National Aeronautics and Space Administration

www.nasa.gov

AOSP Newsletter

Airspace Operations and Safety Program (AOSP)

JAN-MAR 2020 | Quarter 2

ATD-2 Benefit Milestone 

Achieved: 100,000 Urban Trees

3

ecoDemonstrator Lab Series 

Completed

15
2 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2020

AOSP IN THE NEWS

NASA Advances Urban 

Flying Transport Plans 

With 17 Companies

ZDNet (3/4, Chanthadavong) 

reports “the National Aeronautics 

and Space Administration 

(NASA) has now signed Space Act 

Agreements with 17 companies from 

the aviation industry, including 

Boeing, Uber, and AirMap, as part 

of its plans to bring air transport 

solutions and systems in and 

around densely populated metro 

areas through its urban air mobility 

(UAM) grand challenge. According 

to the agency, if UAM is fully 

implemented it could enable the air 

transportation of things like small 

packages, taxi services, medical 

services, such as patient ambulance 

transportation, and cargo delivery to 

regional or rural communities.”

NASA Adds 17 Companies 

to UAM Grand Challenge

ATCA Headline News (3/6) reports 

“NASA signed agreements with 

17 aviation companies to support 

its Urban Air Mobility (UAM) 

Grand Challenge technology 

demonstrations on Tuesday. Each 

company provided a proposal in one 

of three categories: developmental 

flight testing, developmental 

airspace simulation and vehicle 

provider information exchange. 

The new agreements will focus on 

developmental testing in advance of 

the first Grand Challenge, which is 

planned for 2022.”

NASA Lays Out Plans to 

Enable Advanced Air Mobility

Aviation Week (3/25) reports “NASA 

has renamed its Urban Air Mobility Grand Challenge the Advanced 

Air Mobility National Campaign, a 

seemingly simple name change that 

signals recognition that industry’s 

interest is in more than just downtown air transportation.”
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2020 3

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

ATD-2 Benefit Milestone 

Achieved: 100,000 Urban Trees 

POC: HANBONG LEE

As of January 31, the Airspace 

Technology Demonstration 2 

(ATD-2) team achieved its benefit 

milestone of 100,000 urban trees 

planted through the ATD-2 field 

demonstration at Charlotte Douglas 

International Airport, since being 

deployed on September 29, 2017. 

By holding departures at gates 

through surface metering during 

peak periods and pre-scheduling 

approval request (APREQ) flights 

at gates, as well as renegotiating 

the release times of APREQ 

flights while taxiing through 

ATD-2 Integrated Departure 

Arrival Capability capabilities, it is 

estimated that 652,613 gallons of 

fuel savings and 13,487,415 pounds 

of CO2 emission reduction have 

been achieved so far, with a total 

of 3,317 hours of engine run time 

reduction. The amount of CO2

savings is equivalent to planting 

100,292 urban trees, according to 

the formula developed by the U.S. 

Environmental Protection Agency. 

Unprecedented Number of 

Aircraft in Airspace and 

Traffic Operations Simulation 

POC: BILL BUCK

On January 13, a simulation 

scenario featuring an unprecedented 

number of aircraft was successfully 

run. For researchers at NASA’s 

Langley Research Center in 

Virginia, this marked a milestone 

achievement in their ability to 

create realistic air traffic scenarios. 

During testing for the “Exploration 

ATM Services Batch Study 1,” a 

simulation scenario with an 

unprecedented number of aircraft 

was successfully run using the 

Airspace and Traffic Operations 

Simulation. This scenario had 1,553 

Aircraft Simulations for Traffic 

Operations Research (ASTOR) 

aircraft flying (maximum of 289 

simultaneous operations), and an 

additional 447 background aircraft. 

Each instantiation of ASTOR is 

a medium-fidelity networked and 

interactive desktop simulation of 

a commercial transport aircraft 

and its flight deck systems. The 

simulation scenario was built with 

researcher-developed automated 

scripts from real-world recorded 

aircraft traffic position data, gridded 

4D wind and temperature data, 

convective weather, and Special 

Use Airspace data from May 23, 

2018. Prior to this, the largest 

total number of ASTOR aircraft 

in a single simulation scenario was 

500. Before this effort, air traffic 

scenarios that replicated real-world 

conditions were created using a 

labor-intensive manual process, 

and traffic scenarios that featured 

this number of ASTOR aircraft 

were contrived and not based on 

actual flight routes. The process 

and automated scripts used to 

generate simulation scenarios for 

batch study 1 represent a significant 

Benefit results from ATD-2 field demonstration at Charlotte Douglas International Airport
4 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2020

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

step forward in the state-of-theart in scenario generation and 

air traffic simulation. The Air 

Traffic Management-eXploration 

Increasing Diverse Operations 

(IDO) subproject exploration of air 

traffic management services element 

seeks to increase user flexibility 

achieved by increased operational 

autonomy and system-wide 

predictability simultaneously by 

using dynamic, intelligent trajectory 

optimization and negotiation. The 

goal of the exploratory batch study 

1 is to create simulation scenarios 

representative of a 2040 Trajectory 

Based Operations environment, 

along with a documented process, 

that can be used in future batch 

studies for the IDO research. 

SAE S-18 Aircraft and 

System Development 

and Safety Assessment 

Committee Meeting

POC: MALLORY GRAYDON, 

TERRY MORRIS AND JOHN KOELLING

On January 13, researcher Mallory 

Graydon from NASA’s Langley 

Research Center in Virginia 

participated in the SAE S-18 

Aircraft and System Development 

and Safety Assessment Committee 

Meeting in San Diego. SAE S-18 is 

now finalizing proposed revisions 

of the Aerospace Recommended 

Practice (ARP) 4754A safety 

process standard and the ARP 

4761 safety analysis standard, and 

is drafting aerospace information 

reports on Unmanned Aircraft 

Systems, the use of systems theoretic 

process analysis in aerospace 

applications, and the use of system 

models, modeling tools, and 

modeling analysis tools. A complete 

writeup on the progress is available.

Joint Authorities for 

Rulemaking on Unmanned 

Systems Working 

Group 6 Meeting

POC: MARCUS JOHNSON

NASA’s Unmanned Aircraft System 

(UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) 

project participated in the recent 

Joint Authorities for Rulemaking 

on Unmanned Systems (JARUS) 

Working Group 6 (Safety and Risk 

Management) meeting held in 

Wellington, New Zealand, from 

January 13-16. The working group 

included representation from the 

following government organizations: 

the FAA, New Zealand Ministry 

of Transport, Civil Aviation 

Authority of New Zealand, the 

Australian Civil Aviation Safety 

Authority, French Civil Aviation 

Authority (Direction générale de 

l’aviation civile), Civil Aviation 

Administration of China, and Civil 

Aviation Administration-Denmark. 

