National Aeronautics and Space Administration

www.nasa.gov

AOSP Newsletter

Airspace Operations and Safety Program (AOSP)

JAN-MAR 2022 | Quarter 2

AOSP Participants Prominently at 

AIAA SciTech 2022 Conference

3

SWS Conducts “Wildland 

Firefighting Operations Workshop” 

with Flight Safety Foundation

15
2 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2022

AOSP IN THE NEWS

Why Airplanes Might Soon 

Have Just One Pilot

CNN (1/13) reports “If you boarded 

a passenger plane in 1950 and peeked 

into the cockpit, you would have seen 

five people in there (almost certainly 

men): two pilots, a radio operator, a 

navigator and a flight engineer. ...In 

one scenario, proposed by NASA, the 

remaining pilot in the cockpit would 

be supported by a ‘super dispatcher’ 

on the ground, a trained pilot that 

could oversee a number of flights at 

once and even fully control the plane 

remotely if needed, for example if the 

cockpit pilot become incapacitated.”

GE Teams To Enable CloudBased FMS For AAM

Aviation Week (1/24) reports “A 

NASA-funded team is working to 

connect airborne and cloud-based 

flight management systems to 

enable better real-time trajectory 

optimization and airspace 

management for advanced air 

mobility (AAM) and commercial 

aviation. Led by aviation R&D 

company Mosaic ATM, the team 

comprises flight management...” 

Boeing Invests $450M 

In Electric Self-flying 

Air Taxi Project

The Hill (1/24) reports “Aerospace 

giant Boeing is making big 

investments in autonomous electric 

vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) 

aircraft that could fly passengers and 

cargo around busy cities in the nottoo-distant future. ... The company is 

working with NASA to help develop 

air taxis, drones and other types of 

aircraft to move people and goods 

in cities.”

.
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2022 3

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

AOSP Participates 

Prominently at AIAA 

SciTech 2022 Conference 

POC: WENDY OKOLO, JAEWOO JUNG, KENNETH 

FREEMAN, NIKUNJ OZA AND MISTY DAVIES

AOSP played a prominent role at the 

American Institute of Aeronautics 

and Astronautics (AIAA) SciTech 

Forum Conference held in San 

Diego between Jan. 3–7. This year’s 

theme was “Enabling Sustainability 

Through Aerospace Technology” 

and was a hybrid format featuring 

live and online presentations. 

Nearly 5,000 attendees registered 

for the 2022 conference. On Jan. 

6, Wendy Okolo from NASA’s 

System-Wide Safety (SWS) 

project appeared as a panelist on 

a Forum 360 panel, “Operational 

Sustainability in Increasingly 

Congested and Heterogeneous 

Airspace,” which focused on the 

future of air transportation and the 

sustainability of these emerging and 

existing operations in the National 

Airspace System (NAS). Moderated 

by Cheryl Quinn, AOSP’s deputy 

director, Okolo joined fellow 

panelists Steve Bradford, the FAA’s 

chief scientist for NextGen; R. John 

Hansman, professor of aeronautics 

and astronautics at Massachusetts 

Institute of Technology (MIT) and 

director of the MIT International 

Center for Air Transportation); 

and Tom Prevot, Joby Aviation’s 

air taxi product lead to discuss the 

necessary changes to existing NAS 

operations such as the required 

automation capabilities, humanmachine interactions, and operator 

and stakeholder responsibilities that 

will enable a safe and sustainable 

airspace of the future. In addition, 

an In-Time Aviation Safety 

Management System (IASMS) 

panel was organized by SWS project 

researchers and moderated by SWS’s 

deputy project manager, Kyle Ellis. 

Wendy Okolo presents on AOSP’s System-Wide Safety Project during a panel session at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics SciTech Forum 

Conference.
4 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2022

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

The IASMS panel, “Assuring Safety 

in Tomorrow’s National Airspace 

System,” welcomed panelists 

Akbar Sultan, director of AOSP; 

Steve Bradford of the FAA; 

Deborah Kirkman, director of 

Advanced Aviation Systems, Flight 

Safety Foundation; Fred Judson, 

director of Ohio Unmanned 

Aircraft Systems (UAS) Center; 

and Peter Shannon, founder and 

managing director of Radius 

Capital. This panel presentation 

offered broad perspectives on 

the opportunities and challenges 

the industry is addressing to 

safely transform aviation.

SWS personnel also participated in 

a virtual technical lecture and panel, 

“Autonomy and the Intangible 

Value of the Pilot.” Panelists 

included Amy Pritchett, professor 

and department head of aerospace 

engineering at Pennsylvania State 

University; Irene Gregory, senior 

technologist for NASA’s Advanced 

Control Theory and Applications; 

Jon Holbrook deputy of Human 

Factors Discipline at NASA’s 

Engineering and Safety Center; 

Ella Atkins, professor and 

Autonomous Aerospace Systems 

Laboratory director at the 

University of Michigan; and 

Kathy Abbott, chief scientific and 

technical adviser for the FAA’s 

Flight Deck Human Factors. The 

panel discussed the evolving 

role of the pilot with a specific 

focus on the benefit the pilot 

brings to the human-machine 

interaction with increased cockpit 

automation and autonomy.

Also representing AOSP, the Air 

Traffic Management-eXploration 

(ATM-X) project’s Extensible Traffic 

Management (xTM) subproject 

team presented several papers. The 

first paper, “Overview of NASA’s 

Extensible Traffic Management 

(xTM) Research,” with Jaewoo Jung 

as the first author, described the 

evolution of NASA UAS Traffic 

Management (UTM) to xTM, 

where the foundational UTM 

requirements and core properties 

are generalized to become an xTM 

requirement supporting operations 

of new entrants beyond small 

UAS. The paper also described 

NASA’s approach for developing 

an xTM system for operations in 

high altitudes over 60,000 feet, 

designated as upper Class E in the 

United States, and the planned 

research to examine potential 

xTM-Air Traffic Control (ATC) 

interactions across multiple xTM 

systems, such as UTM, Upper 

Class E traffic Management (ETM), 

and Advanced Air Mobility/

Urban Air Mobility (AAM/UAM). 

The second paper, “Identifying 

Common Use Cases across 

Extensible Traffic Management 

(xTM) for Interactions with Air 

Traffic Controllers,” with Paul 

Lee as the first author, presented 

a set of use cases that have been 

identified in UTM, AAM/UAM, 

and ETM operations that are 

The panel was moderated by AOSP’s deputy director, Cheryl Quinn. Wendy Okolo participated with fellow 

panelists Steve Bradford, R. John Hansman, and Tom Prevot.
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2022 

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

related to ATC interactions. In 

the paper, use cases across xTM 

systems were categorized based 

on common trigger events to be 

used for discovering common 

procedures and data requirements 

across xTM systems that could help 

ease the controller’s cognitive task 

load and allow them to manage 

these interactions more safely. The 

third paper, “Intent Modeling and 

Conflict Probability Calculation 

for Operations in Upper Class E 

Airspace,” with Min Xue as the first 

author, presented a probabilistic 

operational intent model for 

vehicles operating in upper Class E 

airspace. This model leverages and 

extends past work on probabilistic 

conflict computation in a hybrid 

form. Simulation results showed 

that this hybrid model captures 

the intent conflict probability with 

better accuracy, especially for a 

larger look-ahead horizon compared 

to the earlier work. The paper 

presented an example to illustrate 

the use of this model in strategic 

planning in ETM. The xTM 

team plans further publications 

for xTM-ATC interactions and 

ETM in the future. A fourth 

paper, “Immutable Secure Data 

Exchange and Storage for Urban 

Air Mobility Environments,” 

authored by Ken Freeman 

from the UAM subproject and 

presented by the Secure Airspace 

team, discussed a cybersecurity 

approach for protecting data 

for UAM operations. 

Additionally, three members of the 

SWS project’s Data Sciences Group 

at NASA’s Ames Research Center 

in California received the 2021 

AIAA Intelligent Systems Best Paper 

Award for their paper, “Multi-Class 

Anomaly Detection in Flight Data 

Using Semi-Supervised Explainable 

Deep Learning Model.” The paper 

addressed the difficult and crucial 

task of identifying precursors to 

safety incidents in aviation data. In 

current practice, the main approach 

leverages domain expertise to define 

expected tolerances in system 

behavior and flags exceedances from 

such safety margins. However, this 

approach is incapable of identifying 

unknown risks and vulnerabilities. 

Various machine learning 

approaches have been investigated 

and deployed to identify anomalies 

with the challenge of procuring 

enough labeled data to achieve 

reliable and accurate performance. 

Building on recent advancements 

described in machine learning 

literature, this paper presented 

an explainable, deep, and semisupervised model for anomaly 

detection in aviation. The proposed 

model combines feature engineering 

and classification in feature space 

while leveraging all available 

(labeled and unlabeled) data. The 

paper validated its approach with 

case studies of anomaly detection 

during the takeoff and landing 

phases of commercial aircrafts and 

use the case studies to show that 

the proposed model outperforms 

the state-of-the-art supervised 

anomaly-detection model. This 

approach reaches significantly 

higher accuracy and fewer false 

alarms with only a small amount 

of labeled data. This award is 

given annually for innovative 

and impactful contributions to 

the field and was presented at 

the 2022 AIAA SciTech Forum 

and Exposition in early January.

