1

Airspace Systems Program

SEPTEMBER—DECEMBER 2010

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

A quarterly update of accomplishments and upcoming activities from NASA’s Airspace Systems Program.

www.nasa.gov

Dynamic Airspace Configuration

Integration, Evaluation and Transition

Interoperability Research

Partnership Research

Separation Assurance

Super Density Operations

System and Portfolio Analysis

1, 2

3–5

6

7–15

16, 17

18–23

24–27

Technical/Programmatic Highlights 

See inside for details

Research and Technology Area Article Number
2

1 Dynamic Airspace Configuration 

Final NASA Research Announcement 

Briefings, September 2010, Ames 

Research Center

The Dynamic Airspace Configuration (DAC) 

research team hosted a final meeting with the 

three DAC NASA Research Announcement 

(NRA) contractors—Mosaic ATM, CSSI, and 

Metron Aviation. The three NRA contractors 

developed methods for dynamically designing 

and modifying airspace boundaries to manage 

airspace capacity to demand. Using a technical 

interchange meeting format, each of the three 

contractors presented a summary of their work 

for the past three years with emphasis on the 

more recent accomplishments. The contractors 

also demonstrated their airspace partitioning software.

2 Airspace Sector Combining 

Algorithm Presented at FAA’s High 

Altitude Airspace Technical 

Interchange Meeting, November 

2010, MITRE

Dr. Robert Windhorst and Mr. Michael 

Bloem, researchers in the Systems Modeling 

and Optimization branch, participated in this 

meeting organized by the FAA Operations 

Planning group. Researchers from the FAA, 

NASA Ames, industry, and academia gathered 

to discuss high altitude airspace concepts, 

analyses, simulation results and to discuss future 

research opportunities. Mr. Bloem described 

an algorithm that can help air traffic control 

supervisors determine when and where to 

combine airspace sectors, a task they do today 

without sector combining decision-support. 

He presented simulation results that show that 

this algorithm can identify sector combinations 

that reduce congested airspace with only a small 

increase in sector reconfigurations. Researchers 

from the FAA and other institutions expressed 

interest in further collaboration in this area.

3 Efficient Descent Advisor 

Flight Trials, October 2010, 

Denver, CO

Flight trials were conducted to evaluate 

the trajectory predictor supporting NASA’s 

Efficient Descent Advisor (EDA)—an 

automation tool designed to enable fuelefficient descents into congested terminal areas. 

The flight trials measured the accuracy of the 

EDA trajectory predictor and determined 

the sources and magnitudes of the errors in 

its predictions. Whereas a similar activity 

last year focused on commercial transport 

aircraft, the current flight trials focused on 

regional jet aircraft types. These aircraft 

constitute approximately one-third of arrival 

demand at major airports and tend to have 

different performance and vertical navigation 

capabilities than their mainline counterparts, 

posing different challenges for trajectory 

prediction. While initial flights involved a 

single FAA flight test aircraft, follow-on flights 

involved SkyWest Airlines arrivals to Denver 

over several weeks. 

4Interagency Technical Interchange 

Meeting on Precision Departure 

Scheduling, September 2010, Ames 

Research Center

The Aviation Systems Division hosted an 

interagency technical interchange meeting 

to discuss the Precision Departure Release 

Capability (PDRC) research activity. PDRC 

aims to improve scheduling of departures into 

constrained overhead streams of aircraft. NASA 

and FAA stakeholders were briefed on PDRC 

progress over the last year and provided feedback 

on plans for the coming year. During the past 

year, the PDRC research team implemented 

the concept in prototype software that couples 

an en route departure scheduling system with 

a trajectory-based surface automation system. 

The PDRC prototype software is currently 

undergoing live-data, engineering shadow 

evaluations at NASA’s North Texas Research 

Station to verify system performance and refine 

the operational concept and test procedures. 

Plans for the coming year include shadow and 

operational evaluations with FAA subject matter 

experts. FAA representatives from the System 

Operations, Terminal Services and NextGen 

and Operations Planning organizations 

participated in the meeting, which included 

a live-data demonstration of the prototype 

software and a special session devoted to 

PDRC benefits mechanisms and assessment 

methodologies. Participants expressed support 

for the PDRC research activity and provided 

valuable feedback that is being incorporated in 

the PDRC Concept of Operations, Research 

Management Plan and NASA/FAA Integrated 

Arrival/Departure/Surface research transition 

product definition.

5 Controller-in-the-Loop Evaluation of 

Efficient Descent Advisor Underway, 

November-December 2010, Ames 

Research Center

A controller-in-the-loop simulation of the 

Efficient Descent Advisor (EDA) was recently 

completed in the air traffic control lab of the 

Crew-Vehicle Simulation Research Facility. 

