National Aeronautics and Space Administration

www.nasa.gov

AOSP Newsletter

Airspace Operations and Safety Program (AOSP)

JUL-SEP 2022 | Quarter 4

SWS Hosts Technical 

Challenge-3 V&V Capabilities Transfer Meeting 

3

SWS-21 Flight Testing Transitions

to Final Stages

20
2 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2022

AOSP IN THE NEWS

Building the Infrastructure 

for Advanced Air Mobility

Space Daily (7/27) reports “small 

drones delivering packages, air taxis 

carrying passengers, or air ambulance 

providing lifesaving transportation 

– these are just some of the concepts 

NASA’s Advanced Air Mobility 

(AAM) mission is helping get into 

our skies. For these aircraft to safely 

operate, cities, suburbs, and rural 

areas will need new or enhanced 

infrastructure.”

Could Airliners Use an 

FMS In the Cloud?

Aviation Week (7/29) reports “Why 

should the flight management 

system on an aircraft’s flight deck 

know more about what is going on 

than people on the ground who are 

supporting the flight? NASA study 

seeks to improve air-to-ground 

connectivity for airliners The project 

could further the FAA’s NextGen 

vision Advanced air mobility...”

NASA Steps up Urban 

Air Mobility Automation 

Trials in Vertiport Lab

FutureFlight (8/05) reports “NASA 

is stepping up preparations for 

an advanced air mobility (AAM) 

future. The U.S. agency’s researchers 

recently completed simulations 

involving a vertiport hosting 

large volumes of eVTOL aircraft 

operations as part of its high-density 

vertiplex (HDV) subproject. 

NASA Steps up Urban 

Air Mobility Automation 

Trials in Vertiport Lab

AWIN (9/08) reports NASA has 

awarded TruWeather Solutions a 

$750,000 Phase II Small Business 

Innovation Research contract to test 

a network of ground-based weather 

sensors in Hampton, Virginia. The 

sensor network is intended to provide 

weather measurement and prediction 

data for safe and efficient flights of 

beyond-visual-line-of-sight uncrewed 

aerial systems (UAS) and electric 

vertical-takeoff and-landing (eVTOL) 

aircraft flying at low altitudes within 

cities and suburban areas, TruWeather 

said Sept. 8.

CANSO, NASA and the FAA 

Discuss “Collaboration 

on Our Future Skies”

Aerospace America (9/23) reports 

“representatives from NASA, the 

FAA and the Civil Air Navigation 

Services Organisation (CANSO) as 

well as leaders from organisations 

that are at the forefront of 

technology, services and innovation 

in unmanned aviation, are meeting 

in California this week to collaborate 

on a blueprint for future skies. The 

meeting was born out of a desire to 

increase collaboration between the 

manned and unmanned aviation and 

space industries and to share the work 

that NASA, the Federal Aviation 

Administration (FAA) and CANSO 

are doing to create a seamless, safe 

and sustainable future airspace.”
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2022 3

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

ATM-X Supports 

Executive Session on 

Conflict Management 

with Industry and FAA 

POC: SHIVANJLI SHARMA

On July 11, Shivanjli Sharma, 

deputy project manager of Air 

Traffic Management – eXploration 

(ATM-X), supported and presented 

at an executive session focused on 

the development and testing of the 

Airborne Collision Avoidance System 

(ACAS) for rotorcraft and Advanced 

Air Mobility (AAM) vehicles, also 

known as ACAS-Xr. The executive 

session was held at SkyGrid’s 

HyperWerx facility in Austin and 

included FAA representatives from 

the Traffic Collision and Avoidance 

System office, as well as executives 

from Boeing, Wisk, SparkCognition, 

SkyGrid, and Raytheon. The event 

allowed for discussions regarding 

development of capabilities 

needed to support cooperative 

conflict management, the need 

for implementation and testing to 

support future remotely piloted 

AAM operations, and the role of 

research organizations to support 

the development of Minimum 

Operational Performance Standards 

needed to further the AAM industry’s 

goal of airspace integration. 

xTM Fast-Time Simulation 

Capability Presented to the FSF 

POC: MIN XUE

On July 12, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration (ATMX) project’s Extensible Traffic 

Management (xTM) subproject 

team was invited to present its 

fast-time simulation capability 

(called Fe3), a cloud-graphics unitsbased Monte Carlo simulation 

capability to the Flight Safety 

Foundation (FSF) at the Advanced 

Air Mobility Working Group 

meeting. The FSF representatives, 

from industry and academia, are 

looking for opportunities to leverage 

NASA simulation and modeling 

capabilities. The presentation and 

follow-up and discussion focused on 

how to use this simulation capability 

to support low-altitude operations. 

SWS Hosts Technical 

Challenge-3 V&V Capabilities 

Transfer Meeting 

POC: GUILLAUME BRAT, TERRY MORRIS, 

AND JOSEPH COUGHLAN

The System-Wide Safety (SWS) 

project team hosted the SWS 

Technical Challenge-3 (TC-3) 

Verification and Validation (V&V) 

capabilities transfer meeting that 

commemorated the fiscal year 2022 

closing of TC-3: “Deliver validated 

methods and recommended 

practices to reduce certification 

costs for ground and on-board 

vehicle guidance and control systems 

through expanded acceptability of 

analysis as evidence for certification.” 

The virtual event, held July 

12–13, was open to the public via 

YouTube streaming and recorded 

for on-demand viewing afterward. 