There were also representatives 

from several airspace providers, 

including Uber, Wing, and Airbus. 

Operator and manufacturer 

representation included Matternet 

and Boeing. The working group’s 

main focus was on state-of-thework products, a UTM Annex, and 

an out brief of each of the work 

products. Overall, the meeting was 

productive, and NASA is seen as 

adding value to the acceleration of 

UAS regulation development and 

Participants attend the JARUS Safety and Risk Management Working Group in Wellington, New Zealand
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2020 

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

the UAS technical development/

standards from both industry and 

global civil aviation authorities 

through this JARUS venue.

National Campaign Visit 

to Choctaw Nation

POC: SHIVANJLI SHARMA

On January 17, NASA’s Advanced 

Air Mobility (AAM) National 

Campaign team visited the Choctaw 

Nation Headquarters in Oklahoma, 

as part of a meeting discussing the 

tribe’s buildup of capabilities in 

support of the FAA’s Integration 

Pilot Program (IPP) as well as Urban 

Air Mobility (UAM) testing. The 

meeting focused on infrastructure 

and design of the Choctaw Nation’s 

range to support IPP, UAM, and 

their applications for transport, 

agriculture, and safety services. The 

meeting included participation from 

Administrator Bridenstine, FAA 

officials, the National Campaign 

project management lead, the 

National Campaign Airspace Test 

Infrastructure lead, as well as Bell, 

Oklahoma State University, Noble 

Research Institute, GE AiRXOS, 

and other industry partners. The 

meeting highlighted infrastructure 

needs for small Unmanned Aircraft 

Systems and UAM vehicles with 

ground-based detect and avoid 

radars and advanced weather 

infrastructure. Discussions during 

the meeting focused on data and 

testing needs required to establish 

a regulatory framework that will 

permit more complex low-altitude 

operations as well as higher 

altitude operations for cargo and 

passenger carrying UAM vehicles.

ATM-X Participates in 

the Vertical Flight Society 

Transformative Vertical 

Flight 2020 Meeting

POC: DAVID THIPPHAVONG AND WILLIAM CHAN

From January 21-23, the Air Traffic 

Management-eXploration (ATM-X) 

project participated in the Vertical 

Flight Society Transformative 

Vertical Flight 2020 meeting in 

San Jose, California. There were 

about 60 technical presentations 

on topics including aerodynamics, 

acoustics, Urban Air Mobility 

(UAM) design and configurations, 

and electric Vertical Takeoff and 

Landing performance. In addition, 

there were about a dozen panels 

on topics such as manufacturing, 

5

NASA visits the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma in support of the AAM National Campaign. Pictured 

left-to-right: Starr Ginn, National Campaign lead; Jim Bridenstine, NASA administrator; and 

Shivanjli Sharma, National Campaign Airspace Test Infrastructure lead
6 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2020

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

crashworthiness, infrastructure, 

ridesharing, and cargo delivery. 

There were keynote speakers 

from government, industry, and 

academia, including representatives 

from the FAA, U.S. Army, the 

White House Office of Science and 

Technology Policy, Uber, and Bell. 

The ATM-X project management 

team conducted valuable 

interactions with other attendees, 

including potential collaboration 

opportunities. ATM-X was able to 

hear a wide range of perspectives to 

help shape ATM-X UAM research. 

Noise impacts continue to be a 

top concern of industry and the 

UAM community at large. The 

investor panel made a point that 

more emphasis should be placed on 

infrastructure, including airspace 

access to enable UAM operations. 

System-Wide Safety Visit to 

Swiss Air Lines Headquarters

POC: NIKUNJ OZA AND BRYAN MATTHEWS

From January 22-23, AOSP 

researchers Nikunj Oza and Bryan 

Matthews from the System-Wide 

Safety project visited Swiss Air Lines 

Headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland. 

The purpose of their visit was to 

discuss and set up two algorithm 

implementations (Multiple Kernel 

Anomaly Detection and Deep 

Temporal Multiple-Instance 

Learning), test them to confirm they 

find interesting anomalies, and then 

set up Swiss Air Lines personnel to 

use the algorithm implementation. 

This work is being conducted 

through a non-reimbursable Space 

Act Agreement between NASA 

and Swiss Air Lines that includes 

collaboration on developing 

machine learning capabilities. 

Unmanned Aircraft 

Safety Team Meeting

POC: STEVE YOUNG AND BECKY HOOEY

On January 30, AOSP researchers 

Steve Young and Becky Hooey 

participated in the Unmanned 

Aircraft Safety Team (UAST) 

meeting in Anaheim, California. 

The meeting was held in 

conjunction with the Helicopter 

Association International (HAI) - 

Heli-Expo in Anaheim, California, 

from January 27-30. The UAST 

is a government/industry group 

chartered in 2016 to develop 

consensus-based and data-driven 

safety enhancements for Unmanned 

Aircraft System (UAS) operations. 

The team meets quarterly, and 

generally consists of approximately 

75 people representing industry 

and government organizations 

spanning the UAS community. At 

this meeting, agenda topics included 

status reports from the four working 

groups: Data Reporting, Mitigation, 

Assurance, and Communications/

Outreach. In support of the Data 

Reporting working group, Young 

and Hooey have been working 

with the FAA to enhance NASA’s 

Aviation Safety Reporting System 

to enable better reporting of UAS 

incidents, as well as providing 

better analysis of reports regarding 

identifying safety-relevant trends 

and precursors. Hooey presented 

the status of this initiative, which 

will occur over the next several 

months with funding from the FAA, 

implementation by NASA, and 

outreach via UAST to an emerging 

and large population of data/

event reporters. In support of the 

Mitigation working group, Young is 

helping to develop two additional 

initiatives, based in part on research 

within NASA’s System-Wide Safety 

project. At the meeting, updates on 

each of these safety enhancements 

were provided, which are aimed at 

reducing risk associated with future 

UAS operations. Also presented at 

the meeting was a review of recent 

UAS-related accidents presented 

by the National Transportation 

Safety Board, and the status of 

policy and regulatory activities by 

the FAA, such as the “RemoteID” 

notice of proposed rulemaking. 