SWS Collaborates on Two 

AAM RF Spectrum Scanning 

Activities Executive Summary 

POC: STEVE YOUNG

The System-Wide Safety (SWS) 

project has recently begun 

collaborating with the Advanced 

Air Mobility (AAM) project’s 

High Density Vertiplex (HDV) 

subproject on two radio frequency 

(RF) spectrum scanning activities. 

The first activity is collecting 

near-continuous scans over an 

extended period (Nov. 19, 2021 

– March 1, 2022) to baseline 

the RF environment across the 

City Environment Range Testing 

for Autonomous Integrated 

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6 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2022

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

Navigation test range for selected 

frequencies of interest. Results will 

be analyzed and used to help HDV 

obtain approvals for new types of 

operations. The second activity will 

establish a real-time feed of data 

from SWS spectrum monitoring 

stations to operators and users 

who will be using the Remote 

Operations for Autonomous 

Missions Ground Control Center 

that is being setup for HDV demos 

at NASA’s Langley Research Center 

in Virginia. Although just underway, 

both efforts are going well and 

should provide mutual benefits. 

ATM-X UAM Subproject is 

Developing Requirements 

with ASTM for UAM Airspace 

POC: KEVIN WITZBERGER

The industry standards group that 

is developing industry provider 

of services for UAM (PSU) 

requirements has offered for the Air 

Traffic Management-eXploration 

(ATM-X) project’s Urban Air 

Mobility (UAM) subproject to 

collaboratively participate in the 

writing of PSU requirements for 

ASTM International (formerly the 

American Society for Testing and 

Materials). The UAM subproject 

has accepted this opportunity and 

has identified staff to participate in 

the writing requirements. Directly 

authoring requirements with 

ASTM will ensure that NASA’s 

airspace expertise will translate 

to concrete requirements for new 

UAM airspace technologies that 

are needed as demand increases. 

For reference, NASA served in the 

more limited role as advisers rather 

than requirements authors in the 

Airspace Technology Demonstration 

and Unmanned Aircraft Systems 

Traffic Management projects. 

Asking NASA to collaborate 

on writing requirements further 

demonstrates the impact and 

relevance of the ongoing Strategic 

Management Conflict Simulation 

X4. The initial requirements 

development commenced in 

January and is expected to continue 

through December 2022. The 

draft requirements will be used 

by industry for field trials and 

testing, with the expectation that 

these activities will inform future 

iterations of the standard.

ATM-X Contractor Team 

Conducts Expert Interviews 

for ETM Market Study 

POC: JAEWOO JUNG AND MIN XUE

To ensure the success of research in 

Upper Class E Traffic Management 

(ETM), the Air Traffic ManagementeXploration (ATM-X) project’s 

Extensible Traffic Management 

(xTM) subproject awarded a task 

to LMI in late 2021 for conducting 

studies to gather knowledge and 

information on the ETM market. 

On Jan. 14, the team consisting of 

LMI, Crown, Georgia Tech, and 

GRA, Inc. briefed NASA on the 

results of their ETM market research 

to further understand the current 

and future opportunities associated 

with high-altitude operations and 

the risks and barriers for realizing 

those opportunities. The midterm results updated the xTM 

team’s knowledge of high-altitude 

operations previously obtained 

through earlier outreach activities, 

including tabletop exercises, industry 

tag-ups, and workshops. These 

results and updated knowledge are 

critical for the xTM team to develop 

use cases and scenarios for future 

ETM simulations and research. 

ATM-X Presents at ENRI 

International Workshop 

POC: KURT SWIERINGA

Between Jan. 18–19, Air Traffic 

Management-eXploration 

(ATM-X)’s deputy project manager 

for technology, Kurt Swieringa, 

presented an overview of ATM-X at 

an international workshop on the 

latest trends in air traffic management 

hosted virtually by the Electronic 

Navigation Research Institute 

(ENRI). The presentation provided 

an overview of the research ATM-X 

is doing to improve access to aviation 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2022 

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

data, develop services that improve 

sustainability of aviation operations, 

and enable the incorporation of new 

aviation concepts into the airspace. 

SWS SBIR Partnership 

to Mitigate Methane 

Emissions at Landfills 

POC: ERSIN ANCEL AND MISTY DAVIES

On Jan. 20, Human Automation 

Teaming Solutions, Inc. (HATS), a 

small company based out of Los 

Angeles, presented an integrated 

risk assessment capability and an 

intuitive user interface to conclude 

their Small Business Innovation 

Research (SBIR) Phase II-E/Phase 

III contract with NASA’s SystemWide Safety (SWS) project. The 

prototype ground control station 

(GCS) software will monitor 

multiple unmanned aircraft and 

ground vehicles and the proposed 

use case – assisting landfill operators 

in conducting methane monitoring 

missions. During the Phase II-E/

Phase III contract, SWS researcher 

Ersin Ancel led the development 

of a custom GCS software tool 

that can simultaneously connect 

to five supplemental data service 

provider services. Using these 

SWS-built services, HATS was 

able to demonstrate the integrated 

risk assessment capability and 

the intuitive user interface to 

mitigate threats. These threats 

include third-party casualty risk, 

degraded navigation and battery, 

radio frequency interference, and 

proximity to obstacles. The custom 

GCS software will be tested as part 

of the ongoing FY22 SWS Technical 

Challenge 2 Flight Campaign. 

The presentation marked the end 

of the SBIR Phase II-E/Phase III 

contract with the SWS project. The 

collaboration began in 2017 under 

the Unmanned Aircraft Systems 

Traffic Management project. 

SWS Hosts Verification 

and Validation RTT 

Meeting with FAA

POC: AARON DUTLE AND MISTY DAVIES

On Jan. 20, Aaron Dutle of NASA’s 

Langley Research Center in Virginia 

organized and hosted the first 

quarter meeting of the System-Wide 

Safety (SWS) project’s Verification 

and Validation Research Transition 

Team (RTT) subgroup. The RTT is 

a joint effort between NASA and 

the FAA focused on sharing and 

aligning the research between the 

two agencies. This meeting featured 

a presentation by a team from 

Barron Associates, Architecture 

Technology Corporation, Electron 

International, and Iowa State 

University discussing the use of 

a runtime assurance architecture 

to incorporate untrusted software 

components into an electronic 

vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. 

The presentation also discussed a 

functional hazard assessment and 

the use of systems-theoretic process 

analysis for safety assessment of the 

system. The meeting had roughly 

50 attendees, with participants 

representing NASA, the FAA, and 

the Department of Defense. 

ATM-X Participates 

in the NASA-DLR Year 

One Annual Review 

POC: TAUMI DANIELS

The NASA-German Aerospace 

Center (DLR) Year One Annual 

Review took place on Jan. 20–21. 

NASA’s Air Traffic ManagementeXploration (ATM-X) project and 

DLR are collaborating on a five-year 

joint research project that leverages 

air traffic management technologies 

and concepts developed at their 

respective agencies. The topics 

that were covered included the 

investigation of airspace design for 

new types of aircraft and exploration 

of the integration of the Testbed 

and DLR’s Remote Component 

Environment simulation platforms. 

In addition, four tasks focused on 

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) that 

analyzed UAM demand, developed 

concepts for UAM networks, 

analyzed impacts of weather on 

UAM operations, and focused on 

the development of UAM flight 

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TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

performance models. The review 

allowed both agencies to gain 

further understanding of new 

concepts and methods to address 

the challenges of a future air traffic 

management system. 

ATM-X PAAV Meets 

with Aurora/Boeing 

POC: ARWA ARWEISS AND KURT SWIERINGA

On Jan. 21, Air Traffic ManagementeXploration (ATM-X)’s deputy 

project manager for technology, 

Kurt Swieringa, and the ATM-X project’s Pathfinding for Airspace with 

Autonomous Vehicles (PAAV) subproject management team consisting 

of Arwa Aweiss, Rich Coppenbarger, 

and Tod Lewis met with representatives from Aurora Flight Sciences, a 

Boeing-owned company, to discuss 

a potential flight demonstration collaboration opportunity. A draft annex 

of a space act agreement was reviewed 

and agreed on between the teams. 

This annex will get circulated among 

Aurora and ATM-X project leadership for one final review before being 

sent to NASA Partnership and Legal 

Offices and Aurora/Boeing’s legal 

team for final review and initiation of 

the next step in the process. 

SWS Integrated Software 

System Test 

POC: STEVE YOUNG AND MISTY DAVIES

On Jan. 25, personnel at NASA’s 

Langley Research Center in Virginia 

successfully performed the formal 

software test of the System-Wide 

Safety (SWS) project’s SWS-21 

Integrated Software System Test 

(ISST) Build 1. The test verified the 

documented software requirements 

needed for the Core Flight System 

(CFS) applications to include the 

capability to bridge data messages 

from the external hardware into the 

CFS software bus and the ability 

to downlink selected software bus 

messages to the Research Ground 

Station (RGS). The RGS capabilities 

include the ability to upload the 

configuration files before each flight 

and the ability to notify on-board 

software when ground crew activity 

transitions between the pre-flight, 

in-flight, and post-flight phases. 

This test was necessary to obtain 

approval to use the system in flights 

planned to occur on Langley’s City 

Environment Range Testing for 

Autonomous Integrated Navigation 

test range in the coming months. 

