The Role of Airspace Management: New Entrants Need Quicker and Sustained Airspace Access
A briefing to FAA and DOD on NASA's current and future Airspace Traffic Management (ATM)/Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management (UTM) efforts.
Airspace↗
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Research Initiatives and Preliminary Results In Automation Design In Airspace Management in Free Flight
The NASA and the FAA have entered into a joint venture to explore, define, design and implement a new airspace management operating concept. The fundamental premise of that concept is that technologies and procedures need to be developed for flight deck and ground operations to improve the efficiency, the predictability, the flexibility and the safety of airspace management and operations. To that end NASA Ames has undertaken an initial development and exploration of "key concepts" in the free flight airspace management technology development. Human Factors issues in automation aiding design, coupled aiding systems between air and ground, communication protocols in distributed decision making, and analytic techniques for definition of concepts of airspace density and operator cognitive load have been undertaken. This paper reports the progress of these efforts, which are not intended to definitively solve the many evolving issues of design for future ATM systems, but to provide preliminary results to chart the parameters of performance and the topology of the analytic effort required. The preliminary research in provision of cockpit display of traffic information, dynamic density definition, distributed decision making, situation awareness models and human performance models is discussed as they focus on the theme of "design requirements".
Corker, Kevin↗
Improved Throughput with Cooperating Futuristic Airspace Management Components
An experiment was conducted to integrate airspace management tools that would typically be confined to either the en route or the terminal airspace to explore the potential benefits of their communication to improve arrival capacity. A NAS-wide simulation was configured with a new concept component that used the information to reconfigure the terminal airspace to the capacity benefit of the airport. Reconfiguration included a dynamically expanding and contracting TRACON area and a varying number of active arrival runways, both automatically selected to accommodate predicted volume of traffic. ATL and DFW were selected for the study. Results showed significant throughput increase for scenarios that are considered to be over-capacity for current day airport configurations. During periods of sustained demand for ATL 2018, throughput increased by 26 operations per hour (30%) and average delay was reduced from 18 minutes to 8 minutes per flight when using the dynamic TRACON. Similar results were obtained for DFW with 2018 traffic levels and for ATL with 2006 traffic levels, but with lower benefits due to lower demand.
Glaab, Patricia C.↗
Identifying Functional Requirements for Flexible Airspace Management Concept Using Human-In-The-Loop Simulations
Flexible Airspace Management (FAM) is a mid- term Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) concept that allows dynamic changes to airspace configurations to meet the changes in the traffic demand. A series of human-in-the-loop (HITL) studies have identified procedures and decision support requirements needed to implement FAM. This paper outlines a suggested FAM procedure and associated decision support functionality based on these HITL studies. A description of both the tools used to support the HITLs and the planned NextGen technologies available in the mid-term are presented and compared. The mid-term implementation of several NextGen capabilities, specifically, upgrades to the Traffic Management Unit (TMU), the initial release of an en route automation system, the deployment of a digital data communication system, a more flexible voice communications network, and the introduction of a tool envisioned to manage and coordinate networked ground systems can support the implementation of the FAM concept. Because of the variability in the overall deployment schedule of the mid-term NextGen capabilities, the dependency of the individual NextGen capabilities are examined to determine their impact on a mid-term implementation of FAM. A cursory review of the different technologies suggests that new functionality slated for the new en route automation system is a critical enabling technology for FAM, as well as the functionality to manage and coordinate networked ground systems. Upgrades to the TMU are less critical but important nonetheless for FAM to be fully realized. Flexible voice communications network and digital data communication system could allow more flexible FAM operations but they are not as essential.
dynamic airspace configuration↗
Urban Air Mobility (UAM) Airspace Research Roadmap - Systems Engineering Approach to Managing Airspace Evolution Towards UML-4
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Annie Cheng↗
UAM Airspace Research Roadmap - Systems Engineering Approach to Managing Airspace Evolution Towards UML-4
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Annie Cheng↗
Overview of Freddie: NASA’s Federated Airspace Management Framework
This is a slide deck for use by NASA personnel when discussing NASA's Federated Airspace Management Framework (Freddie) facility. An overview of the capabilities, current work, and past accomplishments.