Researcher Delivers 

Reference Implementation to 

Aviation Standards Group

POC: AARON DUTLE, CÉSAR MUÑOZ, 

LAURA TITOLO, AND MARIANO MOSCATO

From January 24-31, researcher 

Aaron Dutle from NASA’s Langley 

Research Center in Virginia 

delivered the NASA-developed 

formally verified reference 

implementation of the Compact 

Position Reporting (CPR) 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2020 

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

algorithm, a critical aspect of the 

Automatic Dependent SurveillanceBroadcast (ADS-B) system, at the 

14th meeting of the Combined 

Surveillance Committee (CSC) 

held in Melbourne, Florida. The 

CSC is a joint committee between 

the RTCA special committees 186 

and 209 and the European Aviation 

Safety Agency working groups 49 

and 51, with participation from 

industry partners. The CSC is 

currently updating the Minimum 

Operational Performance Standards 

for the 1090 MHz extended 

squitter (DO-260 in the United 

States), which defines the standard 

for ADS-B. The CPR algorithm 

was developed and verified by the 

Formal Methods group at Langley. 

This delivery is the culmination of 

nearly five years of work performed 

by the Formal Methods group, 

under the System-Wide Safety 

project, in support of the CSC. 

The CPR algorithm specifies how 

aircraft communicate their current 

position over the ADS-B interface. 

The CPR algorithm is known to be 

difficult to implement, and errors 

can lead to wildly incorrect position 

reports. Following a formal analysis 

of the algorithm, the Formal 

Methods group proposed the 

following to the CSC: (1) stricter 

requirements, which are proved 

to guarantee correct behavior of 

CPR; (2) alternate mathematical 

formulas, which are equivalent to 

the original ones but incur fewer 

numerical errors; (3) alternate 

formulations of the algorithm, 

which are formally verified 

correct assuming real arithmetic; 

(4) a reference implementation 

in C, which is formally verified 

correct, and is publicly available 

under NASA’s Open Source 

Agreement; and (5) new test 

cases, which stress some difficult 

aspects of the algorithm. These 

recommendations were adopted 

and are intended to be incorporated 

in revision C of DO-260, which is 

slated to enter a final review and 

comment period in March 2020.

Alwyn Goodloe Attended 

the 2nd Assured 

Autonomy Workshop

POC: ALWYN E. GOODLOE, TERRY MORRIS, 

JOHN KOELLING, AND MISTY D. DAVIES

On February 2, researcher Alwyn 

Goodloe from NASA’s Langley 

Research Center in Virginia 

attended the 2nd Assured 

Autonomy Workshop in Phoenix. 

The workshop was organized 

by the Computing Community 

Consortium on behalf of the 

National Science Foundation. 

Goodloe attended various panel 

sessions related to artificial 

intelligence, verification, security, 

and human interaction. The issues 

raised at the workshop included: (1) 

autonomous systems must be secure 

with respect to a well-thought-out 

threat model, however there is no 

knowledge of a case study with a 

good threat model; (2) autonomous 

systems must be safe with respect 

to a well-thought-out safety 

analysis, however there is no known 

case study for which any safety 

analysis has been done, and most 

academic researchers have no idea 

what such an analysis would look 

like; (3) verification of perception 

will require an unknown amount 

of basic research or involve new 

techniques that are more reliable 

than neural nets; (4) researchers 

are selecting properties to verify 

that they know how to formalize, 

however, no one believes that 

assuring these properties gets the 

community anywhere near the goal 

of assured autonomy (a worry is that 

the community is building tools 

focused on verifying too narrow a 

range of properties); (5) machine 

learning might make it cheaper to 

build a controller, but it is almost 

impossible to find anyone who 

thinks it is a good idea to put such 

things in safety-critical systems such 

as flight controls (in fact, for most 

robots it will be far cheaper and 

easier to build and verify traditional 

proportional integral derivative 

controllers); and (6) perception 

is the domain where the case for 

using machine learning is most 

compelling and here the verification 

challenge seems most intractable. 

Goodloe reported that the research 

community wants more investment 

in an open set of case studies of 

increasing complexity and criticality 

where the challenge problems come 

with the following: (1) a concept of 

7
8 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2020

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

operations that includes defining 

what environment the system is to 

be assured to work in; (2) a threat 

model defining what threats must 

be mitigated; (3) hazard analysis/

fault model of what hazards must be 

mitigated and faults tolerated; and 

(4) a challenging goal as to what it 

means for the system to be “assured” 

in the proposed operating context. 

ATD-2 Field Demonstration 

Partner Visit to Charlotte 

International Airport

POC: BOB STAUDENMEIER AND PETE SLATTERY

From February 10-11, NASA’s Air 

Traffic Demonstration-2 (ATD-2) 

team visited field demonstration 

partners at Charlotte Douglas 

International Airport (CLT). The 

purpose of the visit was to observe 

and assess how the system has 

been performing since metering 

has been turned on for all banks 

of flights at CLT since February 1,

2020. Initial feedback from the 

FAA and airline participants at 

CLT describe a positive effect on 

managing traffic on the surface at 

CLT, as well as the surrounding 

Terminal Radar Approach Control 

(TRACON) airspace. During 

periods of highly irregular 

operations, such as during recent 

severe weather events that affected 

flights along the eastern half of 

the country, ATD-2 users retained 

the option to temporarily suspend 

metering. The ATD-2 team also 

met with the new American Airlines 

manager for air traffic operations 

for the southeast, who was given 

a tour of the Traffic Management 

Units at CLT tower and TRACON 

to gain a more comprehensive 

understanding of how the ATD-2 

system affects and improves traffic 

flow at CLT. The group also toured 

the new CLT tower to observe 

the progress being made toward 

the expected commissioning of 

the new tower on June 21. 

ATM-X and Uber Working to 

Extend Urban Air Mobility 

Research Collaboration 

POC: SAVITA VERMA AND WILLIAM CHAN

The Air Traffic ManagementeXploration (ATM-X) project 

is working with Uber to create 

another annex to continue the joint 

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) airspace 

integration research that is currently 

covered under a multi-year Space 

Act Agreement with Uber Inc., 

created in 2018. Annex One was 

used to conduct collaborative 

research studies on integrating 

UAM operations with existing air 

traffic operations in both controlled 

and uncontrolled airspace. The 

efforts under that annex included 

the X-1 part-task studies to 

investigate methods of managing 

high-density UAM operations in 

today’s airspace. Another activity 

under that annex was the X-2 

engineering evaluations which 

extended the air traffic management 

paradigm and system reference 

implementation developed for the 

Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic 

Management Technology Capability 

Level 4 aircraft to UAM operations. 

Scott Pressley, American Airlines southeastern air traffic manager; Mike Hoprich, CLT National Air Traffic 

Controllers Association ATD-2 point of contact; and Bob Staudenmeier, Cavan Solutions, NASA Support
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2020 9

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

The collaboration between 

NASA and Uber has resulted in 

important lessons learned and 

insights that have been, and 

continue to be, documented 

for the benefit of the UAM 

community at large. Given the 

high technical value and research 

impact of the collaborations 

between NASA and Uber, the two 

organizations are pursuing this 

follow-on annex under the same 

Space Act Agreement to continue 

these research collaborations to 

accelerate airspace access and 

integration of UAM into the 

National Airspace System. 