The test was conducted virtually 

using Microsoft Teams with a test 

conductor, test operator (on-site), 

and software assurance. This is their 

first adoption of the ISST for remote 

participation due to current COVID 

circumstances. The Unmanned 

Aircraft Systems (UAS) test aircraft 

was positioned on a bench in a lab 

at NASA Langley, where it was 

connected to the ground system 

laptop computer. The connection 

was physical for the pre-flight and 

post-flight portions of the test, and 

wireless for the simulated in-flight 

portion. The test consisted of using 

the system as it would be used 

in the field on a test range. The 

system consisted of several software 

elements that were engaged by a 

ground station operator using a 

prescribed procedure (pre-flight, 

in-flight, and post-flight). The entire 

UAS was powered on, including the 

research system, avionics, and all 

relevant data links. 

ATM-X DIP Conducts TIM 

with FAA on Quality of 

Service and SWIM IMP 

POC: MIRNA JOHNSON

On Jan. 26, the Air Traffic 

Management-eXploration (ATM-X) 

project’s Digital Information 

Platform (DIP) subproject team 

and the FAA held a technical 

interchange meeting (TIM) to 

discuss standardization of quality of 

service (QoS) information. The FAA 

walked through the System Wide 

Information Management (SWIM) 

Information Management Panel 

(IMP) service registration guidance 

and reviewed the definition for QoS 

that the FAA and International 

Civil Aviation Organization are 

working to distribute globally. 

DIP also shared its approach to 

service registration and additional 

metrics that stakeholders would 

like to see included in the set of 

quality information for registered 

services. This TIM was very valuable 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2022 9

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

for exchanging information that 

can be leveraged for further DIP 

development, aligning on QoS 

concept, and identifying mutually 

beneficial areas to further direct 

our engagements. 

ATM-X Partners Conduct 

Connectivity Testing with an 

Airspace Authorization Service 

POC: KEVIN WITZBERGER

On Feb. 2, the Air Traffic 

Management-eXploration (ATM-X) 

project’s Urban Air Mobility (UAM) 

subproject successfully completed 

another step toward developing 

a provider of services for UAM 

(PSU) while leading seven airspace 

partners in developing their 

PSUs, five of which will partner 

with Wisk Aero in the National 

Campaign-1 (NC-1) flight tests. 

All seven partners (ANRA, Avision, 

Collins, Metron/Airbus, OneSky, 

SkyGrid, and Unmanned Experts) 

and NASA successfully conducted 

a connectivity test to a NASAbuilt prototype of an FAA-Industry 

data exchange protocol airspace 

authorization service. Participants 

generated an operation plan that 

conformed to the requirements of 

the defined airspace and provided 

the operation plan to an airspace 

authorization service during the 

test. This was the fourth sprint test 

in a series of strategic management 

conflict simulation tests aimed to 

prepare the airspace partners and 

the NASA PSU for inclusion in 

the NC-1 flight test. Sprint #5 

exercises demand capacity balancing 

imbalance detection and resolution 

with the window opening for testing 

on Feb. 28, with an expected end 

date of April 1, 2022. The series of 

sprints within the scenarios are used 

to validate features that will be used 

in a collaborative scenario simulation 

with the partners that is tentatively 

scheduled to run from April through 

June 2022. 

ATCA Annual Conversation: 

Sky for All and NASA’s 

Contribution to the 

Future of Aviation 

POC: SHAWN ENGELLAND AND MISTY DAVIES

On Feb. 9, at the virtual Air Traffic 

Control Association (ATCA) Annual 

Conference, NASA representatives 

Parimal Kopardekar, Misty Davies, 

Kurt Swieringa, and Jeanne Yu 

presented a focused conversation 

about NASA’s Sky for All vision. The 

ATCA Annual Conference is the 

largest air traffic management event 

in the Americas and the world’s 

only event centering on air traffic 

control and air traffic management 

technology and services needs of the 

FAA. Representatives of the Sky for 

All team centered the conversation 

on the vision, foundational principles 

and aspirations, capabilities, and 

use cases that will enable NASA to 

continue defining the path to the 

Sky for All vision. Davies explained 

how NASA’s research into airspace 

operations and safety will enable a 

more ubiquitous, sustainable, and 

equitable aviation future. 

ATM-X PAAV Presents at the 

Multi-Vehicle (m:N) Working 

Group Meeting 

POC: ARWA AWEISS

On Feb. 9, the Air Traffic 

Management-eXploration (ATM-X) 

project’s Pathfinding for Airspace 

with Autonomous Vehicles (PAAV) 

subproject presented an overview 

of the subproject and their concept 

of operations research at the 

Multi-Vehicle Working Group 

(large-Unmanned Aircraft Systems) 

subgroup meeting. The working 

group was formed by NASA under 

the Autonomous Systems (AS) 

discipline of the Transformative 

Tools and Technologies (TTT) 

project within the Transformative 

Aeronautics Concepts Program. 

This working group’s central goal 

is to bring together a broad range 

of interested stakeholders from 

government, industry, and academia. 

Together, they will identify barriers 

to m:N operations, an operational 

configuration that envisions a ratio 

of multiple operators (m) controlling 

multiple vehicles (N) between 

them. The barriers addressed by the 

working group range from technical, 

regulatory, safety assurance, and 

community acceptance. The working 

group ultimately plans to work 
10 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2022

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

with regulators to identify existing 

regulations and determine what needs 

to be done to accommodate m:N 

operations in the future. The meeting 

included more than 30 attendees 

from industry and government. The 

PAAV team also presented their plans 

for an upcoming tabletop activity to 

solicit feedback on the content and 

approach. The tabletop is planned 

for Spring 2022 and is intended to 

identify shortfalls, solutions, and 

gaps related to the integration of 

large-Unmanned Aircraft Systems 

cargo operations in the National 

Airspace System, under future higherautonomy or m:N paradigms, and 

will result in a joint deliverable 

between ATM-X PAAV and TTT-AS. 

The tabletop is a follow-on to tabletop 

activities conducted in 2021 with 

a focus on near-term assumptions 

such as 1:1 operations. The meeting 

concluded with a plan to organize a 

few additional meetings leading up to 

the tabletop activity. 

Robust Software Engineering 

Releases AdaStress 

Open-Source Software 

POC: ADRIAN AGOGINO AND GUILLAUME BRAT

On Feb. 14, the AdaStress software 

tool, developed within the SystemWide Safety project, was released 

under the NASA Open-Source 

Agreement license. AdaStress 

implements and extends the Adaptive 

Stress Testing (AST) framework, 

which leverages reinforcement 

learning to find and analyze the 

likeliest failures in autonomous 

and safety-critical systems. By 

incorporating feedback into its 

exploration, AST can be significantly 

more efficient than traditional 

sample-based approaches to stress 

testing without relying on domain 

knowledge to expedite the search. 

This makes AdaStress an attractive 

tool for independent verification and 

validation, as it does not operate with 

a bias toward expected failure modes. 

AdaStress can also perform efficient 

stress testing on black box systems, 

including those that are remote 

and unable to be shared directly 

for reasons of security, privacy, or 

convenience. In these cases, the stress 

testing protocol can “anonymize” 

system behavior, allowing 

computational infrastructure to 

be used for stress testing without 

revealing the underlying failure 

modes of the system under test. 

SWS-Boeing Agreement 

Annex for Autonomous 

Systems Research Signed 

POC: LANCE PRINZEL

In mid-February, a non-reimbursable 

space act umbrella agreement 

between NASA and Boeing for 

Aerospace Research Technology 

Development, Testing and 

Evaluation (SAA1-33523) was 

signed that includes Annex 1 for 

“Integration, Demonstration and 

Evaluation of Autonomous Systems 

and Tools.” The annex supports 

System-Wide Safety (SWS) project 

collaborative partnership efforts with 

Boeing to enable the application 

and integration of formal-methodsbased analysis, verification, testing, 

and monitoring tools in the designtime and operation-time assurance 

processes of autonomous systems. 

This collaboration will enable the 

exploration of autonomy and 

artificial intelligence requirements, 

assurance approaches, evaluation 

methods and means of compliance 

that support artificial intelligence 

standardization and explore paths 

to certification. The umbrella and 

annex agreements were recognized 

by Boeing Research and Technology 

executives, and it was included in 

the previous week in a report by 

Naveed Hussain, Boeing’s chief 

technology officer, to Boeing chief 

engineer and executive vice president 

of Boeing Engineering, Test, and 

Technology, Greg Hyslop, reflecting 

the significance and visibility of the 

collaboration and importance of the 

research efforts. 

ATM-X PAAV and FAA 

William J. Hughes Technical 

Center Conduct TIM 

POC: KURT SWIERINGA

On Feb. 17, representatives from 

NASA’s Air Traffic Management-
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2022 11

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

eXploration (ATM-X) project held 

a technical interchange meeting 

(TIM) with staff from the FAA’s 

William J. Hughes Technical 

Center to discuss related work 

and collaboration opportunities 

for the integration of increasingly 

autonomous aircraft in airspace 

shared with conventional aircraft. 

An overview of the ATM-X 

Pathfinding for Airspace with 

Autonomous Vehicles (PAAV) 

subproject was presented, and 

touchpoints were identified. 

ATM-X UAM Secure Airspace 

Immutable Secure Data 

Exchange Completes Key Step 

POC: KENNETH FREEMAN

This past week, the Air Traffic 

Management-eXploration (ATM-X) 

project’s Urban Air Mobility (UAM) 

subproject Secure Airspace effort 

successfully completed another 

step toward developing a technique 

to ensure secure data exchange 

and storage capability for UAM 

environments. This work leverages 

blockchain technology as a possible 

solution to secure information across 

the decentralized service-based UAM 

systems. This work completes a UAM 

milestone, where a blockchain-based 

secure data exchange model was 

developed and tested in simulation 

based on two use cases applicable to 

UAM environments. 

