Engineering topics

Robinson, John E., III

Publications and source records attributed to Robinson, John E., III.

9 records

NASA NTRS2017

Development of a High-Fidelity Simulation Environment for Shadow-Mode Assessments of Air Traffic Concepts

This paper describes the Shadow-Mode Assessment Using Realistic Technologies for the National Airspace System (SMART-NAS) Test Bed. The SMART-NAS Test Bed is an air traffic simulation platform being developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The SMART-NAS Test Bed's core purpose is to conduct high-fidelity, real-time, human-in-the-loop and automation-in-the-loop simulations of current and proposed future air traffic concepts for the United States' Next Generation Air Transportation System called NextGen. The setup, configuration, coordination, and execution of realtime, human-in-the-loop air traffic management simulations are complex, tedious, time intensive, and expensive. The SMART-NAS Test Bed framework is an alternative to the current approach and will provide services throughout the simulation workflow pipeline to help alleviate these shortcomings. The principle concepts to be simulated include advanced gate-to-gate, trajectory-based operations, widespread integration of novel aircraft such as unmanned vehicles, and real-time safety assurance technologies to enable autonomous operations. To make this possible, SNTB will utilize Web-based technologies, cloud resources, and real-time, scalable, communication middleware. This paper describes the SMART-NAS Test Bed's vision, purpose, its concept of use, and the potential benefits, key capabilities, high-level requirements, architecture, software design, and usage.

human-in-the-loop↗

NASA NTRS2015

Flight-Deck Interval Management in Near-Term Arrival Operations

A simulation investigated NASA Air Traffic Management Technology Demonstration 1 (ATD-1) procedures and prototype technologies, including the Traffic Management Advisor for Terminal Metering, Controller-Managed Spacing tools, and Flight Deck Interval Management (FIM) equipment. The ATD-1 procedures and technologies comprise an integrated solution for managing high-density arrivals that NASA is developing and transferring to government and industry stakeholders for NextGen. During each of eighteen simulation trials, experienced controllers managed approximately two hundred departures and over-flights together with seventy-five arrivals to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport in a realistic near-term environment. Eight of the arrivals were desktop-based flight simulators flown by airline pilots, which were equipped with prototype FIM equipment in two-thirds of the trials. The simulation provided system-level measures of performance of the ATD-1 integrated arrival solution, demonstrating high conformance with Performance-Based Navigation procedures and a low rate of FIM interruptions. FIM operations provided benefits under specific conditions when FIM aircraft flew connected routes to the runway. This paper focuses on the integration of FIM with the ATD-1 ground-based technologies, discusses outstanding issues, and describes avenues for further research.

Callantine, Todd J.↗

NASA NTRS2015

Enabling Performance-Based Navigation Arrivals: Development and Simulation Testing of the Terminal Sequencing and Spacing System

NASA has developed an advanced arrival management capability for terminal controllers, known as Terminal Sequencing and Spacing (TSS). TSS increases use of performance-based navigation (PBN) arrival procedures during periods of high traffic demand. It extends two Federal Aviation Administration's operational systems with terminal metering and controller spacing tools. Sixteen high-fidelity human-in-the-loop simulations, involving more than five hundred hours of evaluation time, were conducted to mature TSS from proof-of- concept design to fully functional prototype. These simulations modeled arrival procedures at several U.S. airports, incorporated a broad range of traffic demand profiles and wind conditions, and used controllers with extensive operational experience. Two fundamental metrics are evaluated for these simulations: PBN Success Rate and Inter-Arrival Spacing Error. The PBN Success Rate shows a definitive trend when TSS is used. It increases from 42 percent for today's operations to 68 percent for terminal metering only and 92 percent for terminal metering with controller-managed spacing tools. Meanwhile, the Inter-Arrival Spacing Error improves 25 to 35 percent when TSS is used compared to not used. The TSS technology was transferred to the FAA and, and it is targeted for deployment to several busy airports in the U.S. starting in 2018.