During the event, there were 421 

combined live and on-demand 

viewers on July 12 and 252 on 

July 13. Live viewership peaked 

at 123 viewers. The TC-3 meeting 

presented findings from industryselected use cases and provided 

attendees with access to a library 

of in-depth training seminars on 

how to use the powerful V&V tools, 

techniques, and processes developed 

under the technical challenge 

(resource page: https://nari.arc.nasa.

gov/sws-tc3-diagram/). The training 

seminars are archived and remain 

available for viewing. Speakers from 

NASA, FAA, industry, and academia 

discussed how to best leverage 

TC-3 capabilities. SWS researchers 

developed novel V&V capabilities 

that will aid American industry and 

increase U.S. competitiveness. NASA 

has developed tools, techniques, 

and processes to improve V&V 

performance and efficiency. Once 

these capabilities were introduced, 

TC-3 goals grew to include:

• Evaluate the impact of those 

NASA-developed software 

assurance tools and techniques 

in an industrial context.

• Provide a quantitative 

evaluation of the cost savings 

and eventual speed-up.

• Identify remaining gaps.

By collaborating across NASA 

and engaging stakeholders in the 

FAA, industry, and academia, 

NASA’s SWS project has fulfilled 

its critical commitment to 

deliver validated methods and 

recommended practices. TC-3 

work has successfully reduced 
4 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2022

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

certification costs for ground and 

on-board vehicle guidance and 

control systems through expanded 

acceptability of analysis as evidence 

for certification. As aircraft and air 

traffic management software become 

smarter and more complex, so too 

must V&V tools. TC-3 findings 

have provided the SWS project with 

an elegant transition into TC-4: 

“Complex Autonomous Systems 

Assurance,” with a goal of creating 

an assurance framework for complex 

machine-learning-enabled systems. 

SWS Contributes to FSF 

Working Group Meetings

POC: MISTY DAVIES

On July 12–14, subject-matter 

experts (SMEs) from the SystemWide Safety (SWS) project 

participated in working group 

meetings hosted by the Flight Safety 

Foundation (FSF). The SMEs are 

contributing to work products 

developed at these meetings – of 

which one will be a review for 

the American National Standards 

Institute Standardization Roadmap 

for Unmanned Aircraft Systems. 

Each day of the meeting had a 

specific focus. On July 12, the 

Advanced Air Mobility Automation 

Working Group was held; on July 13, 

the Airspace and Methodology 

Working Group met; and on July 14, 

a plenary was convened. 

ATM-X and UAM Support 

Raytheon Meeting and 

Demonstration

POC: SHIVANJLI SHARMA AND KEVIN WITZBERGER

On July 13, Shivanjli Sharma, 

deputy project manager of Air 

Traffic Management – eXploration 

(ATM-X), and Kevin Witzberger, 

subproject manager of Urban Air 

Mobility Airspace Management, 

met with Raytheon at their facility 

in Washington, DC. The purpose 

of their visit was to discuss potential 

future collaboration opportunities. 

Additionally, they were provided 

a short tour of Raytheon’s facility. 

The tour included an overview of 

the Multi-platform Application 

Rehosting Solution (MARS) – a 

system that allows for multiple 

data streams to be viewed in an 

open architecture and configurable 

fashion. The system was discussed 

in the context of the needs for 

Advanced Air Mobility operations. 

NASA and Raytheon teams 

discussed collaboration on topics 

including leveraging trusted 

sources for services such as a 

surveillance service for potential 

inclusion in future airspace 

research and development efforts.

Raytheon’s MARS system.
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2022 

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

ETM Team Meets with 

Raven Aerostar 

POC: JEFFREY HOMOLA

On July 14, the Air Traffic 

Management - eXploration project’s 

Extensible Traffic Management 

(xTM) subproject’s Upper Class E 

Traffic Management (ETM) team 

leads met with representatives from 

the Raven Aerostar Company. The 

purpose of the meeting was to 

have preliminary discussions to 

establish a non-reimbursable Space 

Act Agreement. Raven Aerostar is 

a high-altitude balloon company 

with years of operational experience 

and demonstrated capabilities 

in the areas of communications, 

science, wildfire monitoring, and 

defense. Establishing an agreement 

with Raven Aerostar will be a 

benefit to the xTM subproject 

by providing key data-driven 

insights into the challenges and 

considerations of operations in 

the stratosphere, particularly for 

a unique platform with unique 

flight characteristics. Follow-on 

discussions are planned to continue 

the agreement development. 

SWS Participates in an FAA/

MITRE/Industry Collaboration 

POC: NIKUNJ OZA

On behalf of the System-Wide 

Safety (SWS) project, Nikunj Oza 

attended the FAA/MITRE/Industry 

Collaboration for Advancing 

Towards Automatic Detection of 

Safety Hazards/Risks workshop held 

July 18–19 at MITRE in McLean, 

Virginia. The purpose of the 

workshop was to discuss how the 

various players within the National 

Airspace System (NAS) can improve 

in finding safety issues that cover 

more components of the NAS and 

look for them continuously. Oza 

attended in person to confer with 

other attendees and discuss what 

is currently being done in this 

space and prospects for future 

work. Invited attendees included 

representatives from the FAA, 

MITRE, airlines, and NASA. 