SWS and ICAO Conduct TIM to 

Further SIMS Collaboration 

POC: LANCE PRINZEL

On Feb. 18, a technical interchange 

meeting (TIM) was held between 

the System-Wide Safety (SWS) 

project and the International 

Civil Aviation Organization 

(ICAO) Safety Intelligence team. 

The meeting objectives were to 

continue discussions on the future 

of safety management systems and 

opportunities for NASA and ICAO 

to collaborate, including the InTime Aviation Safety Management 

System for commercial aviation in 

support of NASA’s Sky for All and 

other future aviation visions. The 

ICAO Safety Intelligence team 

provided a briefing on current 

developments on an Amendment 2 

for ICAO’s Annex 19 document 

for Chapter 5 that introduces 

changes for “safety data and 

safety information collection, 

analysis, protection, sharing and 

exchange” including introduction 

of a safety intelligence concept 

and governance/guidance material 

for eventual ICAO member state 

implementation. A discussion was 

also held on the needs for safety 

data access and information to 

support safety intelligence decision 

making, and various initiatives 

ICAO is working toward. The 

Safety Information Monitoring 

System (SIMS) was briefed to 

the SWS team and discussions 

centered on data collection and 

processing, safety indicators, and 

SIMS applications. Actions from 

the meeting included: 1) continue 

NASA/ICAO engagement with 

additional technical deep-dive 

discussions; 2) explore partnership 

vehicles, such as an Interagency 

Agreement; 3) establish a formal 

collaboration so that ICAOsensitive materials may be shared; 

and 4) connect with Chris 

Pokorski, US member of the Safety 

Management Panel and the FAA, 

and Miguel Marin, incoming ICAO 

deputy director of Air Navigation 

Bureau. ICAO meeting attendees 

included Elizabeth Gnehm, Ruviana 

Zimmerman, and Marco Merens. 

NASA representatives included 

Misty Davies, Lance Prinzel, Nikunj 

Oza, Chad Stephens, Paul Krois, Joe 

Coughlan, and Laura Bass. 

ATM-X DIP Holds “DIP for 

Service Providers” Workshops 

POC: MIRNA JOHNSON

The Air Traffic ManagementeXploration (ATM-X) project’s 

Digital Information Platform (DIP) 

subproject held its second and third 

workshops in a series of workshops 

this past quarter. The first of these 

workshops was originally held Nov. 

17, 2021. The second workshop, 

“DIP for Service Providers,” was held 

on Jan. 21. The workshop showed an 
12 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2022

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

increase in the number of registered 

participants, and attendees saw 

how the DIP architecture supports 

the onboarding process as well as 

how NASA services are planned to 

be made available via DIP. Service 

providers were able to ask questions 

about the registration process and 

discuss use cases for registering 

different types of services (e.g. 

single microservice versus bundle of 

services). The DIP workshop series 

intends to provide a closer look 

at some of the core features being 

developed by the DIP team. These 

workshops will give insight into 

DIP development, technology, and 

assumptions as well as providing a 

forum for engaging with the DIP 

team to pose questions and provide 

feedback on proposed designs. 

The third workshop, “DIP for Flight 

Operators and Consumers,” was held 

on Feb. 23. The workshop again 

had an increase in participation 

from the previous two workshops, 

with more than 100 registrants in 

attendance. The objective of the 

workshop was to obtain informed 

technical feedback to the DIP 

design and prepare participants 

for what they could expect for the 

demonstration. The DIP workshop 

series intends to continue providing 

a closer look at some of the core 

features being developed by the DIP 

team. These workshops give insight 

into DIP development, technology, 

and assumptions as well as providing 

a forum for stakeholders engaging 

with the DIP team to pose questions 

and provide feedback on proposed 

designs. There will be several 

more workshops within this series 

spanning a variety of topics. For 

future announcements of additional 

workshops, visit the DIP homepage: 

https://nari.arc.nasa.gov/atmx-dip.

ATM-X xTM Subproject ETM 

Team Meets with Industry and 

the FAA 

POC: JAEWOO JUNG

On Feb. 25, the Air Traffic Management-eXploration (ATM-X) Extensible Traffic Management (xTM) 

subproject Upper Class E Traffic 

Management (ETM) team met with 

representatives from industry and 

the FAA. At the meeting, upper 

Class E operators shared information regarding their recent flight 

tests and upcoming activities. The 

group conducted discussions on 

ETM, such as the assumptions and 

processes written in the proposal 

from the Aerospace Industries Association for cooperative operations 

in higher airspace. NASA’s ETM 

team provided an early look for a 

potential ETM collaborative evaluation scenario, including operational 

volumes rendered in 3D graphics 

for conflict identification. The 

group is planning to meet again to 

discuss further cooperative operations and scenarios for a collaborative evaluation. 

ATM-X DIP Competition for 

University Student Data 

Scientists Announced 

POC: MIRNA JOHNSON

On Feb. 25, a web feature was 

published to announce the Air Traffic 

Management-eXploration (ATM-X) 

project’s Digital Information Platform (DIP) subproject’s University 

Challenge, “Runway Functions: 

Predict Reconfigurations at U.S. 

Airports” (https://www.nasa.gov/

aeroresearch/nasa-competition-seeksstudent-data-crunchers-for-runwaysolutions). The University Challenge, 

which kicked off on Jan. 25, is the 

subproject’s first collaboration with 

the NASA Tournament Lab and partnering with DrivenData. The competition is open to university students 

and faculty to submit their own 

solutions for artificial intelligence 

or machine learning for service(s). 

The goal of the first challenge is to 

develop automated algorithmic 

approaches for more accurately 

predicting airport reconfigurations 

as far in advance as possible from 

real-time data, including air traffic 

and weather. Submissions for the 

challenge will be due April 25 and 

will be competing for a prize pool of 

$40,000. The University Challenge 

was launched in late January 2022 in 

collaboration with the NASA Tournament Lab and partner DrivenData. 

To learn more, visit: https://www.

nasa.gov/aeroresearch/resources/innovation-challenges#ATM-X
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2022 13

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

ATM-X’s UAM Subproject 

Delivers Second Software 

Release to AAM HDV 

POC: KEVIN WITZBERGER

On March 1, the Air Traffic Management-eXploration (ATM-X) 

project’s Urban Air Mobility (UAM) 

subproject delivered the second 

software release to the Advanced 

Air Mobility (AAM) project’s High 

Density Vertiport (HDV) subproject to further enable their work on 

vertiport air traffic. The delivered 

software was developed by the UAM 

subproject and was comprised of the 

NASA provider of services for the 

UAM Independent Configurable 

Architecture for Reliable Operations 

of Unmanned Systems software 

package for Detect and Avoid for 

Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems, 

and software elements being utilized 

in UAM’s Strategic Conflict Management. This deliverable is the second to HDV, with a third software 

release planned for August 2022. 

SWS NASA Research 

Announcement Year 3 Kickoff 

Highlights 

POC: NATASHA NEOGI

The System-Wide Safety (SWS) 

project held its Year 3 kickoff meeting 

on its NASA Research Announcement topic, “Assuring Increasing 

Autonomous Systems with NonTraditional Human-Machine Roles,” 

from March 1–2. On the first day, 

the Pennsylvania State University 

team presented a summary of their 

progress regarding the Air Traffic 

Management-eXploration Urban 

Air Mobility concept of operations 

and task modeling in the Working 

Models that Compute framework, 

with a specific focus on a short-range 

cargo delivery service in a rural area 

where vehicle and battery health 

monitoring was examined. The 

subcontractor, Iowa State University, 

detailed their progress on integrating 

the systems theoretic process analysis methodology with traditional 

model-based systems engineering 

frameworks to enable a safetyforward systems engineering process 

called systems-theoretic process 

analysis. On the second day, the 

Collins Aerospace team presented 

their work related to modeling and 

verifying properties with respect 

to an aborted landing contingency 

scenario and a faulty navigation 

scenario. The Collins approach leverages the Architecture Analysis and 

Design Language (AADL) modeling 

framework with the Assume Guarantee Reasoning Environment 

(AGREE) model checker to specify 

high-level properties to be assured 

across the system. The subcontractors, Florida Institute of Technology 

and SoarTech, detailed and demonstrated their approach to model 

and train autonomous agents via 

reinforcement learning in the Soar 

cognitive architecture framework. 

They then verified these agents in 

using the reimplementation and 

extension of the symbolic model 

checker NuXMV, with respect to 

properties traced down from those 

specified in AADL and AGREE. 

Natasha Neogi, NASA’s technical 

point-of-contact for these awards, 

arranged for the teams to attend 

each other’s out-brief, leading to a 

lively red-team oriented questionand-answer environment. This 

enabled a vibrant exchange of ideas 

across both award efforts and has led 

to a complementary set of research 

being developed to address a wide 

range of human-machine teaming 

challenges in emerging technologies 

and operations. These sessions were 

attended by external subject matter 

experts from the FAA and the Air 

Force Research Laboratory, who 

provided valuable feedback to 

the presenters. 

ATM-X Team Meets with 

Alaska Center for UAS 

Integration 

POC: KURT SWIERINGA

On March 2, representatives 

from the Air Traffic ManagementeXploration (ATM-X) project 

met with the Alaska Center for 

Unmanned Aircraft Systems 

Integration (ACUASI) on their 

efforts to work toward Unmanned 

Aircraft Systems (UAS) freight 

transportation, as part of a meeting 

hosted by NASA’s Langley Research 

Center in Virginia. The ACUASI is 
14 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2022

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

attempting to establish a UAS freight 

transportation system in Alaska, 

which has several unique operational 

considerations and opportunities. 