Integrated Demand 

Management Workshop 

POC: NANCY SMITH AND PAUL LEE

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

Integrated Demand Management 

(IDM) research team held a threeday workshop at NASA’s Ames 

Research Center in California, 

from February 11-13. The purpose 

of the workshop was to offer a 

final opportunity for traffic flow 

management experts to provide 

feedback before NASA delivers 

the IDM concept and supporting 

documentation to FAA AJV-S1.

 The FAA tasked the team to 

explore ways to bring near-term 

applications of IDM into current 

day operations. Participants 

thought that IDM provided a good 

pathway to implementing Initial 

Trajectory-Based Operations into 

the National Airspace System and 

agreed that IDM provided a step 

toward implementing the Initial 

Trajectory-Based Operations 

vision. Day one and day two 

participants included the co-leads 

of the FAA’s Time-Based Flow 

Management operations team, the 

National Air Traffic Controllers 

Association representative to 

the FAA’s Program Management 

Office, and representatives from the 

FAA’s Air Traffic Control Systems 

Command Center, providing a 

perspective from the FAA’s Traffic 

Flow Management System. On day 

three, the Collaborative Decision 

Making (CDM) Steering Group 

industry co-chair from Alaska 

Airlines, along with the CDM FAA 

co-lead, and airline representatives 

from United, Southwest, and 

JetBlue, were briefed on IDM, and 

observed a lab demonstration of 

the concept. Representatives from 

MITRE Center for Advanced 

Aviation System Development 

also attended the workshop.

ATD-2 Briefing at National 

Customer Forum

POC: SHAWN ENGELLAND AND AL CAPPS

On February 12, NASA’s Air 

Traffic Demonstration-2 (ATD-2) 

team was invited to speak at the 

National Customer Forum held 

at the FAA David J. Hurley Air 

Traffic Control System Command 

Center in Warrenton, Virginia. The 

audience included representatives 

from the major U.S. passenger and 

cargo airlines, general aviation, 

FAA, and National Air Traffic 

Controllers Association. The NASA 

team presented an overview of 

the ATD-2 concept and benefits, 

Phase 3 Field demo status, and 

ATD-2 to Terminal Flight Data 

Manager (TFDM) transition 

plans. The meeting agenda had an 

emphasis on metrics and provided 

perspectives on stakeholder needs 

and improvements. The audience 

Discussions and demonstration of the Integrated Demand Management concept
10 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2020

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

expressed their appreciation 

for the ATD-2 system and its 

influence on the TFDM program 

and look forward to continued 

collaboration and engagement. 

National Campaign/FAA 

Airspace Assumptions 

Workshop

POC: SHIVANJLI SHARMA

The National Campaign project 

hosted FAA representatives from 

the Air Traffic, Flight Standards, 

and Aircraft Certification 

organizations at NASA’s Ames 

Research Center in California, from 

February 13-14. The purpose of the 

meeting was to discuss scenarios 

and airspace assumptions for the 

National Campaign Development 

Test flight demonstrations and 

simulations. The National 

Campaign Development Test is 

the first activity in a series with 

vehicle and airspace industry 

partners focused on establishing 

the certification requirements and 

standards needed for the Urban Air 

Mobility (UAM) market to move 

forward. The scenarios define a 

series of progressively more complex 

capabilities that will demonstrate 

increasingly integrated operations 

across infrastructure, vehicle, and 

airspace components. NASA’s 

National Campaign leadership, the 

National Campaign Airspace Test 

Infrastructure team, FAA partners, 

and Air Traffic ManagementeXploration project researchers 

collaborated on defining the key 

assumptions for UAM airspace 

integration. The groups discussed 

the need for both airspace and 

performance authorizations as 

well as the respective roles and 

responsibilities of the UAM 

operators, air navigation service 

providers, and pilots, along with 

the other entities involved in 

UAM operations. In addition, the 

National Campaign Development 

Test scenarios were discussed 

in detail across both flight and 

simulation activities to gain 

concurrence on interactions and 

modes of communication in 

both uncontrolled and controlled 

airspace scenarios. The groups 

intend to collectively generate an 

assumptions document that will be 

shared between NASA and the FAA. 

NASA-FAA Urban Air 

Mobility/Unmanned Aircraft 

System Research Review

POC: WILLIAM N. CHAN

On February 19, NASA and the 

FAA held a research roundtable at 

the National Institute of Aerospace 

near NASA’s Langley Research 

Center in Virginia. The purpose 

of the roundtable was to present 

current research efforts across both 

organizations around Urban Air 

Mobility (UAM) topics, including 

Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS), 

to identify potential areas of 

collaboration. The agenda included 

FAA updates of their UAS research 

strategy, UAS Traffic Management 

concept of operations, and UAM 

initiatives. NASA provided 

descriptions of the Advanced 

Air Mobility activity, the UAM 

Mission Office, ATM-X project, 

the UAS in the National Airspace 

System project, the Revolutionary 

Vertical Lift Technology project, 

System-Wide Safety project, and 

the X-57. As a follow-on action, 

NASA and the FAA will share 

specific areas of research to focus 

our collaborations. FAA attendees 

included Sabrina Saunders-Hodge, 

Paul Strande, and Wes Ryan.

Joint Surface Collaborative 

Decision Making Team 

and Flow Evaluation 

Team Meeting at NTX

POC: GREG JURO

On February 20, NASA’s Air 

Traffic Demonstration-2 (ATD-2) 

team hosted a joint meeting of the 

FAA’s Joint Surface Collaborative 

Decision Making Team (SCT) 

and Flow Evaluation Team (FET) 

groups at the North Texas (NTX) 

Laboratory in Dallas. Both groups 

are comprised of FAA and industry 

members. There were multiple 

FAA organizations and six airline 

companies represented at the 

meeting. ATD-2 representatives 

provided a detailed presentation 

on the real-time metrics that are 

being developed for use during the 

Stormy 2020 Trajectory Options Set 

(TOS) testing, scheduled to begin 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2020 11

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

in early April. During the meeting, 

NASA representatives took the 

opportunity to provide hands-on 

demonstrations of the ATD-2 tool 

to each participant. The primary 

focus of the demonstrations was to 

aid in a thorough understanding 

of Phase 3 capabilities. Each of the 

demonstrations included multiple 

examples of outlining the process of 

a candidate flight being identified 

and subsequently submitted for a 

reroute by the flight operator and 

approved by air traffic control. The 

presentations included a briefing 

on the progress that has been 

made on integrating National 

Airspace System-wide restrictions 

as a means of presenting relevant 

candidate flights for the flight 

operators. An overview was also 

provided of potential future work 

in this area and an FET member 

presentation on requirements that 

would be needed to ensure the 

successful, continued use of TOS 

technology and procedures. The 

briefing on future requirements for 

industry and FAA relied heavily 

on many of the lessons learned 

so far during the ATD-2 Stormy 

2019 test, as well as previous 

NASA ATD-2 work at Charlotte 

Douglas International Airport. At 

the meeting, participants provided 

positive feedback on the value of 

the presentations and discussion, 

and the briefing generated active 

discussion. Most notably, the 

feedback received regarding the 

value of integrating the use of realtime metrics during Stormy 2020 

was overwhelmingly positive. All 

the participants expressed that these 

real-time metrics will provide the 

flight operator with critical new 

information to enable more precise 

and expeditious decision making. 

