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NASA NTRS2012

NASA's Water Solutions Using Remote Sensing

NASA Water Resources works within Earth sciences to leverage investments of space-based observation, model results, and development and deployment of enabling technologies, systems, and capabilities into water resources management decision support tools for the sustainable use of water. Earth science satellite observations and modelling products provide a huge volume of valuable data in both near-real-time and extended back nearly 50 years about the Earth's land surface conditions such as land cover type, vegetation type and health, precipitation, snow, soil moisture, and water levels and radiation. Observations of this type combined with models and analysis enable satellite-based assessment of the water cycle. With increasing population pressure and water usage coupled with climate variability and change, water issues are being reported by numerous groups as the most critical environmental problems facing us in the 21st century. Competitive uses and the prevalence of river basins and aquifers that extend across boundaries engender political tensions between communities, stakeholders and countries. The NASA Water Resources Program has the objective to provide NASA products to help deal with these issues with the goal for the sustainable use of water. The Water Resources program organizes its projects under five functional themes: 1) stream-flow and flood forecasting; 2) water consumptive use (includes evapotranspiration) and irrigation; 3) drought; 4) water quality; and 5) climate and water resources. NASA primarily works with national and international groups such as other US government agencies (NOAA, EPA, USGS, USAID) and various other groups to maximize the widest use of the water products. A summary of NASA's water activities linked to helping solve issues for developing countries will be highlighted.

Toll, David↗
NASA NTRS2012

Surface Traffic Management Research

This presentation discusses an overview of the surface traffic management research conducted by NASA Ames. The concept and human-in-the-loop simulation of the Spot and Runway Departure Advisor (SARDA), an integrated decision support tool for the tower controllers and airline ramp operators, is also discussed.

Jung, Yoo Chul↗
NASA NTRS2012

NASA's ATM Technology Demonstration-1: Integrated Concept of Arrival Operations

This paper describes operations and procedures envisioned for NASA s Air Traffic Management (ATM) Technology Demonstration #1 (ATD-1). The ATD-1 Concept of Operations (ConOps) demonstration will integrate three NASA technologies to achieve high throughput, fuel-efficient arrival operations into busy terminal airspace. They are Traffic Management Advisor with Terminal Metering (TMA-TM) for precise time-based schedules to the runway and points within the terminal area, Controller-Managed Spacing (CMS) decision support tools for terminal controllers to better manage aircraft delay using speed control, and Flight deck Interval Management (FIM) avionics and flight crew procedures to conduct airborne spacing operations. The ATD-1 concept provides de-conflicted and efficient operations of multiple arrival streams of aircraft, passing through multiple merge points, from top-of-descent (TOD) to touchdown. It also enables aircraft to conduct Optimized Profile Descents (OPDs) from en route altitude to the runway, using primarily speed control to maintain separation and schedule. The ATD-1 project is currently addressing the challenges of integrating the three technologies, and implantation into an operational environment. Goals of the ATD-1 demonstration include increasing the throughput of high-density airports, reducing controller workload, increasing efficiency of arrival operations and the frequency of trajectory-based operations, and promoting aircraft ADS-B equipage.

Baxley, Brian T.↗
NASA NTRS2013

Prospecting for Polar Volatiles: Results from the Resolve Field

Both the Moon and Mercury evidently host ice and other volatile compounds in cold traps at the planets poles. Determining the form, spatial distribution, and abundance of these volatiles at the lunar poles can help us understand how and when they were delivered and emplaced. This bears directly on the delivery of water and prebiotic compounds to the inner planets over the solar system s history, and also informs plans for utilizing the volatiles as resources for sustained human exploration as well as the commercial development of space. Temperature models and orbital data suggest near-surface volatile concentrations may exist at polar locations not strictly in permanent shadow. Remote operation of a robotic lunar rover mission for the 7-10 days of available sunlight would permit key questions to be answered. But such a short, quick-tempo mission has unique challenges and requires a new concept of operations. Both science and rover operations decisionmaking must be done in real time, requiring immediate situational awareness, data analysis, and decision support tools.