The objective of the simulation was to evaluate 

the performance of EDA in the presence of 

trajectory-prediction uncertainty introduced 

through error models of aircraft weight, 

forecast winds, and path-stretch-turnout delay. 

These error models were tuned to approximate 

the top-of-descent and arrival-time errors 

observed in recent EDA field tests at Denver 

Center. In simulation dry runs with former 

Denver Center controllers, EDA software 

performed well and was robust to a wide range 

of arrival management techniques. Testing 

with active-duty controllers occurred during 

the first half of December. This activity was 

the fourth in a series of human-in-the-loop 

simulations aimed at developing EDA for 

transfer to the FAA under the Efficient Flows 

into Congested Airspace Research Transition 

Team. This was also the first EDA simulation 

involving National Air Traffic Controllers 

Association representatives. 

6 Next Generation Air Transportation 

System Human Computer Function 

Allocation Panel Participation 

at HCI-Aero, November 2010, 

Cape Canaveral, FL

Leighton Quon moderated and Savita Verma 

participated as an invited panelist in the 

Human Computer Function Allocation 

session. Akbar Sultan represented the 

Airspace Systems Program and other panelists 

participated on behalf of the FAA and 

Eurocontrol. Functional allocation is key 

to an effective transformation to the U.S. 

Next Generation Air Transportation System 

(NextGen) and Eurocontrol’s Single European 

Technical/Programmatic Highlights 
3

•	 Sep. 8–9: Green Aviation Conference,

NASA Ames

•	 Sep. 13–15: AIAA Aviation Technology,

Integration and Operations Conference

•	 Sep. 19–24: International Council of

Aeronautical Sciences Congress 2010

•	 Sep. 22–23: Integrated Arrival and 

Departure Surface Research Transition Team 

Meeting, NASA Ames

•	 Sep: Terminal Area Precision Scheduling

Simulation, NASA Ames

•	 Sep: Collision Avoidance for Airport Traffic

Fast-Time Simulation Study, NASA Langley

•	 Oct. 3–7: 29th Digital Avionics Systems

Conference

•	 Oct. 6–7: ASP Users Forum, NASA Ames

•	 Oct. 11–22: Trajectory-based Operations

with Datacom Simulation, NASA Ames

•	 Oct. 19–21: Partnership for AiR

Transportation Noise and Emissions

Reduction, Cambridge, MA

•	 Oct. 21: Friends and Partners in Aviation

Weather Meeting, Atlanta, GA

•	 Oct. 24–27: Air Traffic Control Association

Annual Conference, Washington, DC

•	 Oct. 26–28: JPDO/AFRL UAS Workshop,

Dayton, OH

•	 Oct. 27–28: NASA/ONERA Workshop,

NASA Ames

•	 Nov.–Dec.: Separation Assurance Dynamic

Weather Batch Study, NASA Langley

•	 Nov. 3–5: International Conference on

Human Computer Interactions, Orlando, FL

•	 Nov. 15–17: Flight Deck Interval Management Working Group Visit, NASA Langley

•	 Nov: 17–18: ADS-B IN ARC visit, 

NASA Langley

•	 Nov. 30–Dec 1: Strategy, Architecture and 

Analysis Office Systems Analysis Summit, 

Washington, DC

•	 Dec. 1–2: Global Wake Next Conference II,

San Diego, CA

•	 Dec.: En Route Descent Advisor/3D Path 

Arrival Management Experiment, NASA 

Ames

Sky ATM Research (SESAR). The introduction 

of new airborne and ground-based technologies 

will place emphasis on the changing roles and 

interactions between pilots, controllers and 

automated systems, and on the transition to 

new technologies considering the alteration in 

roles. The session explored different aspects of 

requirements and interactions for the transition 

to NextGen and SESAR, and discussion ranged 

from the general context of NextGen and 

SESAR needs to some specific investigations 

of future concept and technology function 

allocation studies. Ms. Verma presented her 

work on levels of automation for a pairing tool 

used for simultaneous approaches, as well as 

flight deck tools and displays to assist flight 

crews in this environment.

7 Participation at the International 

Council of the Aeronautical Sciences, 

September 2010, France

Ten air traffic management researchers from the 

Aviation Systems Division presented technical papers and served as session chairs at the 

2010 International Council of the Aeronautical 

Sciences (ICAS) conference in Nice, France. 

ICAS was sponsored by numerous international 

aeronautics and aviation societies including the 

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the Royal Aeronautical Society. The 

sponsors encouraged international, coordinated 

research collaboration and sustainable aviation in the design of future aviation systems. 

