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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 127 records · Page 7
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2016

NASA UAS Traffic Management National Campaign Operations across Six UAS Test Sites

NASA's Unmanned Aircraft Systems Traffic Management research aims to develop policies, procedures, requirements, and other artifacts to inform the implementation of a future system that enables small drones to access the low altitude airspace. In this endeavor, NASA conducted a geographically diverse flight test in conjunction with the FAA's six unmanned aircraft systems Test Sites. A control center at NASA Ames Research Center autonomously managed the airspace for all participants in eight states as they flew operations (both real and simulated). The system allowed for common situational awareness across all stakeholders, kept traffic procedurally separated, offered messages to inform the participants of activity relevant to their operations. Over the 3- hour test, 102 flight operations connected to the central research platform with 17 different vehicle types and 8 distinct software client implementations while seamlessly interacting with simulated traffic.

UTM↗
NASA NTRS1999

Situational Awareness Issues in the Implementation of Datalink: Shared Situational Awareness in the Joint Flight Deck-ATC Aviation System

MIT has investigated Situational Awareness issues relating to the implementation of Datalink in the Air Traffic Control environment for a number of years under this grant activity. This work has investigated: 1) The Effect of "Party Line" Information. 2) The Effect of Datalink-Enabled Automated Flight Management Systems (FMS) on Flight Crew Situational Awareness. 3) The Effect of Cockpit Display of Traffic Information (CDTI) on Situational Awareness During Close Parallel Approaches. 4) Analysis of Flight Path Management Functions in Current and Future ATM Environments. 5) Human Performance Models in Advanced ATC Automation: Flight Crew and Air Traffic Controllers. 6) CDTI of Datalink-Based Intent Information in Advanced ATC Environments. 7) Shared Situational Awareness between the Flight Deck and ATC in Datalink-Enabled Environments. 8) Analysis of Pilot and Controller Shared SA Requirements & Issues. 9) Development of Robust Scenario Generation and Distributed Simulation Techniques for Flight Deck ATC Simulation. 10) Methods of Testing Situation Awareness Using Testable Response Techniques. The work is detailed in specific technical reports that are listed in the following bibliography, and are attached as an appendix to the master final technical report.

Hansman, Robert John, Jr.↗
DOE OSTI2023

Socially-aware evaluation framework for transportation

Technological advancements are rapidly changing traffic management in cities. Navigation applications, in particular, have impacted cities in many ways by rerouting traffic. As different routing strategies distribute traffic differently, understanding these disparities across multiple city-relevant dimensions is extremely important for decision-makers. We develop a multi-themed framework called Socially- Aware Evaluation Framework for Transportation (SAEF), which assists in understanding how traffic routing and the resultant dynamics affect cities. The framework is presented for four Bay Area cities, for which we compare three routing strategies - user equilibrium travel time, system optimal travel time, and system optimal fuel. The results demonstrate that many neighborhood impacts, such as traffic load on residential streets and around minority schools, degraded with the system-optimal travel time and fuel routing in comparison to the user-equilibrium travel time routing. The findings also show that all routing strategies subject the city's disadvantaged neighborhoods to disproportionate traffic exposure. Our intent with this work is to provide an evaluation framework that enables reflection on the consequences of traffic routing and management strategies, allowing city planners to recognize the trade-offs and potential unintended consequences.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
NASA NTRS1991

An investigation of air transportation technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1990-1991

Brief summaries are given of research activities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) under the sponsorship of the FAA/NASA Joint University Program. Topics covered include hazard assessment and cockpit presentation issues for microburst alerting systems; the situational awareness effect of automated air traffic control (ATC) datalink clearance amendments; a graphical simulation system for adaptive, automated approach spacing; an expert system for temporal planning with application to runway configuration management; deterministic multi-zone ice accretion modeling; alert generation and cockpit presentation for an integrated microburst alerting system; and passive infrared ice detection for helicopter applications.