ATM-X UAM Management 

Visits NASA Langley 

POC: IAN LEVITT

Between March 2–4, technical 

and programmatic leadership from 

the Air Traffic ManagementeXploration (ATM-X) project’s 

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) 

subproject traveled to NASA’s 

Langley Research Center in Virginia 

to review UAM research. The 

beginning of the visit was focused on 

detailed refinement of a management 

review of the UAM Airspace Research 

Roadmap. The Roadmap is a key 

tool for consolidating NASA’s UAM 

airspace research and development 

and will be released for a series of 

reviews with the FAA and industry 

over the coming months. Nipa 

Phojanamongkolkij led the final 

push to develop a tool that conveys 

the complex information contained 

in the Roadmap into a view of the 

subproject’s progress toward mission 

goals. Nelson Guerreiro showed the 

team the latest developments of the 

NASA/FAA Laboratory Integrated 

Test Environment (NFLITE), which 

brings together baseline assets at the 

FAA’s William J Hughes Technical 

Center and prototype capabilities at 

NASA Langley’s Air Traffic Operations Laboratory. The NFLITE 

environment provides a capability to 

conduct hybrid experimentation that 

exposes low-technology readiness 

level (TRL) prototypes to high-TRL 

production systems, allowing for early 

discovery of implementation issues as 

well as early demonstration of future 

capabilities to stakeholders. Maria 

Consiglio of NASA Langley demonstrated her team’s latest development 

of the detect and avoid (DAA) in the 

Flightdeck (DANTi) tool, which is an 

Electronic Flight Bag implementation 

of the DAA algorithms that have 

been developed and extensively tested 

in conjunction with Radio Technical 

Commission for Aeronautics Special 

Committee-228. Representative of 

assistive DAA needed to enable early 

UAM operations, the DANTi implementation has attracted attention 

from multiple stakeholders. UAM 

subproject management led the entire 

team through an annual town hall 

meeting, bringing awareness of the 

subproject’s accomplishments and 

goals to the three supporting centers 

(NASA’s Ames Research Center in 

California, NASA’s Glenn Research 

Center in Cleveland, and NASA 

Langley) and providing an opportunity for in-person harmonization 

and team building. 

ATM-X DIP Presents to the 

SWIFT Meeting 

POC: MIRNA JOHNSON

On March 3, the Air Traffic 

Management-eXploration (ATM-X) 

project’s Digital Information 

Platform (DIP) subproject conducted 

a presentation at the System Wide 

Information Management (SWIM) 

Industry-FAA Team (SWIFT) forum. 

Representatives from the DIP team 

gave a brief update on the DIP 

concept and a progress update on 

the Collaborative Digital Departure 

Re-Route service, which has been 

designed to utilize a collection of new 

machine learning-based services to 

provide near-real-time predictions for 

airport surface models. The SWIFT 

forum is open to the public and 

offers a collaborative environment 

for outreach activities related to FAA 

information services shared via the 

SWIM program. SWIFT bridges 

the gap between operations and 

technology, addressing questions 

and concerns raised regarding data 

sharing and information services. 

NASA Langley Conducts 

SmartCenter/CERTAIN MicroWeather Workshop 

POC: JAY ELY

Project and technical leaders from 

several of NASA’s Langley Research 

Center in Virginia organizations 

gathered in early March to focus on 

micro-weather sensing for NASA 

Langley’s City Environment Range 

Testing for Autonomous Integrated 

Navigation (CERTAIN) Smart 

Center (SC). Two half-day sessions 

were held with 35–50 attendees 

participating from all levels of 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2022 15

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

career experience. The workshop 

exposed a breadth and depth of 

efforts happening at NASA Langley 

and the strategic importance of 

investing in the CERTAIN SC 

ecosystem. Speakers and attendees 

focused on how to optimize crossorganization, cross-project, and 

cross-discipline collaborations and 

provide maximum value to ARMD 

and other NASA missions given 

NASA Langley’s unique location, 

partnerships, and capabilities. The 

workshop was organized by Jay 

Ely of NASA Langley’s Electromagnetics and Sensors Branch in 

response to enthusiastic encouragement from George Finelli, Dan 

Williams, and Jennifer Kibler. 

During the out-brief, it was revealed 

how CERTAIN SC weather stations, 

lidars, and tower feed information to various NASA Langley data 

networks is essentially forming a 

prototype weather information 

ecosystem that may be integrated 

into the Remote Operation for 

Autonomous Missions Unmanned 

Aircraft Systems Operations Center. 

CERTAIN SC will be a key proving 

ground for visionary concepts of 

High Density Vertiplex, ubiquitous 

sensing for weather tolerant operations, and micro-weather moderation, concepts that will become 

part of a new data and reasoning 

fabric that will enable NASA’s 

climb toward ubiquitous Urban Air 

Mobility operations with systemwide automated optimization. 

Update on NASA PC-12 

Aircraft Purchase 

POC: RAFAEL APAZA

The purchase inspection of the PC12 aircraft took place the week of 

March 7 and was conducted in San 

Antonio. A pilot and engineer from 

NASA’s Glenn Research Center in 

Cleveland traveled for the inspection. 

It is anticipated that the aircraft 

will arrive at NASA Glenn in late 

April. This aircraft will play a pivotal 

role in supporting communications, 

navigation, and surveillance research 

within AOSP. 

SWS Conducts “Wildland 

Firefighting Operations 

Workshop” with Flight Safety 

Foundation

POC: NATASHA NEOGI AND SUMMER BRANDT

Between March 9–11, the SystemWide Safety (SWS) project 

coordinated a wildland firefighting 

operations workshop through 

the NASA Aeronautics Research 

Institute (NARI), engaging the 

broader wildfire management 

ecosystem through a series 

of keynote talks, panels, and 

breakout sessions. More than 460 

participants gathered to share 

information and identify areas 

of collaboration with the broader 

wildland firefighting community. 

Ideas were exchanged in operational 

firefighting, autonomous systems, 

policy and planning, and regulatory 

domains. ARMD’s deputy associate 

administrator, Steven Clarke, and 

AOSP’s deputy director, Cheryl 

Quinn, provided opening remarks 

on NASA’s portfolio of interests 

in wildland firefighting. Seventeen 

breakout sessions and four panels 

comprised of diverse stakeholders 

from federal, state, local, and tribal 

governments, as well as industry 

and academia were spread across 

three days. SWS’s Summer Brandt 

and Natasha Neogi organized the 

workshop with the aid of Abigail 

Glenn-Chase and Anna Cavolowsky 

from NARI.

Representatives from the wildland firefighting community participate in NASA System-Wide Safety 

Wildland Firefighting Operations Virtual Workshop
16 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2022

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

UL4600 Version 2 Standard 

for Evaluation of Autonomous 

Products Approved 

POC: MALLORY GRAYDON

Underwriter’s Lab (UL) standard 

UL4600, “Standard for Evaluation 

of Autonomous Products,” is a 

standard for autonomous road 

vehicles that might serve as a basis 

for future standards for autonomous 

aviation products. For more than 

a year, Mallory Graydon led a task 

group that recommended changes 

to its Chapter 5, which concerns 

the safety cases to be produced by 

vehicle manufacturers. On March 

15, these changes, among others, 

were approved by the UL technical 

committee responsible for the 

standard. The updated version of 

the standard has been released as 

UL4600 version 2 at the following 

website: https://webstore.ansi.org/

Standards/UL/UL4600Ed2020

SWS Subject Matter Expert 

Participates on SAE AeroTech 

2022 AAM Use Cases Panel 

POC: NATASHA NEOGI

On March 16, System-Wide 

Safety (SWS) project researcher 

Natasha Neogi served as a subject 

matter expert on the Advanced Air 

Mobility (AAM) Use Cases Panel 

at the SAE AeroTech 2022 Conference in Pasadena. This year’s conference was held live. The panel was 

moderated by Davis Hackenberg 

of NASA’s AAM Mission Integration Office, and included a set of 

industry and community experts 

on AAM use cases such as Eric 

Allison of Joby, Dan Dalton of 

Wisk, Brendan Groves of Skydio, 

and Anna Mracek Dietrich of the 

FAA’s Civil Aerospace Medical Institute. Use cases for the public good 

were brought up as a key focus of 

discussion in the panel, and operations such as wildland firefighting, 

disaster response and recovery, and 

medical couriering were discussed. 

Neogi commented on regulatory 

challenges for various AAM use 

cases and provided a perspective on 

what NASA is doing to help address 

those challenges by providing guidance to the broader AAM ecosystem, 

standards bodies including SAE 

standards efforts, and the FAA. 

An additional focus of the panel 

included increasingly autonomous 

systems, in which Neogi emphasized a functional approach to 

autonomy that enables a safety 

focus for the overall system. The 

panel encompassed an optimistic 

message toward further maturing 

the technologies that would make 

AAM and other emerging aviation 

applications a reality in a safe and 

reliable fashion. 