Elphic, Richard C.↗
NASA NTRS2013

Estimated Probability of Traumatic Abdominal Injury During an International Space Station Mission

The Integrated Medical Model (IMM) is a decision support tool that is useful to spaceflight mission planners and medical system designers when assessing risks and optimizing medical systems. The IMM project maintains a database of medical conditions that could occur during a spaceflight. The IMM project is in the process of assigning an incidence rate, the associated functional impairment, and a best and a worst case end state for each condition. The purpose of this work was to develop the IMM Abdominal Injury Module (AIM). The AIM calculates an incidence rate of traumatic abdominal injury per person-year of spaceflight on the International Space Station (ISS). The AIM was built so that the probability of traumatic abdominal injury during one year on ISS could be predicted. This result will be incorporated into the IMM Abdominal Injury Clinical Finding Form and used within the parent IMM model.

Lewandowski, Beth E.↗
NASA NTRS2013

Estimated Probabililty of Chest Injury During an International Space Station Mission

The Integrated Medical Model (IMM) is a decision support tool that is useful to spaceflight mission planners and medical system designers when assessing risks and optimizing medical systems. The IMM project maintains a database of medical conditions that could occur during a spaceflight. The IMM project is in the process of assigning an incidence rate, the associated functional impairment, and a best and a worst case end state for each condition. The purpose of this work was to develop the IMM Chest Injury Module (CIM). The CIM calculates the incidence rate of chest injury per person-year of spaceflight on the International Space Station (ISS). The CIM was built so that the probability of chest injury during one year on ISS could be predicted. These results will be incorporated into the IMM Chest Injury Clinical Finding Form and used within the parent IMM model.

Lewandowski, Beth E.↗
NASA NTRS2009

Experimental Performance of a Genetic Algorithm for Airborne Strategic Conflict Resolution

The Autonomous Operations Planner, a research prototype flight-deck decision support tool to enable airborne self-separation, uses a pattern-based genetic algorithm to resolve predicted conflicts between the ownship and traffic aircraft. Conflicts are resolved by modifying the active route within the ownship's flight management system according to a predefined set of maneuver pattern templates. The performance of this pattern-based genetic algorithm was evaluated in the context of batch-mode Monte Carlo simulations running over 3600 flight hours of autonomous aircraft in en-route airspace under conditions ranging from typical current traffic densities to several times that level. Encountering over 8900 conflicts during two simulation experiments, the genetic algorithm was able to resolve all but three conflicts, while maintaining a required time of arrival constraint for most aircraft. Actual elapsed running time for the algorithm was consistent with conflict resolution in real time. The paper presents details of the genetic algorithm's design, along with mathematical models of the algorithm's performance and observations regarding the effectiveness of using complimentary maneuver patterns when multiple resolutions by the same aircraft were required.

Karr, David A.↗
NASA NTRS2013

NextGen Operational Improvements: Will they Improve Human Performance

Modernization of the National Airspace System depends critically on the development of advanced technology, including cutting-edge automation, controller decision-support tools and integrated on-demand information. The Next Generation Air Transportation System national plan envisions air traffic control tower automation that proposes solutions for seven problems: 1) departure metering, 2) taxi routing, 3) taxi and runway scheduling, 4) departure runway assignments, 5) departure flow management, 6) integrated arrival and departure scheduling and 7) runway configuration management. Government, academia and industry are simultaneously pursuing the development of these tools. For each tool, the development process typically begins by assessing its potential benefits, and then progresses to designing preliminary versions of the tool, followed by testing the tool's strengths and weaknesses using computational modeling, human-in-the-loop simulation and/or field tests. We compiled the literature, evaluated the methodological rigor of the studies and served as referee for partisan conclusions that were sometimes overly optimistic. Here we provide the results of this review.