Simpson, Robert W.↗
NASA NTRS2020

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↗
NASA NTRS2016

Airport Traffic Conflict Detection and Resolution Algorithm Evaluation

Two conflict detection and resolution (CD&R) algorithms for the terminal maneuvering area (TMA) were evaluated in a fast-time batch simulation study at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Langley Research Center. One CD&R algorithm, developed at NASA, was designed to enhance surface situation awareness and provide cockpit alerts of potential conflicts during runway, taxi, and low altitude air-to-air operations. The second algorithm, Enhanced Traffic Situation Awareness on the Airport Surface with Indications and Alerts (SURF IA), was designed to increase flight crew awareness of the runway environment and facilitate an appropriate and timely response to potential conflict situations. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the performance of the aircraft-based CD&R algorithms during various runway, taxiway, and low altitude scenarios, multiple levels of CD&R system equipage, and various levels of horizontal position accuracy. Algorithm performance was assessed through various metrics including the collision rate, nuisance and missed alert rate, and alert toggling rate. The data suggests that, in general, alert toggling, nuisance and missed alerts, and unnecessary maneuvering occurred more frequently as the position accuracy was reduced. Collision avoidance was more effective when all of the aircraft were equipped with CD&R and maneuvered to avoid a collision after an alert was issued. In order to reduce the number of unwanted (nuisance) alerts when taxiing across a runway, a buffer is needed between the hold line and the alerting zone so alerts are not generated when an aircraft is behind the hold line. All of the results support RTCA horizontal position accuracy requirements for performing a CD&R function to reduce the likelihood and severity of runway incursions and collisions.

Jones, Denise R.↗
NASA NTRS2014

An Overview of Current Capabilities and Research Activities in the Airspace Operations Laboratory at NASA Ames Research Center

The Airspace Operations Laboratory at NASA Ames conducts research to provide a better understanding of roles, responsibilities, and requirements for human operators and automation in future air traffic management (ATM) systems. The research encompasses developing, evaluating, and integrating operational concepts and technologies for near-, mid-, and far-term air traffic operations. Current research threads include efficient arrival operations, function allocation in separation assurance and efficient airspace and trajectory management. The AOL has developed powerful air traffic simulation capabilities, most notably the Multi Aircraft Control System (MACS) that is used for many air traffic control simulations at NASA and its partners in government, academia and industry. Several additional NASA technologies have been integrated with the AOL's primary simulation capabilities where appropriate. Using this environment, large and small-scale system-level evaluations can be conducted to help make near-term improvements and transition NASA technologies to the FAA, such as the technologies developed under NASA's Air Traffic Management Demonstration-1 (ATD-1). The AOL's rapid prototyping and flexible simulation capabilities have proven a highly effective environment to progress the initiation of trajectory-based operations and support the mid-term implementation of NextGen. Fundamental questions about accuracy requirements have been investigated as well as realworld problems on how to improve operations in some of the most complex airspaces in the US. This includes using advanced trajectory-based operations and prototype tools for coordinating arrivals to converging runways at Newark airport and coordinating departures and arrivals in the San Francisco and the New York metro areas. Looking beyond NextGen, the AOL has started exploring hybrid human/automation control strategies as well as highly autonomous operations in the air traffic control domain. Initial results indicate improved capacity, low operator workload, good situation awareness and acceptability for controllers teaming with autonomous air traffic systems. While much research and development needs to be conducted to make such concepts a reality, these approaches have the potential to truly transform the airspace system towards increased mobility, safe and efficient growth in global operations and enabling many of the new vehicles and operations that are expected over the next decades. This paper describes how the AOL currently contributes to the ongoing air transportation transformation.

simulation↗
NASA NTRS2014

Safely Conducting Airport Surface Trajectory-Based Operations

A piloted simulation study was conducted at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Langley Research Center (LaRC) to evaluate the ability to safely conduct surface trajectory-based operations (STBO) by assessing the impact of providing traffic intent information, conflict detection and resolution (CD&R) system capability, and the display of STBO guidance to the flight crew on both head-down and head-up displays (HUD). Nominal and off-nominal conflict scenarios were conducted using 12 airline crews operating in a simulated Memphis International Airport terminal environment. The flight crews met their required time-of-arrival at route end within 10 seconds on 98 percent of the trials, well within the acceptable performance bounds of 15 seconds. Traffic intent information was found to be useful in determining the intent of conflict traffic, with graphical presentation preferred. The CD&R system was only minimally effective during STBO because the prevailing visibility was sufficient for visual detection of incurring traffic. Overall, the pilots indicated STBO increased general situation awareness but also negatively impacted workload, reduced the ability to watch for other traffic, and increased head-down time.

Jones, Denise R.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Conducting Safe and Efficient Airport Surface Operations in a NextGen Environment

The Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) vision proposes many revolutionary operational concepts, such as surface trajectory-based operations (STBO) and technologies, including 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 of a flight crew to conduct safe and efficient airport surface operations while utilizing an AMM. Position accuracy of traffic was varied, and the effect of traffic position accuracy on airport conflict detection and resolution (CD&R) capability was measured. Another goal was to evaluate the crew's ability to safely conduct STBO by assessing the impact of providing traffic intent information, CD&R system capability, and the display of STBO guidance to the flight crew on both head-down and head-up displays (HUD). 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 incidents were averted. During the STBO testing, the flight crews met their required time-of-arrival at route end within 10 seconds on 98 percent of the trials, well within the acceptable performance bounds of 15 seconds. Traffic intent information was found to be useful in determining the intent of conflicting traffic, with graphical presentation preferred. The CD&R system was only minimally effective during STBO because the prevailing visibility was sufficient for visual detection of conflicting traffic. Overall, the pilots indicated STBO increased general situation awareness but also negatively impacted workload, reduced the ability to watch for other traffic, and increased head-down time.