Papers were presented highlighting the Airspace 

Systems Program’s work in efficient arrivals in 

constrained airspace, collaborative air traffic 

management, dynamic route structures and 

methods for airspace configuration, a near-term 

concept for trajectory-based operations, automated conflict resolution, and the environmental impact of aviation operations. Presentations 

were well-received by an international audience 

of air transportation and aeronautics/aerospace 

scientists and researchers. To receive a particular 

paper electronically, please email Donna Whitaker [donna.whitaker(at)nasa(dot)gov]; otherwise, all papers will be available when Airspace 

Systems’ Concepts and Technology Development Project makes available its annual CD. 

8 Boeing/NASA Air Traffic Management 

Meeting, October 2010, Langley 

Research Center

Four researchers from Boeing Advanced ATM 

and Boeing Commercial Aircraft divisions 

attended meetings at Langley to discuss current 

work and future collaboration opportunities 

with the Crew Systems and Aviation Operations 

Branch and the Concepts and Technology 

Development Project. NASA presented current 

research in Energy Navigation (new control laws 

for the aircraft’s flight management computer 

to minimize fuel consumption during descent), 

and synthetic vision technology and displays 

to enable the flight crew to conduct more 

efficient operations. Topics briefed by Boeing 

included their new guidance and control 

algorithms for aircraft during descent based on 

constant ground-speed, development of data 

analysis tools, and Boeing’s vision of the future 

of aviation operations. Representatives from 

the Crew Systems and Aviation Operations 

Branch, Concept and Technology Development 

Project, and senior researchers were present 

for discussions on future collaboration to 

update aircraft performance models, exchange 

algorithms that allow for on-board aircraft 

to self-space behind another aircraft, and 

participate in future joint experiments. Followon discussions are planned.

9 Partnership for Air Transportation 

Noise and Emission Reduction 

Advisory Board Meeting and 

Presentation, October 2010, MIT

Dr. Banavar Sridhar, Senior Scientist for Air 

Traffic Management, attended the Partnership 

for Air Transportation Noise and Emission 

Reduction (PARTNER) Advisory Board 

Meeting. PARTNER is a cooperative effort in 

environmental research sponsored by NASA 

and FAA as well as other domestic agencies 

and Transport Canada. The organization funds 

research at several universities including MIT, 

Stanford University, and Georgia Tech, who 

are investigating noise, emissions, alternative 

fuels and emission reducing operations. At this 

meeting, the organization invited presentations 

on noise and emission research not funded by 

the PARTNER effort. Dr. Sridhar presented 

results on the trade-offs between fuel burn and 

Research Events 

and Activities

Continued on page 4
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contrail reduction using wind-optimal aircraft 

trajectories. His presentation generated interest 

from the climate scientists and FAA Office of 

Energy and Environment. 

10 Navy Broad Area Maritime 

Surveillance System 

Simulation, October 2010, 

Ames Research Center

The SimLabs at NASA Ames recently 

completed the second in a series of distributed 

controller-in-the-loop simulations at the 

Crew-Vehicle Systems Research Facility. The 

simulations investigated the integration and 

safe operation of the U.S. Navy’s Broad Area 

Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) unmanned 

aircraft system (UAS) in the National Airspace 

System (NAS), and allowed researchers to 

examine BAMS collision avoidance displays 

and processes in a highly realistic instrument 

flight rules (IFR) and oceanic air traffic 

environment. The experiment leveraged 

the Live-Virtual-Constructive Distributed 

Environment infrastructure of five networked 

facilities across the United States that was 

developed during last year’s BAMS experiment. 

The BAMS mission control station, located at 

the Northrop Grumman facility in Bethpage, 

NY, “flew” the BAMS UAS in an offshore IFR 

and oceanic air traffic environment off the 

U.S. East Coast as modeled and simulated at 

SimLabs. Navy command and control aircraft, 

as well as “encounter” traffic were simulated 

at NAS Pax River, MD, while real-time data 

analysis took place at the SIMAF facilities at 

Wright-Patterson AFB, OH. A cross-domain 

solution located at Redstone Arsenal, AL 

enabled the distributed simulation to occur 

simultaneously at two different levels of security 

classification. SimLabs provided airspace and 

air traffic models, tailored oceanic air traffic 

control displays and ARINC operator interfaces, 

as well as air traffic controllers and pseudopilots. Following three integration activities 

to test the simulation and scenarios, a formal 

four-day simulation with humans-in-the-loop 

was conducted. Future BAMS experiments 

will continue to leverage SimLabs facilities, 

including the B747-400 simulator, to answer 

questions related to equipping UAS with 

Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast 

and Traffic Collision Avoidance Systems. 