UAM/eVTOL IFP Simulator 

Familiarization and Test 

Plan Development 

POC: DAVID ZAHN AND ANDREW GUION

A small team from the Advanced 

Air Mobility project’s National 

Campaign (NC) subproject 

conducted working meetings with 

Joby personnel in Marina, California 

on July 19–21. The purpose of 

the meetings was to collaborate 

on the planning for an upcoming 

simulator test effort as a part of the 

ongoing NC-1 series. This work 

was performed as part of the NC 

subproject’s objective to develop 

instrument flight procedure (IFP) 

criteria for Urban Air Mobility 

(UAM) electric Vertical Takeoff 

and Landing (eVTOL) operations. 

The collaborative effort between 

NASA and Joby included detailed 

discussions to answer questions 

and refine a draft test plan for 

upcoming simulator testing. In 

addition, the team benefitted from 

several hours in Joby’s engineering 

simulator, gaining familiarization 

with the aircraft’s current levels 

of automation and operating 

practices while also executing first 

attempts of departure and arrival 

procedures across different criteria 

and conditions. The valuable insights 

gained in working meetings during 

5

NASA and Joby team working together.
6 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2022

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

the week will directly strengthen the 

quality and detail of the draft IFP 

simulator test plan. Interactions with 

Joby subject-matter experts provided 

several findings that will shape test 

points, areas of test interest, test 

methodology, and data measures.

AOSP Projects Support 

the Experimental Aircraft 

Association (EAA) AirVenture 

POC: ADAM YINGLING AND MICHAEL VINCENT

The Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) 

project’s National Campaign (NC) 

subproject, along with the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration and 

System-Wide Safety (SWS) projects, 

supported the Experimental Aircraft 

Association (EAA) AirVenture in 

Oshkosh, Wisconsin the week of 

July 25. The venue attracted more 

than 650,000 aviation enthusiasts 

from around the planet and amassed 

more than 17,000 planes flying in 

to participate in the festivities. The 

AAM project team participated in 

several media engagements including 

giving three radio interviews, 

talking at forums, and newspaper 

articles. The team handed out 

more than 4,000 pamphlets while 

engaging the public inside the 

NASA tent. Overall, the event was 

a great opportunity to educate the 

American people on how AAM is 

shaping the future of aeronautics. 

The SWS project hosted a booth 

and two forum talks during the 

AirVenture event. Visitors to the 

SWS booth were able to have 

a virtual-reality experience that 

demonstrated safety technologies 

needed for the future of air 

transportation. Additionally, 

visitors were able to interact with 

SWS fatigue scientists working 

on understanding the impact of 

different types of flight operations 

on airline crew performance and 

data scientists working to model 

and predict safety hazards in 

commercial operations. Dr. Wendy 

Okolo and Michael Vincent hosted 

a forum talk entitled “NASA 

In-Time Safety Management” 

which discussed the SWS Technical 

Challenge (TC) 1, In-Time 

Terminal Area Risk Assessment and 

TC2, In-Time Risk Assessment 

for Emerging Operations 

subprojects. SWS project members 

that attended were able to make 

contacts with industry, academia, 

and government. These included 

17,000+ Aircraft World’s Busiest Tower One of Three Radio Interviews
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2022 

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

members of the United Kingdom’s 

Civil Aviation Authority working 

on remotely piloted aircraft 

integration, the chief executive 

officer of Puerto Rico 5G Zone 

+ Blockchain Ignition lab, and 

potential Ph.D. students who could 

support the future work of SWS. 

7

(Left) EAA Forum “Envisioning Future Airspace with NASA’s Advance Air Mobility. 

(Right image, left to right) Adam Yingling, Shivanjli Sharma, and Starr Ginn.

 EAA Forum – Women at NASA

Newspaper coverage.

NASA tent with Advanced Air Mobility 

booth engaging the public.
8 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2022

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

ATM-X PAAV Holds Kickoff 

Meeting with ODOT 

POC: ARWA AWEISSI AND 

RICHARD COPPENBARGER

On July 28, a kickoff meeting 

was conducted between the Air 

Traffic Management – eXploration 

(ATM-X) project’s Pathfinding 

for Airspace with Autonomous 

Vehicles (PAAV) subproject team 

and the Ohio Department of 

Transportation (ODOT). The 

meeting was the official start 

of programmatic and technical 

collaboration with ODOT as 

part of the Annex 3 Agreement 

signed on June 15. The PAAV 

team presented an overview of the 

subproject including the research 

strategy, schedule, and technical 

focus areas. ODOT presented 

an overview of several ongoing 

activities supporting unmanned 

aircraft operations, including their 

Air Traffic Operations Center, 

collaboration with the FAA on 

remote digital towers, and their 

SkyVision collaboration with the 

Air Force Research Laboratory for 

low-altitude flight tracking and 

ground-based detect-and-avoid 

systems. ODOT also discussed 

the National Advanced Air 

Mobility Industry Forum they 

are hosting, and which is being 

sponsored by JobsOhio, on Aug. 

22–23. A planning meeting with 

ODOT, ATM-X, and PAAV is 

currently being scheduled. The 

PAAV technical co-lead will 

attend the event in person. 