Jones, Denise R.↗
NASA NTRS1992

An Experimental Study of the Effects of Automation on Pilot Situational Awareness in the Datalink ATC Environment

An experiment to study how automation, when used in conjunction with datalink for the delivery of air traffic control (ATC) clearance amendments, affects the situational awareness of aircrews was conducted. The study was focused on the relationship of situational awareness to automated Flight Management System (FMS) programming and the readback of ATC clearances. Situational awareness was tested by issuing nominally unacceptable ATC clearances and measuring whether the error was detected by the subject pilots. The experiment also varied the mode of clearance delivery: Verbal, Textual, and Graphical. The error detection performance and pilot preference results indicate that the automated programming of the FMS may be superior to manual programming. It is believed that automated FMS programming may relieve some of the cognitive load, allowing pilots to concentrate on the strategic implications of a clearance amendment. Also, readback appears to have value, but the small sample size precludes a definite conclusion. Furthermore, because textual and graphical modes of delivery offer different but complementary advantages for cognitive processing, a combination of these modes of delivery may be advantageous in a datalink presentation.

Hahn, Edward C.↗
NASA NTRS2014

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↗
NASA NTRS1983

Simulation of a cockpit display concept for increased airport capacity

A research effort has been undertaken to determine the feasibility of employing a forward-looking cockpit display to provide information that would enable aircraft to utilize reduced separation, and hence increased runway capacity, through the application of multiple-glide-path approach techniques. The current study was an initial exploration into this concept in which traffic information was added to a HUD format to allow the pilot to monitor the traffic situation and to self space on a lead aircraft during a simulated single glide-path approach. The results of this study indicate that this display concept can provide sufficient information to the pilot for traffic monitoring and self separation. Additionally, the pilots noted that an increase in situational awareness, relative to conventional instrument flight, was provided by the traffic information on the display.

Abbott, T. S.↗
NASA NTRS2008

Aspects of Synthetic Vision Display Systems and the Best Practices of the NASA's SVS Project

NASA s Synthetic Vision Systems (SVS) Project conducted research aimed at eliminating visibility-induced errors and low visibility conditions as causal factors in civil aircraft accidents while enabling the operational benefits of clear day flight operations regardless of actual outside visibility. SVS takes advantage of many enabling technologies to achieve this capability including, for example, the Global Positioning System (GPS), data links, radar, imaging sensors, geospatial databases, advanced display media and three dimensional video graphics processors. Integration of these technologies to achieve the SVS concept provides pilots with high-integrity information that improves situational awareness with respect to terrain, obstacles, traffic, and flight path. This paper attempts to emphasize the system aspects of SVS - true systems, rather than just terrain on a flight display - and to document from an historical viewpoint many of the best practices that evolved during the SVS Project from the perspective of some of the NASA researchers most heavily involved in its execution. The Integrated SVS Concepts are envisagements of what production-grade Synthetic Vision systems might, or perhaps should, be in order to provide the desired functional capabilities that eliminate low visibility as a causal factor to accidents and enable clear-day operational benefits regardless of visibility conditions.

Bailey, Randall E.↗
NASA NTRS2012

UAS Integration Into the NAS: An Examination of Baseline Compliance in the Current Airspace System

As a result of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) are expected to be integrated into the National Airspace System (NAS) by 2015. Several human factors challenges need to be addressed before UAS can safely and routinely fly in the NAS with manned aircraft. Perhaps the most significant challenge is for the UAS to be non-disruptive to the air traffic management system. Another human factors challenge is how to provide UAS pilots with intuitive traffic information in order to support situation awareness (SA) of their airspace environment as well as a see-and-avoid capability comparable to manned aircraft so that a UAS pilot could safely maneuver the aircraft to maintain separation and collision avoidance if necessary. A simulation experiment was conducted to examine baseline compliance of UAS operations in the current airspace system. Researchers also examined the effects of introducing a Cockpit Situation Display (CSD) into a UAS Ground Control Station (GCS) on UAS pilot performance, workload and situation awareness while flying in a positively controlled sector. Pilots were tasked with conducting a highway patrol police mission with a Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) UAS in L.A. Center airspace with two mission objectives: 1) to reroute the UAS when issued new instructions from their commander, and 2) to communicate with Air Traffic Control (ATC) to negotiate flight plan changes and respond to vectoring and altitude change instructions. Objective aircraft separation data, workload ratings, SA data, and subjective ratings regarding UAS operations in the NAS were collected. Results indicate that UAS pilots were able to comply appropriately with ATC instructions. In addition, the introduction of the CSD improved pilot SA and reduced workload associated with UAS and ATC interactions.