utm↗
Flexible Airspace Management (FAM) Research 2010 Human-in-the-Loop Simulation
A human-in-the-Ioop (HITL) simulation was conducted to assess potential user and system benefits of Flexible Airspace Management (FAM) concept, as well as designing role definitions, procedures, and tools to support the FAM operations in the mid-term High Altitude Airspace (HAA) environment. The study evaluated the benefits and feasibility of flexible airspace reconfiguration in response to traffic overload caused by weather deviations, and compared them to those in a baseline condition without the airspace reconfiguration. The test airspace consisted of either four sectors in one Area of Specialization or seven sectors across two Areas. The test airspace was assumed to be at or above FL340 and fully equipped Vvith data communications (Data Comm). Other assumptions were consistent with those of the HAA concept. Overall, results showed that FAM operations with multiple Traffic Management Coordinators, Area Supervisors, and controllers worked remarkably well. The results showed both user and system benefits, some of which include the increased throughput, decreased flight distance, more manageable sector loads, and better utilized airspace. Also, the roles, procedures, airspace designs, and tools were all very well received. Airspace configuration options that resulted from a combination of algorithm-generated airspace configurations with manual modifications were well acceptec and posed little difficuIty and/or workload during airspace reconfiguration process. The results suggest a positive impact of FAM operations in HAA. Further investigation would be needed to evaluate if the benefits and feasibility would extend in either non-HAA or mixed equipage environment.
Lee, Paul U.↗
NASA's Research & Development in Airspace Management for Drones, Air Taxis, and Beyond
Today's National Airspace System is extremely safe. Multiple people and organizations are involved in the handling of flights at all phases. We are, however, at the dawn of a new era in aviation where new entrants are emerging from multiple domains. These new entrants will need to be integrated into the airspace safely and given the flexibility to scale. With that integration and flexibility comes the need and responsibility to develop concepts and systems that will work with the regulatory and operational needs of the Federal Aviation Administration while accounting for the needs of industry. NASA is at the leading edge of research, development, and testing across multiple domains to enable the realization of new entrants such as drones, air cargo and taxis, and high altitude vehicles. Addressing the potential for public good coming from these new capabilities is also a NASA focus area. While there has been considerable effort in the engineering aspects of this research, another thrust that is of importance is that of data integration and visualization. With respect to visualization, NASA Ames Research Center has been leading the advancement in data visualization for these new domains and has spent considerable efforts in the exploration of incorporating Augmented and Mixed Reality as a situation awareness platform. This presentation will outline the new developments in airspace integration and tie in NASA's efforts in visualizing the associated operational data.
airspace management↗
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.↗
Application of AI in the NAS - the Rationale for AI-Enhanced Airspace Management
This paper extends on the initial findings of "Application of Artificial Intelligence in the National Airspace System: A Primer" (Stroup & Niewoehner: Herndon, VA; ICNS-2019), and looks at why the current technologies, enterprise architecture, and future program plans may not be enough to address persistent operational challenges. This paper further explores why emergent operational concepts, business models, and demand profiles may necessitate AI-enhanced Communications, Navigation and Communications (CNS) infrastructure to disrupt current operational impediments. European airspace, as well as the NAS, has similar challenges. Key challenges explored in this study include: quantifiable improvements to NAS capacity, efficiency, and resiliency; traffic flow management of diverse users; UTM-ATM airspace integration; equitable access to airspace; and airborne-ground interoperability of AI applications. Finally, we examine why trustworthiness and resiliency will be key mileposts on the regulatory pathway to AI certification.
Aviation↗
Safe, Efficient, and Fair UTM Airspace Management
Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) are increasingly used to perform crucial commercial activities such as various types of inspections (crops, railroads, and bridges), surveillance, and package delivery. Regulators have become interested in developing UAS Traffic Management (UTM) systems. One promising framework for UTM allocates airspace to UAS operators via an auction. To succeed, an airspace auction must be economically efficient, fair, scalable, incentive-aligned, simple, and capable of continuously modeling airspace and sharing bid status and pricing information. This paper introduces the first airspace auction mechanism that meets these criteria. In the process, we introduce new spatial-temporal fairness constraints and a new abstraction for communicating airspace pricing information, the airspace price field. We evaluate our mechanism on UAS delivery scenarios taken from a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency(JAXA) study and show that it scales to 1000s of bids.
Strategic deconfliction↗
Wildland Fire Mitigation: The Role of Airspace Management
Wildland fire is a significant problem on six continents. As wildland fires become increasingly widespread, dangerous, and costly, advances in aerial technology will make a significant difference. Leveraging Unmanned Aircraft Systems Traffic Management (UTM) success, NASA is conducting aerial suppression research and development (R&D) and is collaborating across government, industry, and the academic community to co-develop cutting-edge technology, procedures, and best practices. Join Dr. Parimal "PK" Kopardekar, Director of the NASA Aeronautics Research Institute (NARI), and learn more about how to maximize the utilization of airspace for wildfire management and mitigation.
