# Presentation: 323020

## Overview of December 6th Evaluation of Automation-Assisted Weather Problem Resolution (AWPR)

**Joseph E. Sherry and**
**Dr. Celesta G. Ball**
**6-7 February 2002**

## Objectives of Briefing

**Provide background**
**Briefly describe Automation-assisted Weather Problem Resolution (AWPR) concept**
**Discuss results of December 6, 2001 evaluation**
**Outline next steps in concept refinement**
**Discuss next evaluation**

## Project Background

**FY99-01 - (sponsored by MITRE Technology Program)**
**Concept exploration**
**Proof of concept**
**FY02 - (sponsored by AUA-700)**
**Transition to concept development**
**Evaluation and concept development w/CR WG participation**

## Evaluation Background

**AWPR concept validation exercise held on 12/06/01**
**1st AWPR evaluation**
**High-level concept validation**
**11 participants from FAA and industry rated 13 concept statements for operational usefulness in addressing and mitigating en route congestion problems, and discussed their ratings**
**5 Industry participants (AAL, USA, ASA, NBAA, ATA)**
**6 FAA TFM participants (ATCSCC, ARTCC, NATCA)**
**3 other attendees**
**TRW AUATAC, Metron Aviation, Volpe/Arcon**

## AWPR Motivation and Objectives

**Motivation**
**Limit reroutes to flights impacted by weather**
**Tailor reroutes and ground delays for each flight**
**Protect against unsafe sector workloads**
**Process/assess reroute plans in seconds, allowing more time for human collaboration and decision making**
**Use newly available capacity when weather improves**
**Objectives**
**To promote effective user collaboration**
**To reduce aircraft delays and cancellations**
**To maximize throughput around areas of severe weather (or other constrained airspace)**
**To maintain safe levels of controller workload**

## AWPR Concept Areas

**Automated identification of problem**
**Automated identification of flights for rerouting**
**User defined Reroute Corridors (RCs)**
**Automated assignment of flights to RCs**
**User review of Plan**
**Integration with other concepts and tools**
**Strategic planning **

## Automated Identification of Problem

**Weather-constrained areas are identified by a short-term (i.e., 2 hour) national forecast**
**Weather FCAs are generated automatically, rather than manually**

## Automated Identification of Flights for Rerouting

**Automation generates initial reroute flight list**
**Users modify flight list to address exceptions**

## User Defined Reroute Corridors (RCs)

**Users can design Reroute Corridors (RCs) in real-time or retrieve and modify predefined RCs**

## Automated Assignment of Flights to RCs

**Individual flights identified for rerouting are assigned to reroute corridors automatically, using efficiency and equitability algorithms to tailor the reroute and ground delay (if necessary) for each flight**
**The assignment of flights to RCs does not exceed sector capacity**
**Some flights identified for rerouting may be excluded from the Plan (e.g., those landing in the weather, Pathfinders)**

## Users’ Review of Plan

**Automation provides information to aid user in assessment of the Plan**
**Metrics of equity and efficiency**
**Impact on all sectors in NAS**
**Visual display of reroutes**
**Users review Plan for safety, equitability and efficiency**
**If Plan refinements are required, Plan parameters, RCs and the flight list may be modified**

## Users’ Review of Plan (concluded)

## Integration with Other Concepts and Tools

**The AWPR concept will be integrated with other TFM capabilities (e.g., GDP)**

## Strategic Planning

**Users provide the overall strategy (the “Plan”) for solving the TFM problem**
**The Plan evolves during the day to adapt to the developing weather and traffic situation**
**Planning cycles repeat hourly; each cycle is completed within 20 minutes (approximately), including collaboration, decision making and reroute distribution**
**Revised Plans retain the working elements of the previous Plan (reroutes that are clear of the weather) while finding new reroutes for flights that are now predicted to enter weather**

## Summary of AWPR Concept Elements 

**Element 13. The AWPR concept will be integrated with other volume mgmt concepts and capabilities**

## Ratings by Concept Element

_**Scale**_
**1 = not useful**
**3 = moderately useful**
**5 = very useful**

_**Possible influences on ratings**_
**Current SPT procedures**
**Exclusions from discussion**
**Collaboration**
**Equitable allocation**

## Major Recommendations from Evaluation

**Establish collaboration among stakeholders for both concept development and real-time planning**
**Plan must be available real-time, presented in the same way for all users, and everyone must view a common display**
**Current and predicted weather are important so that everybody is looking at the same picture**
**Plan should allow swapping of flights**
**Allow substitution of manually-drawn FCAs for automatically-drawn weather FCAs**
**Provide additional automatic and manual filters for excluding/including flights in the reroute plan**
**To exempt (exclude) flights from the Plan (e.g., landing in wx) **
**To avoid doubly-penalizing flight (e.g., rerouting proactive flight or previously-rerouted flight)**