SWS Project Continues 

Engagements with SAE G34 

POC: GUILLAUME BRAT, MISTY DAVIES

AND AARON DUTLE

The System-Wide Safety (SWS) 

project actively engaged with the 

Society of Automotive Engineers 

(SAE) International, G-34 Artificial 

Intelligence in Aviation Committee 

this past quarter. SAE G-34 is 

collaborating with the European 

Organisation for Civil Aviation 

Equipment’s (Eurocae’s) WG-114 

committee to create standards that 

will enable the inclusion of machine 

learning and artificial intelligence 

in safety-critical aviation systems 

both in the vehicles and on the 

ground. On Feb. 24, SWS project 

researcher Divya Gopinath provided 

a briefing on the Safe Deep Neural 

Network (SafeDNN) project, which 

focuses on verification techniques 

for DNNs. The SafeDNN project 

explores new techniques and 

tools to ensure that systems that 

use DNNs are safe, robust, and 

interpretable. Research directions 

in this project include symbolic 

execution for DNN analysis, labelguided clustering to automatically 

identify input regions that are 

robust, parallel, and compositional 

approaches to improve formal 

Satisfiability Modulo Theoriesbased verification, property inference and automated program repair 

for DNNs, adversarial training 

and detection, and probabilistic 

reasoning for DNNs. 

On March 10, Yuning He presented 

a talk on system analysis using 

Statistical Artificial Intelligence 

(SYSAI), a flexible learning framework for the verification and 

validation (V&V) and analysis 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2022 17

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

of cmplex and high-dimensional 

aerospace systems with DNN and 

artificial intelligence components. 

SYSAI provides functionality for a 

variety of analyses and V&V tasks, 

including statistical data analysis, 

high dimensional safety envelope 

and time series analysis, property 

checking, as well as intelligent 

test case generation. Yuning He 

demonstrated the use of SYSAI on 

an industry case study with Boeing, 

an autonomous centerline tracking 

system, which uses DNN to enable 

autonomous aircraft taxiing. The 

talk was attended by more than 60 

people from around the planet (the 

United States, Europe, Australia, 

and Japan), including many aviation companies such as Embraer, 

Airbus, Boeing, and Collins Aerospace, who were also in attendance. 

The FAA was represented by George 

Romanski and Srini Mandalapu and 

representatives from the US Naval 

Research Lab were present.

Between March 16–18, members 

of the SWS and Advanced Air 

Mobility projects attended the G-34 

plenary meeting virtually. During 

this plenary, hundreds of committee 

members collaborated to map out 

the example use cases against the 

proposed development and assurance process and worked through 

technical issues including the 

definition of the necessary domains 

and cybersecurity concerns. NASA 

researchers are acting as key subject 

matter experts across the breadth 

of technical activities, including 

systems critical to performing and 

managing flight. 

SWS Briefs ICAO on Safety 

Management Systems for 

UAM 

POC: WENDY OKOLO

On March 17, System-Wide Safety 

(SWS) project management office 

members gave a briefing to the 

International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) on the scientific 

assessment of safety management 

systems for Urban Air Mobility 

(UAM) operations. Within the 

International Forum for Aviation 

Research, the SWS leadership team 

is participating on several working 

groups – including safety and security – to assess gaps, open research 

questions, the state of the art, and 

recommendations for UAM operations and vehicles for ICAO. The 

Safety Expert Group, consisting of 

contributors from NASA, Canada, 

France, Germany, the Netherlands, 

Poland, Czech Republic, Italy, and 

South Africa, was one of the first 

groups to present findings to ICAO 

regarding considerations for safety 

management systems for UAM. 

This interaction is timely, as ICAO 

is planning modifications for future 

iterations to Annex 19, which 

covers the development, enhancement, and provisions for a state 

safety program that systematically 

addresses safety risks to the global 

air transportation system. 

ATM-X DIP Launches the 

NASA@Work Campaign 

POC: MIRNA JOHNSON

On March 21, the Air Traffic 

Management-eXploration (ATM-X) 

project’s Digital Information Platform (DIP) subproject launched a 

federated learning campaign through 

NASA@Work, which is a family of 

techniques in which multiple separate 

models are trained in “silos,” then 

combined after training into one 

shared model. The DIP subproject’s 

goal in pursuing federated learning is 

to leverage data without the need to 

expose it outside of private organizations. The DIP subproject team envisions several use cases for federated 

learning and will gather knowledge 

on potential use cases and requirements. NASA@Work is an internal, 

agency-wide platform that provides 

NASA employees an unconventional 

and innovative way to share knowledge and advance projects. Under the 

charge of NASA SOLVE, a one-stopshop for all challenges and competitions related to the agency’s mission, 

NASA@Work fosters collaboration 

across the entire NASA community 

through interactive discussion and 

challenge solving. Knowledge gathered from this campaign will inform 

the second University Challenge that 

DIP plans to host through the NASA 

Tournament Lab in Autumn 2022. 

To learn more and contribute to the 

campaign, please visit: 

https://nasa-at-work.nasa.gov/c/

campaigns/423/about
18 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2022

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

SWS Leads AAM Ecosystems 

Working Group Sessions 

POC: MISTY DAVIES AND KYLE ELLIS

The Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) 

Ecosystem Working Groups held 

a virtual workshop between March 

22–23. The AAM Mission Integration Office and NASA Aeronautics 

Research Institute were the primary 

organizers of the workshop. All 

the projects within NASA’s AAM 

Mission Integration Office participated, including representatives 

from AAM, Air Traffic ManagementeXploration, and System-Wide 

Safety (SWS). The workshop was 

well attended with more than 500 

estimated participants and featured 

a general session each day, including 

stage-setting presentations and 

industry panels, followed by several 

breakout sessions held in parallel 

to discuss major areas where maturation is needed to enable AAM. 

Breakout sessions were attended by 

approximately 50 people each and 

featured lively discussions among 

the participants. Feedback from 

the breakout sessions is intended 

to help inform research roadmaps. 

Several key SWS personnel led 

sessions, including SWS’s deputy 

project manager, Kyle Ellis, who 

led a breakout session discussing 

integrated SWS tools and methods, 

and SWS’s project manager, Misty 

Davies, who served as the crosscutting lead, was also on the 

organizing committee and led a 

breakout session on the needs 

and stakeholders for assured 

systems architectures. 

AOSP Participates in NASAUnited Airlines Meeting with 

NAC Committee Member

POC: WENDY OKOLO AND WILLIAM CHAN

On March 23, AOSP representatives attended an in-person/virtual 

meeting with United Airlines at 

NASA’s Ames Research Center in 

California. The meeting kicked 

off with the director of the NASA 

Aeronautics Research Institute, 

Parimal Kopardekar, and AOSP’s 

deputy director Cheryl Quinn, who 

provided an overview of NASA’s 

aviation research. Susan Pfingstler,

managing director of network 

operations and Air Traffic Control 

strategy for United Airlines, the 

newest member of the NASA 

Advisory Council (NAC) Aeronautics Committee, described United 

Airlines’s needs, priorities, and 

perspectives. In addition, Gilbert Wu 

provided an overview of the Air 

Traffic Management-eXploration 

project’s Digital Information 

Platform subproject, and Bryan 

Matthews presented an overview 

on the System-Wide Safety (SWS) 

project, which focused on SWSdeveloped tools and capabilities on 

anomaly detection and precursor 

identification for flight operations. As a result of the discussions, 

Pfingstler recommended a potential 

collaboration opportunity between 

AOSP and United Airlines. 

ATM-X xTM ETM Delivers a 

Research Transition Product 

to the FAA 

POC: JAEWOO JUNG

On March 24, the Air Traffic 

Management-eXploration (ATM-X)

project’s Extensible Traffic Management (xTM) subproject Upper 

Class E Traffic Management (ETM) 

team delivered an ETM research 

transition team engineering working 

group research transition product 

(RTP), “ETM Initial Requirements Documentation,” to the 

FAA. This RTP marked an important step towards the NASA/FAA’s 

stakeholder-informed effort to 

build an ETM system for managing 

operations in high altitudes. In this 

airspace, a variety of aircraft with 

large performance differences such 

as a balloon, solar-powered high 

altitude long endurance uncrewed 

aircraft, and high-speed fixed-wing 

uncrewed aircraft are expected to fly, 

performing wildfire response, earth 

observations, telecommunications, 

and other missions. NASA and the 

FAA will continue working together 

and engaging with stakeholders 

to develop the ETM system and 

deliver RTPs. 

Pilot-Focused UAM Research 

Study Completes Phase I of 

Data Collection

POC: RANIA GHATAS

The Air Traffic ManagementeXploration (ATM-X) project’s 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2022 19

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) 

subproject team, comprised of 

Rania Ghatas of NASA’s Langley 

Research Center in Virginia and 

Savvy Verma, Richard Mogford, 

and Victoria Dulchinos of NASA’s 

Ames Research Center in California, 

recently completed the first of a 

series of a cross-center studies called 

UAM Pilot/Provider of Services for 

UAM Information Exchange and 

Contingency Airspace Management 

Procedures. The objectives of the 

interviews were to elicit expert 

knowledge concerning current-day 

National Airspace System (NAS) 

operations and how they might be 

applied to near-term UAM operations including, but not limited 

to, communications and airspace 

procedures during regular and 

emergency operations. Phase I of 

data collection, Jan. 4–March 25, 

consisted of 12 pilots, including 9 

helicopter pilots (3 air ambulance/

MedEvac, 3 air tour rides, and 

3 private charter) and 3 general 

aviation fixed-wing pilots. All 

pilots had at least two years’ worth 

of experience flying in the NAS. 

Minimum participation requirements for helicopter pilots included 

having experience flying for Part 

135 operators. Phase II of the study 

is set to start data collection runs in 

April 2022 and plans to recruit 3–5 

aircraft dispatchers with at least two 

years’ worth of experience working 

for Part 135 or Part 121 operators. 