Annual Progress 

Presentation for SWS NASA 

Research AnnouncementFunded Project Toward 

Self-Healing sUAS 

POC: LILLY SPIRKOVSKA

The Safe Deployment of Small 

Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS) 

through On-Board Monitoring 

and Assessment project, performed 

by Notre Dame and Iowa State 

Universities and administered by 

the System-Wide Safety (SWS) 

Emerging Operations Technical 

Challenge subproject, presented 

their first year’s progress to the SWS 

community on July 28. The goals of 

the three-year project are threefold: 

1) develop and evaluate automated 

techniques for predicting, detecting, 

diagnosing, and mitigating diverse 

configuration problems and runtime 

failures in sUAS; 2) deploy these 

techniques onboard for real time 

analysis of critical sUAS failures, 

and off-board via services to 

aggregate data over time and across 

multiple sUAS; and 3) assemble 

and release annotated data sets 

that support ongoing research by 

NASA and other researchers. The 

research team has made significant 

progress on each of the three tasks. 

The project duly complements 

in-house research and several points 

of synergy are being pursued. 

AFCM HPA Team Briefs the 

FAA’s TCAS Program Office 

POC: CONRAD RORIE AND CASEY SMITH

The Advanced Air Mobility project’s 

Automated Flight and Contingency 

Management (AFCM) subproject 

team presented results of a recent 

part-task simulation to the 

FAA’s Traffic Alert and Collision 

Avoidance System (TCAS) program 

office on Aug. 1. The presentation 

was conducted by members of the 

Hazard Perception and Avoidance 

(HPA) team within the AFCM 

subproject. The simulation study 

was conducted in the Human 

Automation Teaming Lab in March 

2022 and assessed performance 

of an FAA-sponsored prototype 

version of Airborne Collision 

Avoidance System (ACAS) currently 

in design for rotorcraft, ACAS-Xr, 

in application for electric Vertical 

Takeoff and Landing vehicles and 

with assistive automation concept 

software. The briefing covered the 

experimental design of the study 

and its key results and discussed 

some implications of the work 

and its findings. Also included 

was a description of the upcoming 

simulation test to be conducted in 

the Vertical Motion Simulator at 

NASA’s Ames Research Center in 

California to solicit TCAS office 

feedback prior to shakedown. The 

audience also included contractors 

from the Massachusetts Institute 

of Technology Lincoln Labs and 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2022 9

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

the Johns Hopkins University 

Applied Physics Laboratory, which 

developed the ACAS logic. 

HDV Initiates Grant with 

Virginia Tech MAAP 

POC: STEVEN ALPERIN

The Advanced Air Mobility 

project’s High-Density Vertiplex 

(HDV) subproject has initiated a 

grant to the Virginia Tech MidAtlantic Aviation Partnership 

(MAAP) to perform an initial 

characterization of several groundbased radar systems and to quantify 

performance of these radars 

in performing Ground Based 

Detect and Avoid (GBDAA). The 

radars of interest include a pair 

of GA-9120’s, a Raytheon Skyler, 

and an L-STAR. MAAP will 

leverage simulation tools developed 

in-house to calculate relevant 

performance indicators to include 

risk ratios and operational volumes 

as described in ASTM’s “Standard 

Specification for Detect and Avoid 

System Performance Requirements” 

(F3442/F3442M – 20). This work 

was initiated the week of Aug. 1 

and will help support efforts in 

the development of the safety 

case for waiver submission to 

the FAA to enable beyond visual 

line of sight unmanned aircraft 

system operations in a corridor 

in and around NASA’s Langley 

Research Center in Virginia. 

SWS Participates in DARPA 

ARCOS Evaluation 

POC: MALLORY GRAYDON

Researchers from the System-Wide 

Safety (SWS) project participated 

as subject-matter experts in 

support of the government review 

of achievements in the Defense 

Advanced Research Projects 

Agency (DARPA) Automated 

Rapid Certification of Software 

(ARCOS) project, (https://www.

darpa.mil/program/automatedrapid-certification-of-software) July 

25–Aug. 2. ARCOS participants 

demonstrated assurance-case-related 

tooling that they are constructing. 

Mallory Graydon, Paul Miner, and 

Natasha Neogi provided expert 

feedback that will help the DARPA 

team determine whether ARCOS 

is on track to deliver rapid, lowcost means to assess and assure 

the safety and security of highconsequence software systems 

following changes. While ARCOS 

aims to reduce the cost of certifying 

software-intensive military 

systems, the tools and techniques 

it results in may have applications 

to software used in aviation 

and spaceflight applications. 

SWS Participates at JIMDAT 

POC: LANCE PRINZEL

Representing the System-Wide 

Safety (SWS) project, Lance Prinzel 

attended the Joint Implementation 

Measurement Data Analysis Team 

(JIMDAT) meeting held Aug. 2–3 at 

the National Air Carrier Association 

headquarters in Arlington, 

Virginia. JIMDAT monitors the 

implementation and effectiveness 

of Commercial Aviation Safety 

Team (CAST) safety enhancements 

and recommends modifications 

and changes to the CAST Safety 

Portfolio (CAST website: https://

www.cast-safety.org). JIMDAT, in 

conjunction with the FAA’s Aviation 

Safety Information Analysis and 

Sharing system, also identifies 

emerging risks and additional 

areas of study. A number of safety 

enhancements (SEs) were reviewed 

at the August meeting including 

several that NASA has lead roles 

for. Prinzel received several actions 

in support of JIMDAT to report 

out at the next meeting. In addition, 

he was asked to be a co-lead to 

assess potential new SEs, due in 

March 2023, to extend previous 

NASA Technologies for Airplane 

State Awareness (TASA) SE-207 

– which was the final TASA SE 

to be closed out. Final status was 

reported by JIMDAT to the CAST 

executive committee on Aug. 4. 