Beard, Bettina L.↗
NASA NTRS2013

Air Traffic Management Technology Demonstration-1 Concept of Operations (ATD-1 ConOps), Version 2.0

This document is an update to the operations and procedures envisioned for NASA s Air Traffic Management (ATM) Technology Demonstration #1 (ATD-1). The ATD-1 Concept of Operations (ConOps) integrates three NASA technologies to achieve high throughput, fuel-efficient arrival operations into busy terminal airspace. They are Traffic Management Advisor with Terminal Metering (TMA-TM) for precise time-based schedules to the runway and points within the terminal area, Controller-Managed Spacing (CMS) decision support tools for terminal controllers to better manage aircraft delay using speed control, and Flight deck Interval Management (FIM) avionics and flight crew procedures to conduct airborne spacing operations. The ATD-1 concept provides de-conflicted and efficient operations of multiple arrival streams of aircraft, passing through multiple merge points, from top-of-descent (TOD) to the Final Approach Fix. These arrival streams are Optimized Profile Descents (OPDs) from en route altitude to the runway, using primarily speed control to maintain separation and schedule. The ATD-1 project is currently addressing the challenges of integrating the three technologies, and their implantation into an operational environment. The ATD-1 goals include increasing the throughput of high-density airports, reducing controller workload, increasing efficiency of arrival operations and the frequency of trajectory-based operations, and promoting aircraft ADS-B equipage.

Baxley, Brian T.↗
NASA NTRS2014

Estimating the Risk of Renal Stone Events During Long-Duration Spaceflight

Introduction: Given the bone loss and increased urinary calcium excretion in the microgravity environment, persons participating in long-duration spaceflight may have an increased risk for renal stone formation. Renal stones are often an incidental finding of abdominal imaging studies done for other reasons. Thus, some crewmembers may have undiscovered, asymptomatic stones prior to their mission. Methods: An extensive literature search was conducted concerning the natural history of asymptomatic renal stones. For comparison, simulations were done using the Integrated Medical Model (IMM). The IMM is an evidence-based decision support tool that provides risk analysis and has the capability to optimize medical systems for missions by minimizing the occurrence of adverse mission outcomes such as evacuation and loss of crew life within specified mass and volume constraints. Results: The literature of the natural history of asymptomatic renal stones in the general medical population shows that the probability of symptomatic event is 8% to 34% at 1 to 3 years for stones < 7 mm. Extrapolated to a 6-month mission, for stones < 5 to 7 mm, the risk for any stone event is about 4 to 6%, with a 0.7% to 4% risk for intervention, respectively. IMM simulations compare favorably with risk estimates garnered from the terrestrial literature. The IMM forecasts that symptomatic renal stones may be one of the top drivers for medical evacuation of an International Space Station (ISS) mission. Discussion: Although the likelihood of a stone event is low, the consequences could be severe due to limitations of current ISS medical capabilities. Therefore, these risks need to be quantified to aid planning, limit crew morbidity and mitigate mission impacts. This will be especially critical for missions beyond earth orbit, where evacuation may not be an option.

Reyes, David↗
NASA NTRS2014

Estimating the Risk of Renal Stone Events during Long-Duration Spaceflight

Introduction: Given the bone loss and increased urinary calcium excretion in the microgravity environment, persons participating in long-duration spaceflight may have an increased risk for renal stone formation. Renal stones are often an incidental finding of abdominal imaging studies done for other reasons. Thus, some crewmembers may have undiscovered, asymptomatic stones prior to their mission. Methods: An extensive literature search was conducted concerning the natural history of asymptomatic renal stones. For comparison, simulations were done using the Integrated Medical Model (IMM). The IMM is an evidence-based decision support tool that provides risk analysis and has the capability to optimize medical systems for missions by minimizing the occurrence of adverse mission outcomes such as evacuation and loss of crew life within specified mass and volume constraints. Results: The literature of the natural history of asymptomatic renal stones in the general medical population shows that the probability of symptomatic event is 8% to 34% at 1 to 3 years for stones < 7 mm. Extrapolated to a 6-month mission, for stones < 5 to 7 mm, the risk for any stone event is about 4 to 6%, with a 0.7% to 4% risk for intervention, respectively. IMM simulations compare favorably with risk estimates garnered from the terrestrial literature. The IMM forecasts that symptomatic renal stones may be one of the top drivers for medical evacuation of an International Space Station (ISS) mission. Discussion: Although the likelihood of a stone event is low, the consequences could be severe due to limitations of current ISS medical capabilities. Therefore, these risks need to be quantified to aid planning, limit crew morbidity and mitigate mission impacts. This will be especially critical for missions beyond earth orbit, where evacuation may not be an option.