NASA-FAA Quarterly Review 

POC: WILLIAM CHAN

Between March 29–30, the Air 

Traffic Management-eXploration 

(ATM-X) project hosted a 

two-day hybrid in-person/virtual 

NASA-FAA quarterly review at 

the NASA Aeronautics Research 

Institute. FAA participants included 

Diana Liang, Enterprise portfolio 

manager); Nabil Sandhu, Advanced 

Air Mobility Beyond Visual 

Line of Sight National Airspace 

System Evaluation (BNE) lead; 

Sherri Magyarits, Upper Class 

E Traffic Management Concept 

of Operations (ConOps) lead 

and research transition team 

co-lead; Nouri Ghazavi, Urban 

Air Mobility (UAM) ConOps 

lead; Matt Modderno; Michelle 

Cady; and TJ Tejasen. Both days 

consisted of ATM-X presentations 

on research status and schedule 

updates from teams representing 

Digital Information Platform 

(DIP), Extensible Traffic Management (xTM), UAM, Pathfinding 

for Airspace with Autonomous 

Vehicles (PAAV), and Sky for All. 

In addition to these presentations, 

Arwa Aweiss, Rich Coppenbarger, 

and Nabil Sandhu led a breakout 

session on BNE and PAAV. Paul 

Lee and Sherri Magyarits held a 

breakout session toward developing 

a framework to describe research 

challenges for xTM-Air Traffic 

Control interaction. Mirna Johnson, 

Jeremy Coupe, and TJ Tejasen gave 

an overview and a status update on 

the DIP Sustainable Aviation-1a 

(SA-1a) Demonstration and SA-2 

formulation progress. Jeanne Yu 

and Michelle Cady led a Sky for All 

breakout working session. Marcus 

Johnson described the NASA-Japan 

Aerospace Exploration Agency 

collaboration on Unmanned 

Aircraft Systems Traffic Management (UTM). FAA representatives 

led discussions on their UTM flight 

test industry day debrief and next 

steps. The NASA-FAA quarterly 

review continues to provide both 

agencies the opportunity to enable 

deeper technical discussions among 

the various teams to strengthen 

future collaborations. 

ATM-X Sky for All Conducts 

Exploratory Virtual Workshops 

POC: SHAWN ENGELLAND

The Air Traffic ManagementeXploration (ATM-X) project’s 

Sky for All activity, a community 

co-developed vision that will 

guide NASA and FAA research 

and development investment 

decisions for decades to come, 

recently completed a series of 

exploratory session interactive 

virtual workshops to guide the 

vision for the mid-21st century 

future aviation system. The Sky for 

All team led the following use case 

workshops: “Greener Aviation” on 

March 21; “Future of Freight” on 

March 24; “Relief from Above” on 

March 25; “Urban Air Travel” on 
20 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2022

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

March 31; and “Flight from New 

Heights,” scheduled on April 11. 

Additional workshop sessions in 

April include “Digital Airspace 

and Communications, Navigation 

and Surveillance (CNS)” on April 

1; “Data and Decision Support 

Marketplace and Micro-services for 

Operators” on April 4; “Intelligent 

and Adaptive Automation” on 

April 6; “Systems of Systems 

Architecture and Methods” on 

April 7; and a mini-workshop 

on “In-Time System-Wide Safety 

Assurance” with the Flight Safety 

Foundation on April 26. Diverse 

stakeholders from the aviation 

industry, including flight operators, 

service providers, manufacturers, 

aviation and standards organizations, 

government, and the public were 

in attendance. Each workshop is an 

opportunity to drive collaborative 

discussions that will help NASA 

shape the principles and aspirations, 

capabilities, opportunities, use cases, 

barriers, and research questions that 

will put NASA on the path toward 

a sustainable, safe, resilient, and 

adaptable shared airspace. 

SWS and Flight Safety 

Foundation Host Workshops 

for IASMS Roadmap 

POC: MICHAEL VINCENT, MISTY DAVIES

AND KYLE ELLIS

The System-Wide Safety (SWS) 

project is working with the Flight 

Safety Foundation to lay out a 

high-level, long-term roadmap 

for the In-Time Aviation Safety 

Management System (IASMS) 

in a series of mini-workshops 

meant to refine material on 

key themes identified from 

stakeholder interviews. Workshops 

will be comprised of structured 

tabletop exercises to identify key 

dependencies (technical and policy), 

risks, and opportunities. NASA 

subject matter expert input from 

the small group workshops will be 

used to update the material being 

drafted in advance of external 

stakeholder outreach. Workshops 

1 and 2 took place between March 

17–18 and consisted of moderated 

discussions regarding safety risks 

of emerging aviation operations 

as well as potential strengths, 

weaknesses, opportunities, and 

threats to the technologies that 

will enable those operations. The 

roadmap will eventually help guide 

the development and deployment 

of emerging aviation operations, 

such as those being researched by 

NASA’s Advanced Air Mobility 

and Air Traffic ManagementeXploration (ATM-X) projects. The 

first day of discussions focused on 

data sharing and metrics, predictive 

analytics, and cybersecurity while 

the second day focused on issues 

surrounding autonomy, radio 

frequency spectrum management, 

and detect and avoid. Researchers 

and subject matter experts from 

ATM-X and SWS participated across 

both days. Workshop 3 occurred on 

March 29 and covered a review of 

an initial draft of risks and strength, 

weakness, opportunity, and threat 

analysis for “Institutional Resiliency 

to Significant Disruptions,” 

“Institutional Agility to Mitigate 

Risks,” “Robust Business Models,” 

and “Agile Regulatory Approach.” 

Workshop 4, scheduled for April 13, 

will cover “Public Education is 

Critical,” “Harmonization of 

Standards,” and “Equity for New 

Entrants and Communities.” 

Finally, Workshop 5, scheduled for 

April 14, is reserved for topics not 

completed earlier and “Airspace and 

Procedures,” “Weather Forecasting 

and Nowcasting,” and “Ground Risk 

Assessment.” 

Resilience Analysis and 

Design Team Releases Fault 

Model Design Tools Python 

Package Version 1 

POC: DANIEL HULSE

In March 2022, System-Wide 

Safety (SWS) project researchers 

released a new version of the Fault 

Model Design tools (fmdtools) 

resilience modeling, simulation, 

and analysis package. Researchers 

included Daniel Hulse and Hannah 

Walsh from NASA with Sequoia 

Andrade and Lukman Irshad 

representing KBR. The fmdtools 

package simulates system faults in 

the early design phase to enable a 

more complete, formalized, and 

resilience-based functional hazard 

assessment process. To achieve this, 

fmdtools provides a Python-based 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2022 21

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

design environment where one can 

represent the system in a model, 

simulate the resilience of the model 

to faults, and analyze the resulting 

model responses to iteratively 

improve the resilience of the design. 

This 1.0 release, the first public 

release as a NASA tool, brings many 

desired new features to the toolkit, 

including: 1) evaluation of system 

resilience and performance over a 

number of stochastically generated 

parameters defined in the model 

or external sampling approach; 2) 

parallel simulation and recording of 

operational and resilience scenarios 

for increased computational 

performance; 3) improvements to 

model representation syntax that 

enable faster model specification 

and model types that simulate more 

efficiently; 4) improvements to 

graphing and plotting capabilities 

to better represent the system 

model and performance over large 

sets of scenarios and interaction 

with external packages; and 

5) improvements to code function, 

documentation, and supported 

workflows. These features 

support the toolkit’s ability to 

efficiently simulate early stage, 

high-level models over a wide 

range of nominal and hazardous 

conditions to achieve a more 

informed assessment of a system’s 

vulnerability and resilience to 

hazards. The fmdtools 1.0 release is 

available on GitHub, where it will 

continue to be updated with new 

features to support desired use cases. 

ATM-X DIP Makes Progress on 

CDDR Service Development 

POC: MIRNA JOHNSON

This past quarter, the Air Traffic 

Management-eXploration (ATM-X) 

project’s Digital Information 

Platform (DIP) subproject team 

continued to make progress on the 

development of the Collaborative 

Digital Departure Re-Routing 

(CDDR) service for the sustainable 

aviation demonstration of DIP. 

The team has completed a traffic 

management initiative integration 

service to improve the re-route 

recommendations from CDDR. 

To further inform platform feature 

requirements, services such as 

the microservices used in CDDR 

will share quality metrics through 

the platform so consumers can 

confidently discover and select 

services most appropriate for their 

specific use cases. The team has 

prototyped accuracy and quality of 

service metrics to evaluate which 

ones are valuable in this decisionmaking process. The software team 

has also developed upgrades to 

CDDR with a Trajectory Option 

Set (TOS) Mode Management 

capability to adapt to the varying 

responsibilities users have based 

on the site or region. In one site, 

a center controller may approve 

a re-route request, whereas 

another site would have a terminal 

controller approve a request. The 

TOS Mode Management allows 

for easy adaptation that will be 

necessary as DIP eventually moves 

from the North Texas area in Fiscal 

Year 2022–2023 to a more complex 

airspace in Fiscal Year 2024.

On March 31, the team achieved 

some key milestones for 2022. 