SWS NRA Conducts Year 

Three Midterm Review 

POC: NATASHA NEOGI

On Aug. 2–4, all three NASA 

Research Announcement (NRA) 

performing teams supporting the 
10 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2022

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

award topic “Assuring Increasing 

Autonomous Systems with NonTraditional Human-Machine 

Roles” presented summaries of their 

progress on the Urban Air Mobility 

(UAM) case study. This was the 

year three midterm review for the 

Pennsylvania State and Collins 

Aerospace teams, and the year 

three kickoff for the Massachusetts 

Institute of Technology (MIT) 

team. On Aug. 2, the team from 

Pennsylvania State University 

presented a summary of their 

progress regarding the UAM 

Concept of Operations and task 

modelling in the Working Models 

that Compute framework, with a 

specific focus on a short-range cargo 

delivery service in a rural area (e.g. a 

cookie delivery service) where vehicle 

battery health monitoring and 

workload was examined. On Aug. 

3, the team from MIT presented 

their work on the Systems Theoretic 

Process Analysis methodology, and 

they focused on how it could be 

applied to capture inimical humanmachine interactions. On Aug. 4, 

the team from Collins Aerospace 

presented work that detailed and 

demonstrated their approach to 

model and train autonomous agents 

via reinforcement learning in the Soar 

cognitive architecture framework, 

with verification being performed in 

the NuXMV model checker. Natasha 

Neogi, NASA technical point of 

contact for these awards, arranged 

for each team to engage interactively 

during the question-and-answer 

sessions enabling a vibrant exchange 

of ideas across both award efforts. 

This fosters a complementary set 

of research executed across the 

NRAs 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, who provided 

valuable feedback to the performers. 

HDV Holds Mission 

Concept Review for its 

SAO Work Package 

POC: JEFF HOMOLA

On Aug. 3, the Advanced Air 

Mobility project’s High Density 

Vertiplex (HDV) subproject 

held its mission concept review 

for its Scalable Autonomous 

Operations (SAO) work package. 

An independent review panel 

was assembled and in attendance 

with other team members and 

stakeholders. The HDV team 

presented its plans and objectives 

for SAO with dedicated discussions 

on the technologies in development, 

such as the Vertiport Automation 

System, the updated reference 

architecture, and updates 

made to facilities and technical 

components of the HDV system 

since the conclusion of the previous 

Advanced Onboard Automation 

work package, completed in April 

2022. Simulation and flight test 

plans were also presented along 

with the supporting scenarios 

and approach to data collection, 

management, and metrics. The 

review concluded with a discussion 

of budget, resources, and risks. 

Reviewer feedback is expected 

by Aug. 12, after which the 

HDV team will work to address 

comments and adjust accordingly. 

SWISS Head of Data Analytics 

Team Visits SWS Team

POC: NIKUNJ OZA

On Aug. 3, Chrysanthi Tsimitri, 

team lead for data insights and 

analytics at Swiss International 

Air Lines AG (SWISS), visited 

NASA’s Ames Research Center in 

California. The purpose of her visit 

was to discuss the resumption of 

NASA and SWISS’s joint machinelearning/data-analytics activities. 

The System-Wide Safety (SWS) 

project has a Space Act Agreement 

with SWISS that includes machinelearning work that falls within the 

scope of Technical Challenge (TC) 

1: Integrated Terminal Area Risk. 

SWISS allowed its data analytics 

team to resume work in April. 

SWS TC-1 machine learning team 

members highlighted recent work, 

such as what was done as part of the 

American Institute of Aeronautics 

and Astronautics SciTech 2022 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2022 11

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

paper “Semi-supervised Active 

Learning for Anomaly Detection in 

Aviation with Experts in the Loop.” 

ATM-X “Sky for All” 

Version 2.5 Released 

POC: SHAWN ENGELLAND

On Aug. 3, version 2.5 of the Air 

Traffic Management – eXploration 

(ATM-X) project’s “Sky for All” 

vision was released. This version 

includes revised Research and 

Development (R&D) needs, as 

shown in the R&D Needs webpage, 

based on inputs received from 

stakeholder validation workshops. 

The team is drafting a white 

paper showcasing the capability 

cornerstones and technological 

and regulatory enablers necessary 

to achieve an interconnected, 

cooperative ecosystem by the 

mid-21st century – one that 

accommodates and optimizes 

diverse operations and prioritizes 

safety and sustainability. 

AFCM Hosts Visitors 

at NASA Ames 

POC: MIKE FEARY

On Aug. 5, the Advanced 

Air Mobility (AAM) project’s 

Automated Flight and Contingency 

Management (AFCM) subproject 

team hosted visits by Abby Smith, 

deputy executive director for the 

FAA’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems 

Integration office, along with an 

advisory group including visitors 

from Supernal. The visit included 

a tour of the Aerospace Cognitive 

Engineering Lab (ACEL) Rapid 

Automation Test Environment 

(RATE) simulator at NASA’s Ames 

Research Center in California. The 

AFCM team demonstrated the 

development environment for 

electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing 

(eVTOL) aircraft automated systems 

and test capabilities. The group was 

provided the opportunity to fly the 

simulator and advised of the research 

being conducted by the ACEL group 

in support of FAA-sponsored research 

into methods for certification of 

aircraft autonomous flight. On Aug. 