11 NASA Aeronautics Research 

Presented at Ames Public 

Lecture, October 2010, Ames 

Research Center

Dr. Banavar Sridhar, Dr. Kapil Sheth, and Mr. 

Richard Coppenbarger presented in the last of a 

series of four public lecture/panel discussions describing NASA’s research and how such research 

impacts the daily life of the general public. The 

Aviation Systems Division researchers described 

their aeronautics work on environmental impact 

of aviation operations, traffic flow management, 

and procedures and technologies for efficient 

descents into terminal airspace. The presentations were tailored to an audience of interested 

members of the public, rather than technical or 

academic experts. The hour-long presentations 

were followed by a question and answer session 

that lasted another hour. Seventy-five members 

of the community attended and asked questions. 

The lecture is available online at http://connect.

arc.nasa.gov/p92951185/

12 Airline Users Forum, 

October 2010, Ames 

Research Center

Representatives from several major airlines 

including Alaska, FedEx, Continental, American, 

UPS, the Air Transport Association, and the FAA 

attended the Airspace Systems Program’s (ASP) 

Users Forum. Participants convened to discuss 

some of ASP’s air traffic management research 

and gain the users’ perspective on operational 

issues and support for air traffic management 

research efforts. Division researchers presented 

research on the environmental impact of aviation 

operations, surface scheduling algorithms, 

terminal area precision scheduling, and 

trajectory based operations with air/ground 

datalink communications. The users expressed 

interest in the concepts presented, and agreed 

to continue a dialog with NASA to further 

understand potential benefits and help provide a 

broader exposure to the user community. 

2011

•	 Jan. 4–7: AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, 

Orlando, FL

•	 Feb. 8–10: Dynamic Airspace Configuration 

Research Transition Team Meeting

•	 Feb. 17: NAS Network Evolution Workshop, 

Washington, DC

•	 Feb 22–25: RTCA Special Committee-186 

(ADS-B) Working Group Meeting

•	 Mar.: Collision Avoidance for Airport Traffic 

Fast-Time Simulation Study, NASA Langley

•	 Mar. 16–17: WakeNet USA, Miami, FL

•	 Mar. 20–Apr. 1: Terminal TSAFE 

Experiment, NASA Ames

•	 Mar. 29–31: ASP Technical Interchange 

Meeting, San Diego, CA

•	 Mar. 31: Industry Day, San Diego, CA

•	 April: Human-in-the-Loop Efficient Descent 

Advisor Simulation, NASA Ames

•	 May: Interval Management to Dependent 

Parallel Runways Human-in-the-Loop 

Simulation, NASA Langley

•	 May 16–19: Society for Industrial and 

Applied Mathematics Conference on 

Optimization, Darmstadt, Germany

•	 Jun. 14–17: ATM 2011 Ninth USA/

EUROPE Air Traffic Management Research 

& Development Seminar, Berlin, Germany

•	 Jun. 27–30: AIAA Atmospheric and Space 

Environments; HI

•	 Aug. 8–11: AIAA Guidance, Navigation, 

and Control and Modeling and Simulation 

Technologies Conferences, OR

Research Events and 

Activities Continued

About This Newsletter

The Airspace Systems Program issues this 

quarterly newsletter to report on completed 

research activities and to provide a record of 

current and upcoming events of interest to the 

community. If you have questions about any of 

the information in this issue, please contact John 

Cavolowsky at NASA-ASP@nasa.gov.
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13 Federal Aviation Administration’s 

ADS-B IN Aviation Rulemaking 

Committee, November 2010, 

Langley Research Center

Brent Weathered and Lisa Rippy hosted the 

regular November meeting of the FAA’s ADS-B 

IN Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC). 

Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast 

(ADS-B) is a prime technology upon which 

NASA and FAA efforts to modernize the airspace 

system are currently based. Recently, the FAA 

issued a new Rule for ADS-B out (aircraft and 

ground targets sending info OUT to ground 

based Air Traffic Management facilities) and 

now FAA is planning to implement the IN 

portion (aircraft receiving IN information on the 

flight deck). This implementation is crucial to 

realizing the vision of a future airspace structure. 