Fern, Lisa↗
NASA NTRS2004

3D Navigation and Integrated Hazard Display in Advanced Avionics: Workload, Performance, and Situation Awareness

We examined the ability for pilots to estimate traffic location in an Integrated Hazard Display, and how such estimations should be measured. Twelve pilots viewed static images of traffic scenarios and then estimated the outside world locations of queried traffic represented in one of three display types (2D coplanar, 3D exocentric, and split-screen) and in one of four conditions (display present/blank crossed with outside world present/blank). Overall, the 2D coplanar display best supported both vertical (compared to 3D) and lateral (compared to split-screen) traffic position estimation performance. Costs of the 3D display were associated with perceptual ambiguity. Costs of the split screen display were inferred to result from inappropriate attention allocation. Furthermore, although pilots were faster in estimating traffic locations when relying on memory, accuracy was greatest when the display was available.

Wickens, Christopher D.↗
NASA NTRS1999

The Effects of Shared Information on Pilot-Controller Situation Awareness And Re-Route Negotiation

The effect of shared information is assessed in terms of pilot-controller negotiating behavior and shared situation awareness. Pilot goals and situation awareness requirements are developed and compared against those of air traffic controllers to identify areas of common and competing interest. An exploratory, part-task simulator experiment is described which evaluates the extent to which shared information may lead pilots and controllers to cooperate or compete when negotiating route amendments. Results are presented which indicate that shared information enhances situation awareness and can engender more collaborative interaction between pilots and air traffic controllers. Furthermore, the value of providing controllers with a good-quality weather overlay on their plan view displays is demonstrated. Observed improvements in situation awareness and separation assurance are discussed.

Farley, Todd C.↗
NASA NTRS1996

Support of Helicopter 'Free Flight' Operations in the 1996 Olympics

The microcosm of activity surrounding the 1996 Olympic Games provided researchers an opportunity for demonstrating state-of-the art technology in the first large-scale deployment of a prototype digital communication/navigation/surveillance system in a confined environment. At the same time it provided an ideal opportunity for transportation officials to showcase the merits of an integrated transportation system in meeting the operational needs to transport time sensitive goods and provide public safety services under real-world conditions. Five aeronautical CNS functions using a digital datalink system were chosen for operational flight testing onboard 91 aircraft, most of them helicopters, participating in the Atlanta Short-Haul Transportation System. These included: GPS-based Automatic Dependent Surveillance, Cockpit Display of Traffic Information, Controller-Pilot Communications, Graphical Weather Information (uplink), and Automated Electronic Pilot Reporting (downlink). Atlanta provided the first opportunity to demonstrate, in an actual operating environment, key datalink functions which would enhance flight safety and situational awareness for the pilot and supplement conventional air traffic control. The knowledge gained from such a large-scale deployment will help system designers in development of a national infrastructure where aircraft would have the ability to navigate autonomously.

Branstetter, James R.↗
DOE OSTI2022

MAPredict: Static Analysis Driven Memory Access Prediction Framework for Modern CPUs

Application memory access patterns are crucial in deciding how much traffic is served by the cache and forwarded to the dynamic random-access memory (DRAM). However, predicting such memory traffic is difficult because of the interplay of prefetchers, compilers, parallel execution, and innovations in manufacturer-specific micro-architectures. This research introduced MAPredict, a static analysis-driven framework that addresses these challenges to predict last-level cache (LLC)-DRAM traffic. By exploring and analyzing the behavior of modern Intel processors, MAPredict formulates cache-aware analytical models. MAPredict invokes these models to predict LLC-DRAM traffic by combining the application model, machine model, and user-provided hints to capture dynamic information. MAPredict successfully predicts LLC-DRAM traffic for different regular access patterns and provides the means to combine static and empirical observations for irregular access patterns. Evaluating 130 workloads from six applications on recent Intel micro-architectures, MAPredict yielded an average accuracy of 99% for streaming, 91% for strided, and 92% for stencil patterns. By coupling static and empirical methods, up to 97% average accuracy was obtained for random access patterns on different micro-architectures.

Monil, M. A. H.↗