The team held a Demonstration 

Readiness Review for its Sustainable 

Aviation-1a CDDR tool in North 

Texas. This review covered readiness 

of procedures, software, analysis 

plan, and resources to execute the 

demonstration. Southwest Airlines 

and American Airlines, who are 

partnering for the demonstration, 

have confirmed readiness to 

support data collection beginning 

on April 28, 2022. 
22 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2022

RECOGNITION

SWS Technology Expected 

to Advance Career Astronaut 

Training and Certifications 

POC: CHAD STEPHENS

On Feb. 1, research sponsored by 

the System-Wide Safety (SWS) 

project resulted in a new license 

(DN-1710) with AdvancingX 

(https://advancingx.com) for three 

patented NASA technologies. 

These patented technologies are 

expected to contribute to the 

AdvancingX focus areas of human 

health and risk mitigation, human 

factors research, and optimal team 

design – all of which are capabilities 

supporting career astronaut training 

and certifications. AdvancingX 

specializes in identifying, selecting, 

and training career astronaut teams 

for the commercial space industry 

for Moon and Mars missions 

using advanced technologies 

and research in human-machine 

teaming and space mining. The 

co-inventors on the licensed patents 

include researchers Chad Stephens, 

Lance Prinzel, Alan Pope, Kellie 

Kennedy, and Angela Harrivel of 

NASA’s Langley Research Center 

in Virginia. The patents are LAR17895-1, Patent No. US 9,623,324 

B2; LAR-18996-1, Patent No. US 

10,192,173 B; and LAR-19051-1, 

Patent No. US 10,997,526 B2. 

ATM-X xTM Presents at 

Seminar at LeTourneau 

University 

POC: JAEWOO JUNG

On Feb. 4, Jaewoo Jung from the 

Air Traffic Management-eXploration 

(ATM-X) project’s Extensible Traffic 

Management (xTM) subproject 

presented in a virtual seminar to 

a group of students and faculty at 

LeTourneau University in Longview, 

Texas. Jung provided an overview 

of NASA’s xTM research, including 

Upper Class E Traffic Management 

and the interactions between 

xTM-supported highly-automated 

operations and human-centric 

conventional air traffic operations. 

The seminar concluded with a 

question-and-answer session, where 

the students and faculty asked about 

technology and NASA in general. 

Two ATM-X Teams Receive 

NASA Group Honor Awards 

POC: WILLIAM CHAN

In February 2022, the 

ecoDemonstrator Tailored Arrivals 

Manager team received a 2021 

NASA Group Achievement Award. 

The team was recognized for its work 

in advancing the state of the art in 

airspace management technologies 

by field testing advanced NASA 

technologies with the Boeing 

ecoDemonstrator aircraft. Tailored 

Arrivals Manager relies on NASA’s 

Autoresolver algorithm to compute 

fuel-efficient trajectory solutions 

that ensure separation while also 

managing time-based metering 

constraints. Autoresolver is designed 

to support dense and complex 

future traffic levels that will require 

increasingly autonomous air traffic 

management solutions to ensure 

safety and efficiency. Tailored 

Arrivals Manager was used in 

ecoDemonstrator flights where 

trajectory-based advisories were sent 

to a Boeing 737 MAX aircraft using 

digital data communications. The 

Air Traffic Management-eXploration 

(ATM-X) Increasingly Diverse 

Operations team also received 

a NASA Group Achievement 

Award. The team was recognized for 

demonstrating resilience, ingenuity, 

and dedication to complete data 

collection to contribute to an agency 

performance indicator using the 

Integrated Demand Management 

(IDM) concept. The IDM concept 

improves the ability to match air 

traffic demand to reduced capacity. 

The onset of the pandemic forced the 

team to be flexible and innovative 

to develop a plan for data collection 

that was feasible given restricted 

access to the center for both 

developers and subjects. The team 

conceived of an alternate plan that, 

with some work on the part of the 

developers, would allow them to use 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2022 23

RECOGNITION

a skeleton crew onsite to present and 

collect feedback on various scenarios 

remotely. Despite these challenges, 

the team stayed focused and resilient 

and provided important results to 

the project, enabling completion 

of an important milestone. 

Sky for All Participates 

in ImaginAviation 

POC: SHAWN ENGELLAND

On March 3, the Air Traffic 

Management-eXploration 

(ATM-X) project’s Sky for All 

vision team conducted a panel 

discussion with representatives 

from various NASA organizations 

entitled “A Sky for All: Imagining 

an Integrated, Dynamic Aerospace 

System” at imaginAviation, a 

three-day virtual event sponsored 

by NASA’s Transformative 

Aeronautics Concepts Program. 

The event showcased many of 

NASA’s aeronautical innovators, 

who presented updates on the 

programs and projects they are 

working on. Sky for All continued 

to have a presence throughout the 

duration of the event, including 

hosting a virtual “Meet and Greet 

Networking and Social Session” 

booth in the Gather.Town platform. 

To view the panel discussion, 

please visit: https://www.youtube.

com/watch?v=Om5BM7x-Yd0. 

Marcus Johnson Receives 

John J. Green Award at 

the ICAS Congress 2022 

POC: WILLIAM CHAN AND JAEWOO JUNG

In March 2022, NASA’s Marcus 

Johnson and Adriana AndreevaMori of the Japan Aerospace 

Exploration Agency (JAXA) were 

awarded the International Council 

of Aeronautical Sciences (ICAS) 

John J. Green Award for the 

ICAS Congress 2022. They were 

recognized for their efforts on the 

NASA and JAXA disaster response 

collaboration. The primary aim 

of the collaboration, which began 

in 2016, was to demonstrate the 

performance of Unmanned Aircraft 

System (UAS) Traffic Management 

(UTM) in disaster relief operations 

and support post-disaster 

operations in a more efficient 

manner using UAS. These efforts 

culminated in a flight test using 

UTM during a national disaster 

response drill in Japan. To continue 

their collaborations, NASA and 

JAXA recently renewed their 

agreement, which started in 2021, 

to focus on improved integration 

of conventional aircraft, UAS, 

and other Advanced Air Mobility 

aircraft during disaster relief 

operations – specifically wildfire 

response and post-hurricane/

tsunami recovery. Additionally, 

Johnson is the first recipient from 

the United States and NASA to 

win this distinguished award 

since its inception in 2001. 

Johnson and Andreeva-Mori will 

receive their awards at the ICAS 

2022 Congress in September 

in Stockholm, where they will 

also deliver a seminar on their 

collaboration. The ICAS Award is 

to honor young professionals of 

distinction, who, by virtue of their 

participation and involvement in 

aeronautics, have an exceptional 

record in fostering international 

cooperation between scientists. 

SWS Research Receives 

Official “Thank You” 

from the FAA 

POC: NIKUNJ OZA

In early March 2022, on behalf of 

their Oceanic Monitoring team, 

Andrew Mueller of the FAA’s Air 

Traffic Safety Operations Oversight 

Division (AOV) sent NASA’s 

Nikunj Oza an official message 

of thanks for Bryan Matthews’s 

“tireless effort” in collaborating 

with the team and uncovering 

“...at least one possible deviation 

event that appears was never 

reported, exposing a potential 

safety incident that was previously 

undetected.” Matthews’s work 

helped AOV better understand 

the ability to use data analytics 

to investigate and understand 
24 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2022

RECOGNITION

other unreported deviations in the 

oceanic flight information regions. 

ATM-X xTM Technical 

Lead to Speak at the AAAI 

2022 Spring Symposium 

POC: JAEWOO JUNG

On March 22, the Air Traffic 

Management-eXploration (ATM-X) 

project’s Extensible Traffic 

Management (xTM) subproject 

technical lead Jaewoo Jung was 

invited to speak at the Advancement 

of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) 

2022 Spring Symposium at Stanford 

University. The symposium “Can 

we talk? How to Design Multiagent Systems in the Absence of 

Reliable Communications” was to 

help identify research avenues that 

can move the artificial intelligence 

community beyond theoretical 

results for simple domains. Jung’s 

talk specifically focused on 

communications challenges in the 

xTM domain. 

SWS Researcher 

Delivers Keynote at IEEE 

International Conference 

on Assured Autonomy 

POC: MISTY DAVIES AND GUILLAUME BRAT

On March 22, Guillaume Brat 

from the System-Wide Safety 

(SWS) project and Huafeng Yu, a 

principal investigator at Boeing, 

gave a joint keynote presentation 

at the Institute for Electrical and 

Electronic Engineers’ (IEEE) 

International Conference on 

Assured Autonomy. The keynote was 

titled “Towards Safety Assurance 

of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-

enabled Autonomous Systems,” and 

presented recent progress toward 

safety assurance for AI-enabled 

autonomous systems, particularly 

machine learning-related verification 

and validation technologies. 

SWS Presentation at 

Graduate Seminar Series 

POC: WENDY OKOLO

On March 25, System-Wide Safety’s 

(SWS) associate project manager 

Wendy Okolo presented a talk 

entitled “Planes, Drones, and Air 

Taxis: Safety Considerations in a 

Highly Autonomous Airspace” as 

part of the University of Texas 

at Arlington’s Mechanical and 

Aerospace Engineering Department 

Graduate Seminar Series. In her 

talk, Okolo addressed the safety 

complexities of integrating Urban 

Air Mobility and small Unmanned 

Aircraft Systems into the National 

Airspace System and the associated 

considerations necessary to enable 

safety in operations and design. 

Okolo also touched on opportunities 

for collaboration, open access 

tools available, and other ways for 

attendees to get involved with SWS’s 

mission. More than 50 graduate 

students, faculty members, and 

university personnel attended the 

hybrid virtual/in-person presentation. 
National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Headquarters

300 E. Street, SW

Washington, DC 20024

www.nasa.gov/aeroresearch

www.nasa.gov