The ADS-B IN ARC is tasked with providing 

a roadmap and technical recommendations for 

implementation of ADS-B IN in the National 

Airspace System. The ARC is comprised of 

approximately 40 domestic and international 

members from airframe manufacturers, avionics 

manufacturers, Department of Defense, pilots 

associations and airline/corporate operators in 

all segments of aviation, and FAA personnel 

from a wide cross-section of disciplines and 

regulatory offices. In between regular ARC 

business discussions, numerous personnel from 

Langley Research Center provided state of the 

art technology briefings, demos and hands-on 

tours of the Air Traffic Operations Lab and 

the Integration Flight Deck and Research 

Flight Deck simulator cabs. Feedback from 

the committee leadership and membership 

was positive, both about the technology 

and the knowledge of the presenters. Neil 

O’Connor briefed the ARC on use of ADS-B 

IN capabilities as part of aircraft wake vortex 

encounter avoidance.

14 Technical Interchange Meeting 

Between NASA and MIT-Lincoln 

Laboratory, December 2010, 

Ames Research Center

Forty researchers and managers participated 

in this meeting and discussion of topics 

for collaboration. A total of eight technical 

presentations were provided from both NASA 

and MIT-Lincoln Laboratory. The topics 

included Lincoln Laboratory’s work in surface 

traffic management, improved airport winds 

forecasting, convective weather translation 

modeling, automated methods to optimize 

decision making for conflict avoidance, and 

Unmanned Aircraft System airspace access. 

NASA presented their surface management 

research, the development and deployment 

of a method to improve en route departure 

scheduling, and concepts and results of a 

trajectory-based operations simulation. More 

detailed follow-on discussions are planned to 

further clarify topics for potential collaboration. 

15 Visit from Director of the 

German Aerospace Laboratories 

(Deutschen Zentrums für Luft 

und Raumfahrt—DLR), Prof. 

Johann-Dietrich Wörner, 

December 2010, Ames 

Research Center

The Aviation Systems Division’s Future Flight 

Central facility hosted a small delegation from 

DLR. Dr. Banavar Sridhar and Dr. Yoon Jung 

provided presentations on their current work on 

environmental impact of contrails and surface 

traffic management. Some initial exploration 

of potential collaboration with DLR has begun 

with the environmental research, and the surface 

research area has been the focus of some ongoing 

collaborations between the Aviation Systems 

Division and DLR. The delegation also toured 

the tower cab simulator of Future Flight Central.

16 Trajectory-Based Automation 

System for Enroute and 

Transition Airspace Completes 

Evaluation of Near-Term 

Trajectory-Based Operations 

Concept, October 2010, Ames 

Research Center

A simulation evaluation of a near-term concept 

for Trajectory-Based Operations (TBO) with 

air/ground datalink communication was 

completed in the Crew Vehicle Systems Research 

Facility. The simulation investigated whether 

a trajectory-based automation system that 

solves traffic conflicts, time-based metering 

problems, and weather-avoidance problems in 

an integrated fashion, with air/ground datalink 

communication, can produce substantial 

benefits for the National Airspace System. 

Thirty-one hours of simulation runs were 

conducted over twelve days, and utilized the 

SimLabs’ distributed simulation environment, 

integrating both the Advanced Concepts 

Flight Simulator (ACFS) and Boeing 747-

400 flight simulators, as well as the air traffic 

control simulation laboratories. A number 

of enhancements were made to the existing 

simulation environment to enable simultaneous 

display of weather information to the cockpit 

systems and en route sector displays. Eleven 

recently-retired controllers from Fort Worth 

Center, and twelve pilots familiar with 

today’s integrated Flight Management System 

(FMS)/datalink operations, participated in 

the simulation. The simulation provided 

rapid-feedback trajectory automation at the 

Center radar controller position and currently 

operational capabilities for two-way air/ground 

datalink communication integrated with the 

FMS. Preliminary data analysis shows that 

higher proportions of datalink-equipped aircraft 

reduce controller workload, which allows the 

controllers to provide more efficient flight plan 

reroutes and respond to aircraft requests more 

quickly using the new trajectory automation 

features. Results of this simulation will be 

used to enhance the system’s functionality in 

preparation for a follow-on simulation planned 

for Spring 2011. NASA is collaborating with 

the FAA to determine the feasibility of an 

operational evaluation of the near-term TBO 

concept in the next two to three years. 

17 Unmanned Aircraft Systems 

Integration in the National 

Airspace System Project 

Approved, October 2010, 

Headquarters

The acting project office team members and 

representatives from the Airspace Systems 

Program briefed the Aeronautics Research 

Mission Directorate and a panel of other 

government agency experts on a plan to support 

the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration 

in the National Airspace System Project. 