Moreover, both the SCT and FET 

groups expressed their appreciation 

to the NASA representatives for 

the many lessons learned during 

the ongoing ATD-2 work and 

their desire for NASA to continue 

making positive enhancements 

to the National Airspace System. 

The NASA team will continue 

to participate in the regularly 

scheduled SCT and FET meetings.

ATD-2 Training at Atlanta Air 

Route Traffic Control Center

POC: PETE SLATTERY AND BOB STAUDENMEIER

From February 25-26, the NASA Air 

Traffic Demonstration-2 (ATD-2) 

team visited the Atlanta Air Route 

Traffic Control Center (ZTL 

ARTCC) in Hampton, Georgia. 

The purpose of the visit was to 

train new traffic management 

coordinators (TMCs) and surface 

TMCs on the ATD-2 system. 

Refresher training was provided 

to all TMCs on new features 

that have been incorporated into 

the system over the last several 

releases. All TMCs were briefed 

Stakeholders participating at NTX meeting
12 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2020

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

on both the capabilities of ATD2’s Ramp Traffic Console (RTC) 

and the Surface Trajectory Based 

Operations (STBO) Client. During 

each session, TMCs were guided 

through interactions with the RTC 

and STBO Client interfaces and 

introduced to features and data 

exchange between the two tools. 

Also discussed was how ATD-2 is 

integrated into their Time-Based 

Flow Management system through 

the Integrated Departure Arrival 

Capability and the non-verbal 

interaction that is available through 

electronic negotiations. TMCs had 

the opportunity to provide feedback 

and discussed how it could be usable 

in the ZTL environment. TMCs 

were also introduced to the concept 

of “pre-scheduling” and discussions 

ensued about how well that has 

been working with HartsfieldJackson Atlanta International 

Airport and O’Hare International 

Airport flights. Outcomes of the 

training, beyond proficiency on 

the ATD-2 systems, included 

increased use of the tool, especially 

during severe weather conditions. 

Machine Learning as a 

Service – Briefing to SWIM 

Industry-FAA Team Forum 

POC: AL CAPPS

On February 26, the NASA ATD-2 

team briefed the System Wide 

Information Management (SWIM) 

Industry-FAA Team (SWIFT) in 

Memphis, Tennessee. The forum 

was held at the FedEx Institute 

of Technology on the University 

of Memphis campus and was 

attended by approximately 200 

participants from all the major 

airline operator groups and 

aviation solution providers (see 

member list image below). The 

presentation provided two specific 

examples of machine learning 

solutions developed by applying 

a data mining problem solving 

workflow to aviation challenges. 

The workflow NASA used is 

loosely based on the cross industry 

standard process for data mining, 

which has been used successfully in 

other industries. The first example 

demonstrated a gradient boost 

classifier that improved arrival 

runway prediction classification by 

approximately 20 percent over the 

available sources in SWIM today. 

The presentation then described 

the steps that NASA performed 

to deploy this machine learning 

model to a web service using 

commonly available open source 

technology. The second example 

demonstrated a gradient boost 

regressor that estimates the size of 

tactical delay impact into a busy 

airspace resource in the Northeast 

Corridor. This example responds 

to a top need identified by the 

SWIFT analytics team at their first 

meeting in January 2020. The data 

and visualization from this learner 

generated significant feedback 

from the meeting participants. 

The presentation emphasized the 

importance of frequent engagement 

between analysts and operational 

users in the SWIFT community. 

Additionally, the presentation 

highlighted the need to describe 

aviation operations challenges into 

data science formats so that the 

aviation industry can benefit from 

this significant new technology.

Bob Staudenmeier and Mark Ellerbee (ZTL TMU)
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2020 13

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

NASA Ames Hosts 

Congressional Staffers 

POC: RON JOHNSON

On February 26, a tour and 

demonstration of the Unmanned 

Aircraft System Traffic Management 

(UTM) Autonomous Operating 

Systems Laboratory was provided to 

a delegation of congressional staffers 

at NASA’s Ames Research Center in 

California. The tour was conducted 

by Joseph Rios and Jeffrey Homola 

from the UTM project team. 

The delegation included ten 

congressional staffers accompanied 

by two members of FMC (Former 

Members of Congress), an 

association of former staffers. The 

staffers represented a bi-partisan 

cross section of congressional 

districts from across the United 

States, including California, Florida, 

Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, North 

Carolina, Texas, and Washington. 

ATM-X Hosts the FAA’s 

Air Traffic Mission Support 

Services Strategy Directorate 

POC: BRYAN BARMORE

On March 3, the Air Traffic 

Management-eXploration 

(ATM-X) project team hosted 

visitors from the FAA’s Air Traffic 

Mission Support Services Strategy 

Directorate for a technical exchange 

on traffic flow management at 

NASA’s Langley Research Center in 

Virginia. The FAA visitors included 

List of SWIFT stakeholders as briefed in SWIFT forum on February 26, 2020 Guillermo Sotelo, Jim Wetherly, 

SWIFT Forum: University of Memphis
14 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2020

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

Kerry Capes, and Brian Bagstad, 

who are exploring the impacts 

of new entrants to the airspace 

on traffic flow management and 

leveraging flight deck capabilities. 

NASA demonstrations were 

provided by Langley researchers 

David Wing for the Traffic Aware 

Strategic Aircrew Request tool, 

Matt Underwood for the Strategic 

Airborne Trajectory Management 

tool, and Nelson Guerreiro for 

the Urban Air Mobility (UAM) 

mission planner. Heather 

Arneson from NASA’s Ames 

Research Center in California 

demonstrated the UAM network 

scheduler. The FAA saw several 

concepts they thought aligned 

with their goals, and a follow-on 

meeting will be planned in 

May following the ATM-X Key 

Decision Point-Continuation 

Assessment, and the release of 

a draft roadmap by the FAA.

