computer on the upper deck was connected to loudspeakers, four others were paired with wireless (Bluetooth) headsets that enabled crew members to interact with their personal agents from anywhere in the hab. Voice commands and inquiries included: 1. What is the {battery | generator} {volts | amps | volts and amps}? 2. What is the status of the {generator | inverter | battery | solar panel}? 3. What is the hab{itat} {power usage | volts | voltage | amps | volts and amps}? 4. What was the average hab{itat} {amps | volts | voltage} since <#> {AM | PM)? 5. When did the {generator | batteries} change status? 6. Tell {me I | everyone} when{ ever} the generator goes offline. 7. Tell {me | | everyone} when the hab{itat} {amps | volts | voltage} {exceeds | drops brelow} <#>. 8. {Send | Take | Record} {a} voice note {(for | to} } {at }. This research demonstrates the principles of design in the context of use, investigating requirements through experimental use of prototype systems in an analog setting, and use of MDRS as a research facility for designing and implementing new systems.

Clancey, William J.↗

Effect of Traffic Position Accuracy for Conducting Safe Airport Surface Operations

The Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) concept proposes many revolutionary operational concepts and technologies, such as display of traffic information and movements, airport moving maps (AMM), and proactive alerts of runway incursions and surface traffic conflicts, to deliver an overall increase in system capacity and safety. A piloted simulation study was conducted at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Langley Research Center to evaluate the ability to conduct safe and efficient airport surface operations while utilizing an AMM displaying traffic of various position accuracies as well as the effect of traffic position accuracy on airport conflict detection and resolution (CD&R) capability. Nominal scenarios and off-nominal conflict scenarios were conducted using 12 airline crews operating in a simulated Memphis International Airport terminal environment. The data suggest that all traffic should be shown on the airport moving map, whether qualified or unqualified, and conflict detection and resolution technologies provide significant safety benefits. Despite the presence of traffic information on the map, collisions or near collisions still occurred; when indications or alerts were generated in these same scenarios, the incidences were averted.

Jones, Denise R.↗

Flight Test Results of a Synthetic Vision Elevation Database Integrity Monitor

This paper discusses the flight test results of a real-time Digital Elevation Model (DEM) integrity monitor for Civil Aviation applications. Providing pilots with Synthetic Vision (SV) displays containing terrain information has the potential to improve flight safety by improving situational awareness and thereby reducing the likelihood of Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT). Utilization of DEMs, such as the digital terrain elevation data (DTED), requires a DEM integrity check and timely integrity alerts to the pilots when used for flight-critical terrain-displays, otherwise the DEM may provide hazardous misleading terrain information. The discussed integrity monitor checks the consistency between a terrain elevation profile synthesized from sensor information, and the profile given in the DEM. The synthesized profile is derived from DGPS and radar altimeter measurements. DEMs of various spatial resolutions are used to illustrate the dependency of the integrity monitor s performance on the DEMs spatial resolution. The paper will give a description of proposed integrity algorithms, the flight test setup, and the results of a flight test performed at the Ohio University airport and in the vicinity of Asheville, NC.

deHaag, Maarten Uijt↗

Evaluation of Perspective and Coplanar Cockpit Displays of Traffic Information to Support Hazard Awareness in Free Flight

We examined the cockpit display representation of traffic, to support the pilot in tactical planning and conflict avoidance. Such displays may support the "free flight" concept, but can also support greater situation awareness in a non-free flight environment. Two perspective views and a coplanar display were contrasted in scenarios in which pilots needed to navigate around conflicting traffic, either in the absence (low workload) or presence (high workload) of a second intruder aircraft. All three formats were configured with predictive aiding vectors that explicitly represented the predicted point of closest pass, and predicted penetration of an alert zone around ownship. Ten pilots were assigned to each of the display conditions, and each flew a series of 60 conflict maneuvers that varied in their workload and the complexity of the conflict geometry. Results indicated a tendency to choose vertical over lateral maneuvers, a tendency which was amplified with the coplanar display. Vertical maneuvers by the intruder produced an added source of workload. Importantly, the coplanar display supported performance in all measures that was equal to or greater than either of the perspective displays (i.e., fewer predicted and actual conflicts, less extreme maneuvers). Previous studies that have indicated perspective superiority have only contrasted these with UNIplanar displays rather than the coplanar display used here.