The project will be part of the Integrated 

Systems Research Program Office and will 

have four primary technical focus areas that 

investigate aspects of Separation Assurance, 

Human Systems Integration, Communication, 

Learn more about the Airspace Systems Program at: www.aeronautics.nasa.gov/programs_asp.htm
6

and Certification as they relate to unmanned 

controlled flight. A fifth area, Integrated Test 

and Evaluation, will focus on the integration 

of the four technical elements in a relevant 

environment via a series of simulations and 

flight tests. After a successful review, this 

5-year/$150 million project was accepted to 

begin upon NASA budget approval.

18 Terminal Area Precision 

Scheduling System Team 

Completes Four Weeks of 

Human-in-the-Loop 

Simulations, September 2010, 

Ames Research Center

Simulations evaluating terminal area scheduling 

decision support tools were completed. These 

simulations helped in the evaluation of the 

concept of precision metering with staged delay 

distribution to account for uncertainty within 

the system and also investigated environmentallyfriendly procedures in high-density airspace. 

The simulation focused on traffic arriving at 

Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), a 

single high-flow airport, in a complex Metroplex 

airspace within the Southern California terminal 

radar approach control (TRACON). Controllers 

staffed three Air Route Traffic Control Center 

arrival-metering sectors, three TRACON 

Feeder Positions and two Final Positions. 

Initial results using the Terminal Area Precision 

Scheduling System (TAPSS) decision support 

tools showed close to a 20 percent increase in 

airport throughput when using more fuelefficient aircraft maneuvers, and lower controller 

workload when compared to current-day 

airport operations. In the first two-week period, 

specific features of the decision support tools 

were evaluated, and results compared well with 

previous Monte-Carlo analytical simulations 

that were used for the scheduling and controller 

tool design. In the second two-week period, 

today’s LAX arrival operations were compared 

to the TAPSS tool-enhanced environment. The 

demand on the airport was varied from current 

day levels to anticipated traffic levels in 2020. 

The simulation was demonstrated to senior FAA 

managers, the NASA Advisory Committee, and 

the NASA Administrator. 

19 Terminal Area Research Team 

Visits Southern California 

Terminal Radar Control, 

October 2010, San Diego, CA

A terminal area research team focusing on 

the terminal tactical separation-assisted flight 

environment (Terminal TSAFE, or T-TSAFE) 

visited the Southern California (SoCal) Terminal 

Radar Control (TRACON) in preparation for 

a human-in-the-loop experiment planned for 

August 2011 that will test a conflict detection 

and resolution tool. The visit was facilitated by 

the FAA’s Strategic Planning Advisory Review 

Cadre (SPARC) team. The planned experiment 

will evaluate an algorithm that provides 

controllers with conflict detection alerts. In 

cooperation with the FAA, the tool will also 

be integrated with FAA’s prototype Automatic 

Terminal Proximity Alert (ATPA) tool that 

detects compression errors in the final approach 

phase. The team met with SoCal TRACON 

experts and observed airspace over Los Angeles 

International Airport (LAX) and the Southern 

California terminal area and identified areas 

where controllers have to exercise control to 

keep aircraft separated. Discussions were held 

on how conflict detection tools such as Conflict 

Alert and Terminal Proximity Alert are currently 

used in the airspace. The team also had the 

opportunity to view a scenario development tool 

developed at SoCal TRACON, which the FAA 

uses for training purposes. The tool effectively 

creates conflicts in the airspace for training 

scenarios, and the T-TSAFE team plans to use 

this tool for generating traffic scenarios for the 

upcoming experiment.

20Interval Management Research 

Briefings, October 2010, 

Langley Research Center

The FAA’s Air Traffic Planning Manager for 

en-route operations (AJE) and two of his 

colleagues were given technical briefings on the 

Interval Management research conducted in the 

Air Traffic Operations Laboratory (ATOL) and 

Cockpit Motion Facility. The research to develop 

the concept, procedure, and algorithm for an 

aircraft to self-space behind another aircraft 

using Automatic Dependent SurveillanceBroadcast technology is being conducted jointly, 

and under the leadership of the FAA Surveillance 

and Broadcast Services (SBS) Office. Due to 

Langley’s participation and desire to facilitate 

collaboration across FAA organizations, FAA 

AJE is now increasing its participation in the 

FAA SBS work to implement the Interval 

Management concept, and directly participating 

in designing and conducting Langley’s March 

2011 experiment using commercial airline 

pilots to evaluate the concept and procedure. 

This additional support from the FAA AJE 

organization will directly benefit NASA’s research 

in interval management and provide benefit to 

NASA’s efforts and deliverables to the FAA under 

reimbursable agreements. 