Reyes, David↗
NASA NTRS2014

Case Study: Influences of Uncertainties and Traffic Scenario Difficulties in a Human-in-the-Loop Simulation

This paper presents a case study of how factors such as wind prediction errors and metering delays can influence controller performance and workload in Human-In-The-Loop simulations. Retired air traffic controllers worked two arrival sectors adjacent to the terminal area. The main tasks were to provide safe air traffic operations and deliver the aircraft to the metering fix within +/- 25 seconds of the scheduled arrival time with the help of provided decision support tools. Analyses explore the potential impact of metering delays and system uncertainties on controller workload and performance. The results suggest that trajectory prediction uncertainties impact safety performance, while metering fix accuracy and workload appear subject to the scenario difficulty.

air traffic control↗
NASA NTRS2013

The Impact of Trajectory Prediction Uncertainty on Air Traffic Controller Performance and Acceptability

A Human-In-The-Loop air traffic control simulation investigated the impact of uncertainties in trajectory predictions on NextGen Trajectory-Based Operations concepts, seeking to understand when the automation would become unacceptable to controllers or when performance targets could no longer be met. Retired air traffic controllers staffed two en route transition sectors, delivering arrival traffic to the northwest corner-post of Atlanta approach control under time-based metering operations. Using trajectory-based decision-support tools, the participants worked the traffic under varying levels of wind forecast error and aircraft performance model error, impacting the ground automations ability to make accurate predictions. Results suggest that the controllers were able to maintain high levels of performance, despite even the highest levels of trajectory prediction errors.

trajectory prediction uncertainty↗
NASA NTRS2014

Design Principles and Algorithms for Air Traffic Arrival Scheduling

This report presents design principles and algorithms for building a real-time scheduler of arrival aircraft based on a first-come-first-served (FCFS) scheduling protocol. The algorithms provide the conceptual and computational foundation for the Traffic Management Advisor (TMA) of the Center/terminal radar approach control facilities (TRACON) automation system, which comprises a set of decision support tools for managing arrival traffic at major airports in the United States. The primary objective of the scheduler is to assign arrival aircraft to a favorable landing runway and schedule them to land at times that minimize delays. A further objective of the scheduler is to allocate delays between high-altitude airspace far away from the airport and low-altitude airspace near the airport. A method of delay allocation is described that minimizes the average operating cost in the presence of errors in controlling aircraft to a specified landing time. This report is a revision of an earlier paper first presented as part of an Advisory Group for Aerospace Research and Development (AGARD) lecture series in September 1995. The authors, during vigorous discussions over the details of this paper, felt it was important to the air-trafficmanagement (ATM) community to revise and extend the original 1995 paper, providing more detail and clarity and thereby allowing future researchers to understand this foundational work as the basis for the TMA's scheduling algorithms.

Center TRACON↗
NASA NTRS2014

Traffic Aware Planner (TAP) Flight Evaluation

NASA's Traffic Aware Planner (TAP) is a cockpit decision support tool that has the potential to achieve significant fuel and time savings when it is embedded in the data-rich Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) airspace. To address a key step towards the operational deployment of TAP and the NASA concept of Traffic Aware Strategic Aircrew Requests (TASAR), a system evaluation was conducted in a representative flight environment in November, 2013. Numerous challenges were overcome to achieve this goal, including the porting of the foundational Autonomous Operations Planner (AOP) software from its original simulation-based, avionics-embedded environment to an Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) platform. A flight-test aircraft was modified to host the EFB, the TAP application, an Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) processor, and a satellite broadband datalink. Nine Evaluation Pilots conducted 26 hours of TAP assessments using four route profiles in the complex eastern and north-eastern United States airspace. Extensive avionics and video data were collected, supplemented by comprehensive inflight and post-flight questionnaires. TAP was verified to function properly in the live avionics and ADS-B environment, characterized by recorded data dropouts, latency, and ADS-B message fluctuations. Twelve TAP-generated optimization requests were submitted to ATC, of which nine were approved, and all of which resulted in fuel and/or time savings. Analysis of subjective workload data indicated that pilot interaction with TAP during flight operations did not induce additional cognitive loading. Additionally, analyses of post-flight questionnaire data showed that the pilots perceived TAP to be useful, understandable, intuitive, and easy to use. All program objectives were met, and the next phase of TAP development and evaluations with partner airlines is in planning for 2015.