8, the team hosted visits from the 

chief test pilot for Archer Aviation 

and the FAA-designated engineering 

representative test pilot, who also 

toured the ACEL-RATE simulator 

for a demonstration of the flight test 

maneuvers developed by the ACEL 

group as a new means of compliance 

for certification of novel eVTOL 

aircraft autonomous flight capabilities. 

On Aug. 9, the team hosted AAM 

project leadership including Mike 

Guminsky, AAM project manager; 

Karen Cate, AAM deputy project 

manager; and Colin Theodore, AAM 

project chief engineer. The AAM 

leadership team visited the ACELRATE simulator for a demonstration 

of the development environment for 

eVTOL aircraft automated systems 

and test capabilities. They were 

also able to fly the simulator and 

receive updates about the state of 

the art of certification for industry 

automated passenger carrying aircraft. 

HDV Team Visits 

PteroDynamics 

POC: JEFF HOMOLA

During the week of Aug. 8, 

representatives from the Advanced 

Air Mobility (AAM) project’s 

High Density Vertiplex (HDV) 

subproject visited the offices and 

test range of PteroDynamics. 

Representing the NASA team was 

Faisal Omar, HDV subproject 

technical lead, alongside colleagues 

from NASA and other federal 

agencies. PteroDynamics is a U.S. 

company developing a vertical Sky for All Portal Pages
12 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2022

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

takeoff and landing unmanned 

aerial vehicle with a transverse 

folding-wing design that provides 

a more representative urban air 

mobility flight profile. The purpose 

of the visit was to assess the state of 

the vehicle’s maturity and potential 

for incorporating into future 

HDV testing. During the visit, 

the team received presentations 

from the PteroDynamics team and 

observed flight demonstrations 

of the vehicle at the testing range. 

Further internal and external 

discussions will be held to decide 

on any additional actions. 

AFCM FPM Completes Humanin-the-Loop Simulation 

POC: TERIQUE BARNEY

On Aug. 8–12, the Advanced Air 

Mobility project’s Automated Flight 

and Contingency Management 

(AFCM) subproject hosted a 

simulation test in the Air Traffic 

Operations Lab at NASA’s Langley 

Research Center in Virginia. The 

simulation was conducted by the 

AFCM’s Flight Path Management 

(FPM) research team and featured 

an electric Vertical Takeoff and 

Landing vehicle flying in an 

urban environment with high 

traffic density to exercise NASAdeveloped automated strategic 

conflict detection and resolution 

algorithms. The simulation was 

intended to serve as a dry run for 

software components, scenarios, and 

display content planned for flight 

testing in June 2023 as part of the 

National Campaign’s Integration 

of Automation Systems first round 

of research flight tests. The three 

rotorcraft pilots scheduled to support 

the 2023 flight test traveled to NASA 

Langley to fly the simulation and 

provided very positive feedback for 

the operation of the automation and 

the level of awareness provided by the 

displays during the encounters and 

resolutions. Suggested improvements 

will be integrated into the 

components as part of the buildup 

for the flight test software delivery. 

ATM-X Meets with Agility 

Prime and Beta Technologies

POC: SHIVANJLI SHARMA

On Aug. 16, Shivanjli Sharma, Air 

Traffic Management – eXploration 

(ATM-X) deputy project manager, 

met with representatives from 

Agility Prime in Washington, 

DC. The meeting was focused on 

Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) 

vehicle partnerships. Sharma also 

met with Beta Technologies at their 

Washington, DC office. During 

her visit, she was able to fly their 

vehicle simulator and discuss future 

plans. Beta Technologies will be 

coming to NASA’s Ames Research 

Center in California for wind tunnel 

testing early next year and the 

ATM-X project has invited them to 

a technical interchange meeting. 

ATM-X PAAV Conducts 

Technical Interchange 

Meeting-2 with 

Northrop Grumman 

POC: RICHARD COPPENBARGER AND ARWA AWEISS

On Aug. 18, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration 

Photos of the Beta Technologies AAM simulator.
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2022 13

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

(ATM-X) project’s Pathfinding 

for Airspace with Autonomous 

Vehicles (PAAV) subproject team 

held a technical interchange 

meeting (TIM) with Northrop 

Grumman at their facility in 

Rancho Bernardo, California. This 

was the second of a series of TIMs 

planned under the initial phase 

of a Space Act Agreement signed 

between NASA and Northrop 

Grumman earlier this year. The TIM 

focused on the planning of a joint 

flight demonstration and related 

simulation activities for PAAV, with 

flights potentially starting in 2023 

at Moffett Field in California using 

Northrop Grumman’s optionally 

piloted Firebird aircraft. To set 

the stage for flight demonstration 

planning, the TIM featured 

NASA-led topics on air cargo 

industry needs, mission scenarios, 

and concept elements for airspace 

integration. In following discussions, 

Northrop Grumman affirmed their 

desire to be an industry leader for 

remotely piloted operations in the 

National Airspace System. They 

further stressed the importance of 

concepts and flight demonstrations 

that move the needle toward 

implementation and realized 

benefits. Interest was expressed in 

concepts that support operations 

during adverse weather and leverage 

end-to-end digital flight path intent. 

Both sides agreed to further discuss 

flight demonstration objectives and 

potential issues during a meeting in 

mid-September. That meeting will 

help prepare for a third official TIM 

in the October/November timeframe 

which will focus on detailed 

flight demonstration planning. 