21 Wake Presentations at National 

Institute of Aerospace, October 

2010, Hampton, VA

Carsten Schwarz of the German Aerospace 

Center DLR presented a research seminar titled 

“DLR Wake Vortex Research Overview.” The 

seminar provided an overview on the latest 

DLR wake vortex activities and achievements 

including European Commission and DLR 

internal projects, industry contract work, 

simulator and flight tests and field campaigns 

as well as the current National Institute of 

Aerospace (NIA), DLR and FAA collaboration 

on severity assessment of near-field wake 

turbulence encounters. The German Aerospace 

Center DLR, Germany’s national research 

center for aeronautics and space, is continuously 

conducting research in the field of aircraft wake 

vortices, which is increasingly relevant with the 

onset of Europe’s Single European Sky ATM 

Research and the United States’ Next Generation 

Air Transportation System programs and their 

goals of increased throughput at current facilities. 

Through December 2010, Carsten W. Schwarz 

was a visiting researcher at NIA in cooperation 

with the FAA working on severity assessment of 

near-field wake turbulence encounters. NASA 

aircraft wake researchers attended the briefing 

and interacted with Mr. Schwarz during his 

tenure at NIA.
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22 Demonstration of FAA’s Tower 

Flight Data Manager and Staffed 

NextGen Tower Prototype 

Systems, November 2010, Dallas 

Fort Worth International Airport 

At the invitation of the FAA, Sherilyn Brown 

and Gary Lohr attended a demonstration of the 

FAA’s Tower Flight Data Manager (TFDM) and 

the Staffed NextGen Tower (SNT) Prototype 

System. The demonstration followed an 

evaluation of the TFDM by air traffic controllers 

conducted in August 2010, using live traffic. The 

TFDM, being developed by MIT Lincoln Labs 

under contract to the FAA, is a suite of tools and 

supporting displays for the airport traffic control 

tower intended to integrate systems in the 

tower. Control towers have a myriad of systems 

that have been added over the years; however, 

integration and information sharing for these 

systems has not been fully accomplished. TFDM 

is intended to integrate these systems while 

upgrading core capabilities. NASA’s invitation 

to this demonstration was based on the FAA’s 

interest in algorithms being developed under the 

Airspace Systems Program’s System Oriented 

Runway Management research effort. The 

demonstrated capabilities under development for 

the TFDM will be part of the SNTs (previously 

referred to as Staffed Virtual Towers). Fully 

developed SNTs will incorporate the requisite 

surveillance and other information available 

through sensors that would permit controllers 

to provide air traffic control services without 

the need of a physical tower structure, i.e., a 

“tower” control facility could be located in a 

regular building and perhaps even off the airport 

proper. The demonstration was conducted by the 

Terminal Planning System Engineering Group 

(AJT-34). The next demonstration is planned for 

2011, also at Dallas Fort Worth.

23 2nd Global Wake Vortex 

Conference, December 2010, San 

Diego, CA 

The second of three planned conferences was 

held to provide information exchange, and to 

coordinate objectives and concepts for ensuring 

avoidance of hazardous wake vortex encounters 

while reducing terminal aircraft separation to 

increase airport capacity. Approximately 50 

participants from Europe, Russia, Australia, and 

the United States attended the conference. Both 

the U.S. Next Generation Air Transportation 

System and the European Single European Sky 

Air Traffic Management Research activities 

envision dynamic pair-wise aircraft separation 

achieved through a three-phased evolution of 

aircraft wake separation standards: (1) 2010, 

six static aircraft categories; (2) 2015, static 

pair-wise separation; and (3) 2020, dynamic 

pair-wise separation. Safety of operations must 

be maintained; therefore, changes in aircraft 

separation standards and the associated safety 

assessments must be supported by science 

and data. Areas identified as needing further 

work and global harmonization included wake 

encounter reporting and analysis, onboard wake 

vortex warning systems, reconciliation of wake 

models that give different results, provision of 

better wind and atmospheric data, and collection 

and sharing of aircraft wake data. Langley 

participants were Neil O’Connor, Paul Stough, 

and Gary Lohr. The third in the series of Global 

Wake Vortex Conferences is scheduled for 

September 2011 in St. Petersburg, Russia. 

24 User Preferences Research 

Presented at the Airline 

Dispatcher’s Federation Annual 

Symposium, October 2010, 

Washington, DC

Dr. Kapil Sheth was an invited speaker at the 

Airline Dispatcher’s Federation (ADF) 2010 

Annual Symposium. The symposium participants 

included representatives from the airlines, general 

aviation, and the air traffic management research 

community as well as FAA management. Dr. 