Maris, John M.↗
NASA NTRS2014

Peru Water Resources: Integrating NASA Earth Observations into Water Resource Planning and Management in Perus La Libertad Region

Developing countries often struggle with providing water security and sanitation services to their populations. An important aspect of improving security and sanitation is developing a comprehensive understanding of the country's water budget. Water For People, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing clean drinking water, is working with the Peruvian government to develop a water budget for the La Libertad region of Peru which includes the creation of an extensive watershed management plan. Currently, the data archive of the necessary variables to create the water management plan is extremely limited. Implementing NASA Earth observations has bolstered the dataset being used by Water For People, and the METRIC (Mapping EvapoTranspiration at High Resolution and Internalized Calibration) model has allowed for the estimation of the evapotranspiration values for the region. Landsat 8 imagery and the DEM (Digital Elevation Model) from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) sensor onboard Terra were used to derive the land cover information, and were used in conjunction with local weather data of Cascas from Peru's National Meteorological and Hydrological Service (SENAMHI). Python was used to combine input variables and METRIC model calculations to approximate the evapotranspiration values for the Ochape sub-basin of the Chicama River watershed. Once calculated, the evapotranspiration values and methodology were shared Water For People to help supplement their decision support tools in the La Libertad region of Peru and potentially apply the methodology in other areas of need.

Padgett-Vasquez, Steve↗
NASA NTRS2013

Regression Analysis of Top of Descent Location for Idle-thrust Descents

In this paper, multiple regression analysis is used to model the top of descent (TOD) location of user-preferred descent trajectories computed by the flight management system (FMS) on over 1000 commercial flights into Melbourne, Australia. The independent variables cruise altitude, final altitude, cruise Mach, descent speed, wind, and engine type were also recorded or computed post-operations. Both first-order and second-order models are considered, where cross-validation, hypothesis testing, and additional analysis are used to compare models. This identifies the models that should give the smallest errors if used to predict TOD location for new data in the future. A model that is linear in TOD altitude, final altitude, descent speed, and wind gives an estimated standard deviation of 3.9 nmi for TOD location given the trajec- tory parameters, which means about 80% of predictions would have error less than 5 nmi in absolute value. This accuracy is better than demonstrated by other ground automation predictions using kinetic models. Furthermore, this approach would enable online learning of the model. Additional data or further knowl- edge of algorithms is necessary to conclude definitively that no second-order terms are appropriate. Possible applications of the linear model are described, including enabling arriving aircraft to fly optimized descents computed by the FMS even in congested airspace. In particular, a model for TOD location that is linear in the independent variables would enable decision support tool human-machine interfaces for which a kinetic approach would be computationally too slow.

trajectory prediction↗
NASA NTRS2013

Usability Evaluation of Spot and Runway Departure Advisor (SARDA) Concept in Dallas/Fort Worth Airport Tower Simulation

Spot and Runway Departure Advisor (SARDA) is a proposed decision-support tool for air traffic control tower controllers for reducing taxi delay and optimizing the departure sequence. In the present study, the tool's usability was evaluated to ensure that its claimed performance benefits are not being realized at the cost of increasing the work burden on controllers. For the evaluation, workload ratings and questionnaire responses collected during a human-in-the-loop simulation experiment were analyzed to assess the SARDA advisories' effects on the controllers' ratings on cognitive resources (e.g., workload, spare attention) and satisfaction. The results showed that SARDA reduced the controllers' workload and increased their spare attention. It also made workload and attention levels less susceptible to the effects of increases in the traffic load. The questionnaire responses suggested that the controllers generally were satisfied with the ease of use of the tool and the objectives of the SARDA concept, but with some caution. To gain more trust from controllers, the the reasoning behind advisories may need to be made more transparent to them.

human factors↗