Negotiation Model Developed 

for Cooperative Operations 

in Upper Class E 

POC: MIN XUE

Min Xue, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration 

project’s Extensible Traffic 

Management subproject technical 

lead, continued work on refining 

a negotiation model for strategic 

conflict management, built upon 

the sequential bargaining model, 

among high-altitude operations. 

Results to date show the proposed 

model can serve the cooperative 

operation concept, ensures an 

agreement can be reached within 

a predefined time window, and 

operators can accurately express 

their priorities without exposing 

their private business information. 

This work will be presented at the 

2022 Digital Avionics Systems 

Conference in Portsmouth, 

Virginia on Sept. 18–22. 

NASA Attends JobsOhio 2022 

National AAM Industry Forum

POC: DAVIS HACKENBERG, MISTY DAVIES, 

EVAN DILL AND WILLIAM CHAN

JobsOhio and the Dayton 

Development Coalition hosted the 

National Advanced Air Mobility 

Industry Forum from Aug. 22–23. 

The event brought together 

various members of the Advanced 

Air Mobility (AAM) ecosystem 

for panels, networking, flight 

demonstrations, and static displays. 

The event included a celebration of 

the groundbreaking of the National 

Advanced Air Mobility Center of 

Excellence, a center for innovation 

and collaboration in the AAM 

community, at the SpringfieldBeckley Municipal Airport. Bob 

Pearce, Associate Administrator for 

the Aeronautics Research Mission 

Photos from the National Advanced 

Air Mobility Center of Excellence
14 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2022

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

Directorate within NASA, spoke 

alongside Abby Smith, FAA AUS, 

and Col. Nate Diller, AFWERX, 

in the federal agency panel. Davis 

Hackenberg, NASA AMM mission 

integration manager, spoke 

alongside Misty Davies, SWS 

Project Manager, and William 

Chan, Air Traffic Management - 

eXploration project manager in 

a panel highlighting the various 

NASA research and initiatives 

on AAM. The Forum included 

flight simulators and aircraft 

displays and coincided with the 

ground-breaking of the National 

AAM Center of Excellence at the 

Springfield-Beckley Municipal 

Airport, Springfield, Ohio. The 

event also included Congressional 

Representatives Mike Turner 

(R-OH), Troy Balderson (R-OH) 

and Mike Carey (R-OH), along 

with Ohio Governor Mike Dewine’s 

Cabinet-level Aerospace Advisor, 

Col. (Ret.) Joe Zeis, as well as other 

state and local elected officials. The 

forum included over 600 attendees 

and is planned to be an annual 

event hosted in Springfield, Ohio. 

The agenda can be found at https://

www.aamohio.com/agenda. 

UAM Conducts X4 

Technical Findings TIM 

POC: KEVIN WITZBERGER

On Aug. 24, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration 

project’s Urban Air Mobility 

(UAM) subproject held a technical 

interchange meeting (TIM) where 

they shared the technical findings 

from the “X4 Strategic Conflict 

Management Simulation,” lessons 

learned, and gathered information 

directly from industry that 

could inform the subproject’s 

approach to the UAM Discovery 

Synchronization Service in the 

future. There was good technical 

interchange of ideas with more 

discussions to follow on further 

addressing the pros and cons 

of each technical solution. 

HDV Initiates Flight 

Testing in Support of the 

Radar-2 Flight Test

POC: LOUIS GLAAB

On Aug. 27, the Advanced Air 

Mobility project’s High Density 

Vertiplex (HDV) subproject team 

began flight testing in support of the 

Radar-2 flight test using the UC-40 

NASA 507 aircraft. This flight test 

was performed to gain valuable 

experience regarding the operation 

of the Lightweight Search and Track 

Acquisition Radar (LSTAR) and dual 

GA-9120 radar systems. In an effort 

to enable beyond-visual-line-ofsight small unmanned aerial systems 

(sUAS) flight operations, the HDV 

team has installed an array of radar 

systems at NASA’s Langley Research 

Center in Virginia and is in the 

process of testing their performance. 

With a range of 40 km, the LSTAR 

is the primary radar system and was 

relocated to the top of the hanger in 

June. The LSTAR is on loan from 

NASA’s Ames Research Center in 

California. The Dynetics GA-9120s 

are lower-cost individual paneltype radar systems that provide 

complementary radar coverage to 

UC-40 NASA 507 aircraft.
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2022 15

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

the LSTAR and are mounted on the 

gantry. A Raytheon Skyler-2 radar, 

installed on Hampton University’s 

Harbor Center building and part 

of a Space Act Agreement with 

Longbow, will also be incorporated. 

Output from the radar systems 

will be merged and fused with 

Automatic Dependent SurveillanceBroadcast and Flight Alarm inputs 

within the ANRA Technologies’ 

Smart Skies control system and 

displayed in the Remote Operations 

for Autonomous Mission sUAS 

control center. Outputs from the 

radar systems will also be routed 

to the sUAS and integrated with 

the Independent Configurable 

Architecture for Reliable Operations 

of Unmanned Systems to provide 

onboard autonomous detect 

and avoid functionality for 

non-cooperative aircraft. Testing 

performed within the Radar-2 

test will provide performance data 

for both radar systems and help 

assess manufacturer’s performance 

predictions and build upon 

testing performed previously during 

the Radar-1 test. Multiple flights 

are planned for Radar-2 using 

1,000 ft as well as 500 ft altitudes.