terminal metering↗

NASA NTRS2015

Methodology to Define Delivery Accuracy Under Current Day ATC Operations

In order to enable arrival management concepts and solutions in a NextGen environment, ground- based sequencing and scheduling functions have been developed to support metering operations in the National Airspace System. These sequencing and scheduling algorithms as well as tools are designed to aid air traffic controllers in developing an overall arrival strategy. The ground systems being developed will support the management of aircraft to their Scheduled Times of Arrival (STAs) at flow-constrained meter points. This paper presents a methodology for determining the undelayed delivery accuracy for current day air traffic control operations. This new method analyzes the undelayed delivery accuracy at meter points in order to understand changes of desired flow rates as well as enabling definition of metrics that will allow near-future ground automation tools to successfully achieve desired separation at the meter points. This enables aircraft to meet their STAs while performing high precision arrivals. The research presents a possible implementation that would allow delivery performance of current tools to be estimated and delivery accuracy requirements for future tools to be defined, which allows analysis of Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) accuracy for Time-Based Flow Management (TBFM) and the FAA's Traffic Management Advisor (TMA). TMA is a deployed system that generates scheduled time-of-arrival constraints for en- route air traffic controllers in the US. This new method of automated analysis provides a repeatable evaluation of the delay metrics for current day traffic, new releases of TMA, implementation of different tools, and across different airspace environments. This method utilizes a wide set of data from the Operational TMA-TBFM Repository (OTTR) system, which processes raw data collected by the FAA from operational TMA systems at all ARTCCs in the nation. The OTTR system generates daily reports concerning ATC status, intent and actions. Due to its availability, ease of use, and vast collection of data across several airspaces it was determined that the OTTR data set would be the best method to utilize moving forward with this analysis. The particular variables needed for further analysis were determined along with the necessary OTTR reports, by working closely with the repository team additional analysis reports were developed that provided key ETA and STA information at the freeze horizon. One major benefit of the OTTR data is that using the correct reports the data across several airports could be analyzed over large periods of time. The OTTR data processes the TBFM data daily and is stored in various formats across several airspaces. This allowed us to develop our own parsing methods and raw data processing that would not rely on other computationally expensive tools that perform more in depth analysis of similar sets of data. The majority of this work consisted of the development of the ability to filter flights to create a subset of flights that could be considered undelayed, which is defined as a flight at the freeze horizon with an ETA and STA difference that was minimal or close to zero. This was a broad method that allowed the consideration of a large data set which consisted of all the traffic across a two month period in 2013, the hottest and coldest months, arriving into four airports: George Bush Intercontinental, Denver International, Los Angeles International, and Phoenix Sky Harbor.

delivery accuracy↗

NASA NTRS2015

Terminal Sequencing and Spacing Demonstration

No abstract available

NextGen↗

NASA NTRS2014

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

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

Technology transfer↗

NASA NTRS2010

A Terminal Area Analysis of Continuous Ascent Departure Fuel Use at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport

Aircraft departing from the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) encounter vertical restrictions that prevent continuous ascent operations. The result of these restrictions are temporary level-offs at 10,000 feet. A combination of flow direction, specific Area Navigation (RNAV) route geometry, and arrival streams have been found to be the biggest factors in the duration and frequency of a temporary level-offs. In total, 20% of DFW departures are affected by these level-offs, which have an average duration of just over 100 seconds. The use of continuous descent approaches at DFW are shown to lessen the impact arrivals have on the departures and allow more continuous ascents. The fuel used in a continuous ascent and an ascent with a temporary level-off have been calculated using a fuel burn rate model created from a combination of actual aircraft track data, aircraft manufacturer flight operations manuals, and Eurocontrol's Base of Aircraft Data (BADA) simulation tool. This model represents the average aggregate burn rates for the current fleet mix at DFW. Continuous ascents would save approximately seven gallons of fuel out of 450 gallons used to climb to a cruise altitude of 31,000ft per departure.

Roach, Keenan↗

NASA NTRS2002

Development of Closed-Loop Simulation Methods for a Next-Generation Terminal Area Automation System

A next-generation air traffic decision support tool, known as the Active Final Approach Spacing Tool (aFAST), will generate heading, speed and altitude commands to achieve more precise separation of aircraft in the terminal area. The techniques used to analyze the performance of earlier generation decision support tools are not adequate to analyze the performance of aFAST. This paper summarizes the development of a new and innovative fully closed-loop testing method for aFAST. This method, called trajectory feedback testing, closes each aircraft's control loop inside of the aFAST scheduling algorithm. Validation of trajectory feedback testing by examination of the variation of aircraft time-of-arrival predictions between schedule updates and the variation of aircraft excess separation distances between simulation runs is presented.

Robinson, John E., III↗

NASA NTRS1996

Operational Test Results of the Final Approach Spacing Tool

A prototype decision support tool for terminal area air traffic controllers, referred to as the Final Approach Spacing Tool (FAST), was recently evaluated in operation with live air traffic at the Dallas/Fort Worth Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) facility in the United States. Controllers utilized the FAST system's runway assignment and sequence advisories to manage and control arrival traffic during more than twenty five peak rush traffic periods. The system performed well resulting in capacity increases at the airport of 10-20% depending on weather and airport conditions. As a result of these tests, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is proceeding with plans to further develop the prototype FAST system for national deployment at five to ten TRACONs within the United States during the next five years. This paper will present the results of these tests including data on the FAST system impact on airport capacity, aircraft flight times in the terminal area, delay reduction, tower operations including ground movement, and human factors data including workload assessments.

Davis, Thomas J.↗