Aerobahn Terminal Flight Data 

Manager Planning Workshop 

POC: YOON JUNG AND HANBONG LEE

On March 4, Airspace Technology 

Demonstration-2 (ATD-2) 

researchers participated in the 

Aerobahn Terminal Flight Data 

Manager (TFDM) Planning 

Workshop, which was hosted 

by Saab Sensis Corporation in 

Syracuse, New York. The goal of 

the workshop was to bring future 

TFDM users identified by the 

FAA’s early TFDM implementation 

waterfall, including major airlines 

(American, United, Delta, and 

Southwest) and airports (Charlotte, 

San Francisco, Seattle, and New 

York), updates on the user tool 

and solicit feedback. Currently, 

Saab Sensis is developing a tool 

powered by their Aerobahn 

product to provide users with an 

interface to communicate with 

TFDM. The interface includes 

submitting an airline’s earliest 

off-block times and substitution 

requests for surface metering

programs, and display of target offblock times and target movement 

area entry times generated by 

TFDM. Workshop participants 

discussed TFDM functionality 

to be used as well as roles and 

responsibilities during a surface 

metering program to prepare for 

the implementation of the program 

at their sites. ATD-2, a precursor 

to TFDM, is currently under 

operational evaluation at Charlotte 

Douglas International Airport 

facilities, including the FAA air 

traffic control tower and American 

Airlines ramp tower since September 

2017. ATD-2 researchers shared 

experiences and lessons learned 

from the field demonstration. The 

next workshop, scheduled in June, 

will be hosted by the Port Authority 

of New York and New Jersey.

Participants at Saab Sensis, Syracuse, New York
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2020 15

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

ecoDemonstrator Lab 

Series Completed 

POC: WILLIAM CHAN

NASA’s ecoDemonstrator and 

testbed teams successfully completed 

the fourth Tailored Arrival Manager 

(TAM) “Lab Shot” series with the 

FAA and Boeing. The first part was 

completed on February 20, while 

the second part was completed on 

March 4. This was the first time 

that all critical-path system data 

exchanges for TAM were tested 

including Automatic Dependent 

Surveillance – Contract (ADS-C) 

and Controller Pilot Data Link 

Communications (CPDLC). This 

required TAM operations in 

the testbed lab at NASA’s Ames 

Research Center in California, with 

advisories triggered by manual delay 

settings. TAM uses ADS-C data 

from Boeing to develop an efficient 

conflict-free resolution to meet a 

time delay. This resolution was 

sent to the FAA, who automatically 

generated a CPDLC message which 

was sent from the FAA to a Boeing 

aircraft test bench. Several scenarios 

were successfully run to test the 

TAM resolution development 

and loading in the test bench.

NASA Langley Hosts 

Testing to Evaluate GPS 

Backup Technologies

POC: STEVE YOUNG, EVAN DILL, 

JOHN KOELLING, AND MISTY D. DAVIES

An interagency agreement was 

initiated at NASA’s Langley Research 

Center in Virginia, between the 

Department of Transportation 

and Langley to test, evaluate, and 

demonstrate Alternative Positioning, 

Navigation and Timing (APNT) 

systems as requested through the 

National Defense Authorization 

Act for fiscal year 2018. The 

congressional request seeks 

information regarding the efficacy 

of current APNT systems that may 

be used as a backup or complement 

to the Global Positioning System 

(GPS). Langley was selected as 

the test site for six such systems. 

Langley hosted several months of 

testing in which over 50 personnel 

from NASA, Department of 

Transportation, MITRE, Zeta, and 

APNT vendors participated in a 

predefined set of trials. Testing 

culminated with a briefing and 

demonstration at Langley on March 

13. In attendance were congressional 

staffers, members of the National 

Space-Based Positioning, Navigation 

and Timing Advisory Board, as well 

as officials from the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff, Department of Homeland 

Security, Department of Defense, 

Example of Tailored Arrival Manager delay request

Flight Management System (FMS) Predicted Meter Fix Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) by TAM

* Meter fix delay is set by TAM operator 

relative to aircraft’s nominal ETA at the fix.

* Nominal ETA at meter fix is based 

on a trajectory prediction along 

the nominal flight route.

* Scheduled time of arrival at meter fix

STAMF = ETAMF + delay

* ETAMF can come from either 

FMS or internal TAM trajectory 

prediction (currently the latter).
16 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2020

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

Department of Energy, Department 

of the Interior, Department of 

Transportation, National Oceanic 

and Atmospheric Administration, 

National Institute of Standards 

and Technology, FAA, and NASA. 

Subsequently, results obtained in 

these experiments will be used as 

part of a final report to Congress 

regarding potential backup systems 

for GPS and next steps. In February, 

the president signed an executive 

order issuing a national directive 

to make the United States more 

resilient to GPS outages. This 

testing is a precursor to being 

able to deliver on the order.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/

presidential-actions/executive-orderstrengthening-national-resilienceresponsible-use-positioning-navigation-timing-services/

Additionally, this activity was featured 

in a recent GPS World article:

https://www.gpsworld.com/dotholds-first-gps-backup-technologydemonstration/

NASA/ATD-2 Phase 3 

Stormy Kickoff Meeting 

POC: GREG JURO

On March 19, the Airspace 

Technology Demonstration-2 

(ATD-2) project team conducted a 

Stormy 2020 kickoff meeting with 

the field operators in the North Texas 

area. The meeting was conducted 

with all participants remotely due 

to COVID-19 social distancing 

practices. The purpose of the meeting 

was to determine the readiness level 

of the field users to begin the test in 

early April as well as provide updates 

on the new features available in the 

system. The field users unanimously 

agreed to start the testing on April 

6. Due to COVID-19, there may 

be periods when the flight operators 

or the FAA facilities are not able to 

participate due to staffing or other 

variables associated with COVID19. Despite this, all field users were 

enthusiastic about participating 

in the test beginning April 6. The 

updates on new features focused 

on a demonstration of the realtime metrics and enhanced filtering 

capabilities now available in the 

ATD-2 system. These new features 

were in response to valuable field 

user input received as the result 

of the testing conducted in the 

summer of 2019. The real time 

metrics include aggregate delay 

savings in several categories that are 

meaningful to the airlines and FAA 

facilities, as well as a self-scoring 

metric that reflects the accuracy 

of the ATD-2 system’s predictions. 

The enhanced filtering capabilities 

now include the capability to 

integrate National Airspace Systemwide reroute restrictions which will 

enable the system to present a more 

precise list of candidate flights to 

the flight operators. The NASA 

team is adjusting the training 

process to accomplish the training 

remotely instead of physically being 

onsite. These adjustments include 

providing the training via video 

conferencing, video recordings, 

and slideshow presentations.