Sheth presented a concept he is researching that 

prioritizes flights based on credit points that 

would be administered by the FAA. Results 

were presented from the human-in-the-loop 

experiments conducted at NASA Ames in January 

2010. The ADF members’ initial feedback was 

that the credit points concept provided a viable 

option for users to provide their flight preferences, 

in conjunction with the FAA’s Collaborative 

Trajectory Options Program. Several ADF 

members have requested participation in future 

experiments for this research. 

25 American Recovery and 

Reinvestment Act Phase 3 Small 

Business Innovation Research 

Final Review Briefing, November 

2011, Langley Research Center

Members of Intelligent Automation Inc. 

(IAI) presented a Final Review Briefing 

and Demonstration for the Phase 3 Small 

Business Innovation and Research (SBIR) 

to develop enhanced systems analysis and 

simulation capabilities to support exploration 

of Next Generation Air Transportation System 

operations concepts. This meeting was hosted 

by the Aeronautics Systems Analysis Branch 

with Patricia Glaab as technical monitor. The 

software developed under this SBIR adds the 

capability to model terminal airspace Merging 

and Spacing working cooperatively with Conflict 

Detection and Resolution in the Airspace 

Concept Evaluation System simulation. IAI 

began this SBIR in November of 2009 and 

final software has been delivered. As part of the 

briefing, demonstrations were provided showing 

the systems operating for Atlanta’s HartsfieldJackson International Airport configured with 

routes to match current day operations. This 

effort was funded with American Recovery and 

Reinvestment Act funds.

26 Aeronautics Research Mission 

Directorate Holds Initial Systems 

Analysis Summit, December 

2010, JPDO

The purpose of the summit was to develop 

a roadmap to integrate and leverage ongoing 

systems analyses among the Joint Planning 

and Development Office (JPDO), Aeronautics 

Research Mission Directorate programs, and 

NASA’s four aeronautics research centers. 

Representatives from Ames, Langley, Glenn and 

Dryden Flight Research Centers, the JPDO, 

and industry attended the meeting. Ongoing 

systems analyses efforts were briefed. The summit 

also began the process to identify gaps and 

overlaps, and to develop options for improved 

collaboration and leverage. The attendees agreed 

that the next steps are to establish, document, 

and conduct configuration control on a set of 

metrics, scenarios, and demand cases. 

27“Analysis of NextGen Gaming” 

NASA Research Announcement 

Final Review, January 2011, 

Langley Research Center 

Principal Investigator Prof. Lance Sherry of 

George Mason University (GMU) presented the 

results of the three-and-a-half year effort that 

included work at GMU and Sensis Corporation. 

The effort was aimed at identifying the potential 

of unintended consequences and “gaming” 

in the National Airspace System (NAS) that 

could occur following the implementation of 
8

Next Generation Air Transportation System 

(NextGen) Concepts and Operations (ConOps). 

An examination of flight-by-flight gaming 

led to the conclusion that, for the purposes of 

evaluating NextGen ConOps (e.g. trajectorybased operations) and technologies (e.g. SystemWide Information Management, or SWIM),it 

would be more advantageous to consider 

macro-level decision-making mechanisms at the 

NAS-wide level, where all actions are determined 

based on decision making with a large number 

of input states and participants. In the task that 

evolved, two questions arose: (1) What types of 

decision making yield advantageous outcomes 

for airlines?; and (2) How can this type of 

decision making be evaluated? The Sensis effort 

focused on static decision making for airborne 

route selection, flight delays and cancellations. 

The GMU effort designed and implemented 

a first of its kind adaptive decision-making 

algorithm for pre-departure route selection 

for each day in the NAS. The decision space 

included 300,000 states, such as sector loading 

for time of day, distance-flown and fuel-burn 

options, scheduled departures, scheduled 

arrivals, and other variables. The impact of 

the implementation of NextGen SWIM was 

evaluated in the presence of adaptive flight 

plan route selection. The somewhat unexpected 

result was that, under the assumptions of the 

model, adaptive decision making in route 

selection, informed by SWIM, led to a stable 

equilibrium, which, in turn, resulted in better 

NAS performance. The significance of the 

conducted research is twofold. Its practical 

usefulness is evident when applied to NextGen 

technologies planned for NextGen in the near 

term. From a broader perspective, the GMU 

research resonates well with current findings on 

adaptivity in complex systems. Numerous reports 

and presentations can be obtained from Natalia 

Alexandrov at NASA Langley. A Contractor 

Report will be available on the NASA Technical 

Reports Server in the near future. 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Headquarters

300 E. Street, SW

Washington, DC 20024

www.aeronautics.nasa.gov

www.nasa.gov

NP-2011-02-708-HQ