Merwin, David H.↗

Autonomous onboard crew operations: A review and developmental approach

A review of the literature generated by an intercenter mission approach and consolidation team and their contractors was performed to obtain background information on the development of autonomous operations concepts for future space shuttle and space platform missions. The Boeing 757/767 flight management system was examined to determine the relevance for transfer of the developmental approach and technology to the performance of the crew operations function. In specific, the engine indications and crew alerting system was studied to determine the relevance of this display for the performance of crew operations onboard the vehicle. It was concluded that the developmental approach and technology utilized in the aeronautics industry would be appropriate for development of an autonomous operations concept for the space platform.

Rogers, J. G.↗

Advanced Air Traffic Management Research (Human Factors and Automation): NASA Research Initiatives in Human-Centered Automation Design in Airspace Management

NASA has initiated a significant thrust of research and development focused on providing the flight crew and air traffic managers automation aids to increase capacity in en route and terminal area operations through the use of flexible, more fuel-efficient routing, while improving the level of safety in commercial carrier operations. In that system development, definition of cognitive requirements for integrated multi-operator dynamic aiding systems is fundamental. The core processes of control and the distribution of decision making in that control are undergoing extensive analysis. From our perspective, the human operators and the procedures by which they interact are the fundamental determinants of the safe, efficient, and flexible operation of the system. In that perspective, we have begun to explore what our experience has taught will be the most challenging aspects of designing and integrating human-centered automation in the advanced system. We have performed a full mission simulation looking at the role shift to self-separation on board the aircraft with the rules of the air guiding behavior and the provision of a cockpit display of traffic information and an on-board traffic alert system that seamlessly integrates into the TCAS operations. We have performed and initial investigation of the operational impact of "Dynamic Density" metrics on controller relinquishing and reestablishing full separation authority. (We follow the assumption that responsibility at all times resides with the controller.) This presentation will describe those efforts as well as describe the process by which we will guide the development of error tolerant systems that are sensitive to shifts in operator work load levels and dynamic shifts in the operating point of air traffic management.

Corker, Kevin M.↗

DTED Integrity Monitoring Using Differential GPS and Radar Altimeter

This paper discusses a real-time digital terrain elevation data (DTED) integrity monitor for Civil Aviation applications. Providing pilots with Synthetic Vision (SV) displays containing terrain information has the potential to improve flight safety by improving situational awareness and thereby reducing the likelihood of Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT). Utilization of the DTED for flight-critical terrain-displays, however, requires a DTED integrity check and timely integrity alerts to the pilots in those cases where DTED may provide hazardous misleading information. The discussed integrity monitor checks the consistency between the sensed terrain profile as computed from DGPS and radar altimeter data and the terrain profile as given by the DTED. Probability of agreement between these two profiles is used to monitor the DTED integrity. A case study to verify the integrity monitor#s performance is presented based on data collected during flight testing performed by NASA at Asheville, NC.

Young, Steve↗

Pilot Evaluation of a UAS Detect-and-Avoid System's Effectiveness in Remaining Well Clear

Unmanned aircraft will equip with a detect-and-avoid (DAA) system that allows them to comply with the requirement to see and avoid other aircraft, an important layer in the overall set of procedural, strategic and tactical separation methods designed to prevent mid-air collisions. Although the effectiveness of the DAA system will be set to a minimum threshold by regulators, different combinations of algorithms, displays and procedures could be used to meet that minimum. The research presented in this paper indicates the effectiveness of the combined pilot-DAA system as a function of the DAA design requirements and provides data that may be used to model the behavior of pilots when employing such systems. Over the course of two simulations 21 professional UAS pilots evaluated eight different DAA system designs and metrics were collected on their ability to maintain the well clear separation standard. The independent variables were the time horizon at which pilots were alerted to potential losses of well clear, the location of the traffic display, and the tools and informational elements available on the display to aid the pilot in detecting and resolving those potential losses. In the second experiment the UAS encountered two categories of aircraft: those equipped with simulated transponders that could be seen dozens of miles away and those without that were only detectable by a simulated radar within a range of six nautical miles. The data indicate that integrating the traffic display with the primary mission map directly in front of the pilot reduced the frequency of losses of well clear. Improved detection and resolution tools, including explicit maneuver guidance and a trial planning capability, had less of an effect in reducing the frequency of losses but significantly reduced the time in loss when they occurred. The amount of warning time provided to the pilot had a strong effect on their ability to remain well clear: when alerts were first presented with less than about 15 seconds to a predicted loss of well clear pilots were able to maneuver successfully in only 26 percent of encounters, whereas they were about 83 percent successful when they had more than 15 seconds. Pilots' ability to separate from the two categories of aircraft was nearly the same after accounting for the amount of alert time provided in each encounter, although the limited surveillance volume for the non-transponder equipped aircraft meant alerts tended to occur later and therefore were more difficult to resolve.

loss of well clear↗