APNT Advisory Board and government agency representatives at Langley
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2020 17

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

Urban Air Mobility 

System Requirements 

Review Completed 

POC: ANNIE CHENG

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

initial Urban Air Mobility (UAM) 

subproject conducted a system 

requirements review (SRR) for 

its upcoming UAM X-3 airspace 

simulation for NASA’s National 

Campaign-1, formerly the Grand 

Challenge, in two sessions, on 

March 6 and March 20. The 

objective of the SRR was to assess 

whether X-3, as proposed, will result 

in successful execution to prepare 

for future National Campaign 

simulations and flight activities, 

particularly National Campaign-1. 

The SRR sessions were formal 

opportunities for an independent 

NASA review panel and internal 

stakeholders to provide valuable 

feedback and recommendations 

to the UAM team to ensure that 

the X-3 simulation planned for 

September 2020 is well-aligned with 

the goals and objectives of UAM 

and ATM-X, as well as those for the 

Advanced Air Mobility project and 

its National Campaign subproject. 

Testbed Training Completed for 

NASA Ames and Langley Staff 

POC: KEE PALOPO

From March 19-20, the testbed 

training team conducted the 

remaining two of the three testbed 

training sessions planned for March 

2020, which included 16 internal 

NASA personnel from NASA’s 

Ames Research Center in California 

and NASA’s Langley Research 

Center in Virginia. The sessions 

were conducted using Microsoft 

Teams online and were attended 

by ecoDemonstrator and Urban 

Air Mobility developers, as well as 

information technology personnel. 

Despite some minor glitches, 

mainly due to the Microsoft Teams 

configuration and user interface 

navigation issues, the participants 

were able to successfully complete the 

training using self-guided-and-pacing 

training slide material. The online 

training experience could serve as a 

future training model as part of the 

current testbed transition planning.

Effectiveness of 

Alternate Concepts to 

Contemporary Development 

Assurance Processes 

POC: TERRY MORRIS, PAUL MINER

AND MISTY D. DAVIES

The final presentation of the Basic 

and Applied Aerospace Research and 

Technology contract, “Effectiveness of 

Alternate Concepts to Contemporary 

Development Assurance Processes,” 

was briefed virtually on March 25. 

The presenters included Eric M. 

Peterson, Electron International 

II, Inc.; Michael DeVore and Jared 

Cooper, Barron Associates, Inc.; and 

Greg Carr, Architecture Technology 

Corporation in collaboration with 

Jacek Kawecki, Uber Elevate. NASA 

and the FAA solicited industry 

research to identify and evaluate 

novel or alternate concepts for 

assuring safety of airborne systems. 

Using a baseline of existing industrystandard approaches to system safety 

assurance, this research explores 

alternate concepts and evaluates 

their effectiveness against current 

industry practices. The presenters 

focused on real-time assurance 

(RTA) and revealed that: (1) RTA 

alternate assurance concept provides 

equivalent implementation assurance 

to current industry practices; (2) RTA 

is an architectural solution which 

isolates and monitors low confidence 

implementations to mitigate errors 

or implementation mistakes; (3) 

RTA safety boundary creation and 

implementation is key to achieving 

certification assurance criteria; and 

(4) in a provided example, there 

are solidified RTA advantages for 

a) initial certification assurance 

activity reductions, b) ability to 

certificate non-deterministic or other 

current problematic implementation 

strategies, and c) substantial activity 

reduction potential during update 

and/or revision certification processes. 

UAM Regional Modeling 

Collaboration with Los 

Angeles Department 

of Transportation

POC: KAPIL SHETH AND PARIMAL KOPARDEKAR

NASA is exploring collaboration 

opportunities with the Los Angeles 
18 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2020

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

Department of Transportation 

(LA DOT) focused on planning 

for Urban Air Mobility (UAM) 

as a transportation alternative in 

Los Angeles. As a part of the UAM 

infrastructure development, LA 

DOT – like a growing number 

of city governments – desire a 

capability to assess better prospective 

UAM vertiport locations. NASA is 

developing a Regional Modeling 

UAM Planning Tool to address 

this need. On March 27, a 

virtual meeting was held with a 

representative from the Los Angles 

mayor’s office, the general manager 

and members of the LA DOT, some 

members of their contract support 

personnel, and the NASA Regional 

Modeling team. After discussing the 

current priorities, three presentations 

were made. First, NASA described 

its vision for the vertiport location 

assessment tool, where various 

factors like environmental impact, 

multi-modal transportation options, 

zoning, etc., are incorporated 

into the decision-making process. 

Then, the Los Angeles mayor’s 

office representative presented 

their path forward and how UAM 

is being pursued as an essential 

option going forward. Lastly, an 

LA DOT support person presented 

their thought process for vertiport 

selection. This was the first meeting 

between NASA and LA DOT to 

explore research collaboration, 

and it was decided that additional 

meetings would be mutually 

beneficial to further develop 

potential points of collaboration. 

LA DOT will take the initiative to 

invite NASA for further meetings. 

Testbed Overview Presented 

to the FAA, MITRE, and 

MIT Lincoln Lab 

POC: KEE PALOPO

An overview of NASA’s testbed 

was presented to the Timebased Management Performance 

Assessment Team on March 27, 

via WebEx, during their bi-weekly 

meeting. Attendees consisted 

of the following organizations: 

NASA, the William J. Hughes 

FAA Technical Center, MITRE, 

and MIT Lincoln Laboratory. The 

presentation material consisted of 

the envisioned testbed, its state of 

implementation to date, and how 

the community could leverage 

each other’s facilities and tools for 

a common experiment. After the 

presentation, a representative from 

MIT Lincoln Laboratory requested 

information about the process 

for connecting to the testbed.
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2020 19

RECOGNITION

Mallory Graydon Presents 

KRAMPUS Results at 

AIAA SciTech 2020

POC: MALLORY GRAYDON, 

TERRY MORRIS AND JOHN KOELLING

On January 6, Mallory Graydon 

presented a paper entitled 

“Guidance for Designing Safety 

into Urban Air Mobility: Hazard 

Analysis Techniques” at the 

American Institute of Aeronautics 

and Astronautics SciTech 2020 

Conference in Orlando, Florida. 

Graydon presented the first public, 

referenceable release of results from 

the KRAMPUS project aimed 

at new entrants into the Urban 

Air Mobility (UAM) space. The 

paper presented examples from a 

preliminary hazard analysis of a 

specimen Unmanned Aircraft System 

concept, illustrating such analyses 

and explaining their importance. 