Wildland fire↗
Automated Airspace Management: Concept, Development, and Testing
For many decades, researchers at NASA Ames Research Center have worked to make the air-transportation system more efficient, predictable, and effective. Since about 2005 one important aspect of this research has been the development of an autonomous system for air-traffic control. This system, known as the Autoresolver, is designed to perform most of the roles that air-traffic controllers perform including ensuring separation between aircraft, creating routes around weather and other avoidance volumes, and sequencing and scheduling aircraft across points in space. The recent, rapid expansion of new aircraft operations and types, including urban air mobility aircraft and small unmanned aerial systems, have only increased the need for highly automated systems to control the predicted traffic demand. This talk will focus on the development of the Autoresolver - from concept to testing. It will also discuss the National Airspace (NAS) Digital Twin simulation platform, created to facilitate rapid testing and improvement of the algorithm and with the hope of proving the automation in a high-fidelity environment. An open question that will be discussed is how to ensure that the system-level emergent behavior of independently developed autonomous algorithms is what is desired.
autonomy↗
A Cognitive System Model for Human/Automation Dynamics 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. In order to support that cognitive function definition, we have extended the Man Machine Integrated Design and Analysis System (MIDAS) to include representation of multiple cognitive agents (both human operators and intelligent aiding systems) operating aircraft, airline operations centers and air traffic control centers in the evolving airspace. The demands of this application require representation of many intelligent agents sharing world-models, and coordinating action/intention with cooperative scheduling of goals and actions in a potentially unpredictable world of operations. The MIDAS operator models have undergone significant development in order to understand the requirements for operator aiding and the impact of that aiding in the complex nondeterminate system of national airspace operations. The operator model's structure has been modified to include attention functions, action priority, and situation assessment. The cognitive function model has been expanded to include working memory operations including retrieval from long-term store, interference, visual-motor and verbal articulatory loop functions, and time-based losses. The operator's activity structures have been developed to include prioritization and interruption of multiple parallel activities among multiple operators, to provide for anticipation (knowledge of the intention and action of remote operators), and to respond to failures of the system and other operators in the system in situation-specific paradigms. The model's internal representation has been be modified so that multiple, autonomous sets of equipment will function in a scenario as the single equipment sets do now. In order to support the analysis requirements with multiple items of equipment, it is necessary for equipment to access the state of other equipment objects at initialization time (a radar object may need to access the position and speed of aircraft in its area, for example), and as a function of perception and sensor system interaction. The model has been improved to include multiple world-states as a function of equipment am operator interaction. The model has been used -1o predict the impact of warning and alert zones in aircraft operation, and, more critic-ally, the interaction of flight-deck based warning mechanisms and air traffic controller action in response to ground-based conflict prediction and alerting systems. In this operation, two operating systems provide alerting to two autonomous, but linked sets of operators, whose view of the system and whose dynamics in response are radically different. System stability and operator action was predicted using the MIDAS model.
Corker, Kevin M.↗
Empirical and Analytic Studies Human/Automation Dynamics in Airspace Management for Free Flight
NASA and the FAA have initiated programs of research and development to provide flight crew, airline operations and air traffic managers with automation aids to increase capacity in en route and terminal area to support the goals of free flight for safe, flexible, predictable, and efficient operations. To support the development of those aiding systems human performance in automated aiding has been examined in empirical and computationally analytic studies. This paper presents a set of those studies in full mission simulation and the development of a predictive computational model of human performance. We have found that the combination of methodologies provide a powerful design-aiding process. We will describe three research programs in support of Free Flight Operations from the perspective of human performance requirements. We have examined procedures and communications in the use of voice and data-link operation at the transition between unconstrained (enroute) and constrained (terminal) airspace operations. We have examined the timing and form of Center TRACON Automation System (CTAS) advisories in descent. We have investigated the shape and dimensions of an 'alert zone' for air-based separation in unconstrained operations. Finally, we have examined the interaction of a ground-based conflict detection/resolution aiding system, as it interacts with a cockpit-based conflict alerting mechanism. Additional information is contained in the original extended abstract.
Corker, Kevin M.↗
User Selection Criteria of Airspace Designs in Flexible Airspace Management
A method for identifying global aerodynamic models from flight data in an efficient manner is explained and demonstrated. A novel experiment design technique was used to obtain dynamic flight data over a range of flight conditions with a single flight maneuver. Multivariate polynomials and polynomial splines were used with orthogonalization techniques and statistical modeling metrics to synthesize global nonlinear aerodynamic models directly and completely from flight data alone. Simulation data and flight data from a subscale twin-engine jet transport aircraft were used to demonstrate the techniques. Results showed that global multivariate nonlinear aerodynamic dependencies could be accurately identified using flight data from a single maneuver. Flight-derived global aerodynamic model structures, model parameter estimates, and associated uncertainties were provided for all six nondimensional force and moment coefficients for the test aircraft. These models were combined with a propulsion model identified from engine ground test data to produce a high-fidelity nonlinear flight simulation very efficiently. Prediction testing using a multi-axis maneuver showed that the identified global model accurately predicted aircraft responses.
Lee, Hwasoo E.↗
Combined Electric Aircraft and Airspace Management Design for Metro-Regional Public Transportation
No abstract available
Electric Propulsion↗