## Major Recommendations from Evaluation (concluded)

**Allow routes from other tools as RCs (e.g., RMT, Playbook)**
**Automatically insert LOAs, STARs, Pref routes, etc.**
**Integrate long- and short-term planning**
**Integration with other concepts and tools is critical**
**Automatically or manually adjust Monitor and Alert Parameter (MAP) values**
**Capability for operational personnel to adjust MAP values**
**Capability for reroute planner to plan as if sector capacity were above/below MAP values (due to vagrancies in data)**
**Automatic reduction of sector capacity and alert based upon weather and other factors (such as chop) or other input**
**Current MAPs need to have a serious overhaul to provide realistic numbers**

## Major Comments

**Overall idea is good as a bridge between long- and short-term planning**
**Details usually fall apart in under 2 hour timeframe**
**Recovery from bad plans**
**Validation/invalidation of long-term plan**
**Manage the sky by exception and tweaking**
**Only automation can solve complex problems**
**Reduces the labor-intensive requirements to develop a Plan**
**Manual coordination of routes done today does not work**
**Need way for doing large number of airborne reroutes**
**Not everyone is online to be proactive (i.e., move flights before departure and get them out of the way)**

## Major Comments (continued)

**Automatic assignment of flights to RCs is the best, most important and scariest tool**
**Altitude is important and could be a solution**
**Prevents wholesale reroutes and provides means to not reroute those who have been proactive**
**Today, we lack weather products to display between current weather and CCFP (2-6 hours)**
**AWPR Plan is based on where weather will be**
**Avoids individual views of weather severity and impact**
**Deterministic rather than probabilistic**
**Automated problem identification reduces workload**

## Major Comments (concluded)

**Very useful if AOCs have access**
**Maybe the way we do business has to change, if the tool is robust**
**Automation and communication are key factors in making 0-2 hour planning possible**
**Today’s planning needs updating more often**
**Assessment of Plan is needed to be able to discuss the Plan on the SPT**
**The term “Reroute Corridor” (RC) is confusing**

## Major Issues

**Are there too many flights involved?**
**Is there enough time to plan/collaborate/execute?**
**AOCs will not be able to affect reroutes, if they are under 2 hrs**
**Need 2 hours minimum based on current procedures, e.g., SPT amount of time needed**
**1-hour planning cycle may limit participation**
**Is the National Convective Weather Forecast (NCWF) sufficiently accurate?**
**Is the Plan sufficiently stable?**
**Frequent weather forecast updates (i.e., 5 min) should not result in 5-minute Plan updates **
**Does Plan double penalize or repeatedly reroute aircraft?**

## Next Steps in Concept Refinement

**Draft Operational Concept**
**Include operational concept threads**
**Incorporate evaluation recommendations/comments/issues**
**Develop collaboration concepts w/FAA and industry**
**Explore refinements of equitable flight assignment algorithms, e.g., **
**Air delay capability to hold up active flights until reroute capacity is available (like ground delay for inactive flights) **
**Allow for partial capacity FCAs**
**Initial concept made no provisions for partial capacity FCAs**
**Integrate w/strategic TFM tools (e.g., CCFP, Playbook)**
**Integrate w/NAS capabilities (e.g., GDP)**

## Next Evaluation

**What?**
**Evaluate concept in greater detail and discuss concept refinement for collaboration**
**Where?**
**MITRE ATM Lab in McLean**
**When?**
**Possibly in conjunction with future CR WS meetings (i.e., day before/after CR WS meeting)**
**How?**
**Demonstration with discussion/questionnaires**

## Acronym List

**AAL****	**American Airlines
**AOC****	**Airline Operational Control
**ARTCC****	**Air Route Traffic Control Center
**ASA****	**Atlantic Southeast Airlines
**ATA****	**Air Transport Association
**ATCSCC****	**Air Traffic Control System Command Center
**ATM****	**Air Traffic Management
**AWPR  ****	**Automation-assisted Weather Problem Resolution
**CCFP****	**Collaborative Convective Forecast Product
**CR WG****	**Collaborative Routing Working Group
**FAA****	**Federal Aviation Administration
**FCA****	**Flow Constrained Area
**GDP****	**Ground Delay Program
**LOA****	**Letter of Agreement
**MAP****	**Monitor and Alert Parameter
**NAS****	**National Airspace System

**NATCA ****	**National Air Traffic Controllers Association
**NBAA****	**National Business Aviation Association
**NCWF****	**National Convective Weather Forecast
**RC****	****	**Reroute Corridor
**RMT****	**Route Management Tool
**SPT****	****	**Strategic Planning Team
**STAR****	**Standard Terminal Arrival Route
**TFM****	**Traffic Flow Management
**USA****	**US Airways