Graydon also attended several talks 

on digital avionics, human factors, 

air traffic management, security, 

modeling and simulation, and 

climate change. She also met with 

colleagues who are performing 

research of interest to NASA, 

including Dan Newman, Boeing, 

who is also performing hazard 

analyses on concept UAM vehicles.

Husni Idris Named Associate 

Fellow of the AIAA

POC: TODD FARLEY

NASA researcher Husni Idris was 

named an Associate Fellow of the 

American Institute of Aeronautics 

and Astronautics (AIAA) at a 

gala event in Washington, DC, 

on January 8. The AIAA reserves 

this distinction for “persons 

who have done original work of 

outstanding merit, or who have 

otherwise made outstanding 

contributions to the arts, sciences, 

or technology of aeronautics or 

astronautics.” Idris’ contributions 

are well-known throughout the 

international community, where 

he is regarded among the leading 

minds in air traffic management 

research. His 25-year career spans 

contributions as a researcher in 

academia, industry, and government, 

from the Artificial Intelligence 

Lab at the Massachusetts Institute 

of Technology (MIT) to senior 

air traffic researcher at Engility 

Corporation, to his work at NASA’s 

Ames Research Center in California. 

He has published more than 40 

technical articles in peer-reviewed 

and conference literature. His most 

recent publication, “Accrued Delay 

Application in Trajectory-Based 

Operations,” was distinguished 

as best-in-track at the prestigious 

2019 USA/Europe Air Traffic 

Management (ATM) Research & 

Development Seminar in Vienna, 

Austria. Idris currently leads a 

team that is researching Collective 

Autonomous Behavior in ATM 

under NASA’s Transformative 

Tools and Technologies project, 

and he is a member of the agency’s 

Autonomous Systems Capability 

Leadership team. He is the associate 

editor of the “AIAA Journal 

of Air Transportation” and the 

“Transactions of the Japan Society 

for Aeronautical and Space Sciences.” 

John Langford, President of AIAA, formally recognizes Husni Idris as an Associate Fellow
20 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2020

RECOGNITION

Finalist-Collier Trophy Award

POC: RON JOHNSON

On January 19, the Unmanned 

Aircraft System Traffic Management 

(UTM) team was named one of 

nine finalists for the 2019 Robert 

J. Collier Trophy Award. The 

UTM team was nominated by 

the NASA administrator and the 

team is comprised of NASA, FAA, 

and industry partners that were 

instrumental to the development 

and testing of the UTM system. The 

UTM team will give a presentation 

to the selection committee next 

quarter, and the winner will be 

announced sometime afterwards. 

The Collier Trophy Award, begun 

in 1910, is awarded annually by the 

National Aeronautic Association 

for “the greatest achievement in 

aeronautics or astronautics in 

America, with respect to improving 

the performance, efficiency, and 

safety of air or space vehicles, the 

value of which has been thoroughly 

demonstrated by actual use 

during the preceding year.” The 

list of Collier winners represents 

a timeline of aviation, as many 

of the awardees mark major 

events in the history of flight. 

Applied Machine Learning 

Days Conference

POC: NIKUNJ OZA

Nikunj Oza presented a paper, 

“Machine Learning for Aviation 

Safety at NASA,” at the Artificial 

Intelligence and Aviation track 

within the Applied Machine 

Learning Days Conference at 

Ecublens, Switzerland, from 

January 26-28. Oza was invited 

by Chrysanthi Tsimitri, data team 

point of contact at Swiss Air Lines. 

NASA Sustainable 

Aerospace Supply Chain and 

Manufacturing Workshop

POC: PARIMAL KOPARDEKAR

From February 4-5, more than 

200 people attended the NASA 

Sustainable Aerospace Supply Chain 

and Manufacturing Workshop at the 

Ames Conference Center of NASA’s 

Ames Research Center in California. 

The workshop was organized by the 

NASA Aeronautics Research Institute 

and brought together industry 

leaders and stakeholders to discuss 

a national strategy that will work to 

enable a sustainable aerospace supply 

chain and manufacturing network. 

The input collected over the twoday workshop will be curated into 

a white paper and shared with the 

ecosystem for help to enable the 

necessary capabilities going forward. 

Airport Planning Design and 

Construction Symposium

POC: MIN XUE

On February 20, Min Xue 

participated as a panelist on the topic, 

“New Types of Flying Vehicles,” at 

the Airports Consultants Council/

American Association of Airport 

Executives (ACC/AAAE) Airport 

Planning Symposium in Reno, 

Nevada. There were about 1,400 

attendees at the panel session. New 

vehicle discussion topics included 

automation, certification, safety, 

noise, and aircraft operation 

procedures. There was also a 

discussion around U.S. leadership 

in Urban Air Mobility (UAM)/

Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic 

Management (UTM) research and 

development. The need for, and 

value of, NASA’s UAM National 

Campaign and UAM/UTM 

research were clear throughout the 

conversation. The panel discussion 

was well-received, and positive 

feedback was received through 

several channels after the meeting. 

Xue is a member of the initial UAM 

Parimal Kopardekar, NASA Aeronautics Research 

Institute director, at the NASA Sustainable 

Aerospace Supply Chain and Manufacturing 

Workshop
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2020 21

RECOGNITION

subproject team within the Air 

Traffic Management-eXploration 

project. The panel was hosted by 

Justin Guan and Byron Thurber 

(Arup’s San Francisco Integrated 

Planning Group). Other panelists 

included Danielle Rinsler, Uber; 

Justin Towles, AkinGump; and 

Jasenka Rakas, UC Berkeley. 

UTM Named Finalist in World 

Air Traffic Management 

Congress Maverick Awards

POC: RON JOHNSON

World Air Traffic Management 

Congress 2020, scheduled from 

March 9-11 in Madrid, Spain, was 

canceled due to travel restrictions 

from COVID-19. On March 23, 

however, the Inaugural Maverick 

Awards winners were announced 

virtually by the Air Traffic and 

Control Association and Civil Air 

Navigation Services Organization. 

NASA’s Unmanned Aircraft System 

Traffic Management (UTM) was 

named one of three finalists, out 

of a highly competitive group of 

45 nominations in the innovation 

category which “recognizes new 

ideas, technologies, and concepts 

that challenge current air traffic 

management norms with the 

potential to significantly advance 

performance, operations, or 

capabilities.” UTM was named “for 

its successful, simultaneous flight of 

multiple small unmanned aircraft 

systems (UAS) in a complex urban 

environment using the UAS Traffic 

Management (UTM) system.” 
National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Headquarters

300 E. Street, SW

Washington, DC 20024

www.nasa.gov/aeroresearch

www.nasa.gov