SWS Completes First 

Year of Collaboration 

with AAM/HDV Team 

POC: STEVE YOUNG AND JEFF HOMOLA

The System-Wide Safety (SWS) 

project team completed the first year 

of collaboration with the Advanced 

Air Mobility High Density Vertiplex 

(HDV) team. The teams have 

worked together through monthly 

tag-up meetings and biweekly 

human-machine interface research 

discussions. These activities allowed 

them to maintain awareness of the 

status of ongoing work and future 

research plans – along with allowing 

opportunities to look for and 

leverage synergies. During the past 

year, SWS has shared its research 

findings plus four high technology 

readiness level services, functions, 

and capabilities with HDV. These 

include providing information 

on and access to a preflight risk 

assessment service, Ground Risk 

Assessment Service Provider; 

providing access to a networked 

weather station capability for 

use in the Remote Operation for 

Autonomous Mission (ROAM) 

Operations Center; and providing 

access to a radio frequency spectrum 

monitoring station capability also 

for use in the ROAM Operations 

Center. SWS researchers archived 

approximately four months of radio 

frequency spectrum monitoring 

data to help baseline the HDV 

flight testing environment. In 

turn, the HDV team shared 

scenarios and flight plans used 

during HDV’s Advanced Onboard 

Automation (AOA) recent testing 

with SWS and provided ongoing 

updates on the status of the AOA 

simulations and flight testing. In 

addition, and based on the above 

collaborations, SWS flight testing 

(SWS-21) conducted several live 

flight tests using HDV-based flight 

plans. Flight testing is scheduled 

to conclude in October 2022.

DIP Conducts TIM with 

Boeing for SFNP-Ops 2 

MR-TBO Planning 

POC: MIRNA JOHNSON AND GEORGE SZATKOWSKI

On Aug. 30, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration 

(ATM-X) project’s Digital 

Information Platform (DIP) 

subproject team conducted a 

technical interchange meeting (TIM) 

with Boeing in Fairfax, Virginia. 

The purpose of the meeting was 

to discuss concepts to leverage the 

Flight and Flow Information for a 

Collaborative Environment work 

being demonstrated in the MultiRegional Trajectory Based Operations 

(MR-TBO) activities led by the FAA 

and its international partners. This 

interchange was a follow-up meeting 

to the engagements that occurred 

July 19–21 in Seattle, where Boeing 

hosted the FAA, Japan Civil Aviation 

Bureau, LS Technologies, and other 

MR-TBO partners. At the meeting, 

the DIP team shared a notional 

concept for NASA’s Sustainable 

Flight National Partnership Ops 2 

(SFNP-Ops 2) flight deck service 

for contrail avoidance and the 

information needed to enable the 

capability. Boeing expressed interest 
16 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2022

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

in a partnership where they could 

participate in design and testing, as 

well as the tools and data sources 

that could enable the flight deck 

service. The DIP team will continue 

to assess overall partnership strategy 

and mature the concept design. 

NASA Hosts Final Briefing 

About ETM Market Modeling

POC: JAEWOO JUNG

On Aug. 3, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration 

project’s Extensible Traffic 

Management subproject hosted 

a presentation led by an LMI 

team. In fiscal year 2021, LMI was 

tasked to: 1) elicit knowledge and 

information to understand the 

current and future opportunities 

associated with operations at high 

altitudes, and the risks and barriers 

to realizing those opportunities 

and 2) estimate the difference in 

the high-altitude operations market 

size with and without Upper Class 

E Traffic Management (ETM) 

for the United States. As part of 

their presentation, the LMI team 

demonstrated a model of the ETM 

market to estimate the market size 

associated with three use cases, fixed 

and mobile internet services, smart 

cities internet of things initiatives, 

and forest fire detection. Key 

findings from the task are as follows:

• Market potential is large and 

growing for services that can be 

provided by the High Altitude 

Platform System (HAPS). In 

addition to use cases where 

HAPS can provide superior 

services to those provided 

by terrestrial or space-based 

systems, HAPS can provide 

supplemental infrastructure to 

meet the growing demands. 

• Upper airspace is an 

underutilized resource, 

creating an opportunity to 

meet the American public’s 

needs while other domains 

may begin to encounter safety 

and environmental concerns 

related to expansion. 

• Airspace demand is tied 

to geographic demand for 

services rather than evenly 

distributed. This is a common 

issue in all airspace classes and 

requires airspace management 

techniques to accommodate 

areas of congestion. 

• ETM is necessary to 

accommodate operations at 

scale. The current approach 

relies on segregated volumes 

of airspace assigned to each 

vehicle to comply with existing 

separation standards. This does 

not allow an operator to deploy 

the number of vehicles necessary 

to serve a viable market, nor 

does it allow for competition 

between providers or services. 

• ETM can enable services that 

are in the public interest that 

go beyond the commercial 

services HAPS can provide, 

including public safety, 

disaster response, wildfire 

detection and monitoring, and 

environmental protection.

These findings and the associated 

ETM market model will be 

used to guide NASA’s ETM 

research and development and for 

engagement with the stakeholder 

community – including the FAA 

and other government agencies.

xTM Completes ETM 

Collaborative Evaluation 

Research Concept Review 

POC: JAEWOO JUNG

On Aug. 3, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration 

(ATM-X) project’s Extensible Traffic 

Management (xTM) subproject 

conducted a Collaborative 

Evaluation #1 (CE-1) Research 

Concept Review (RCR). The 

review was conducted by the xTM’s 

Upper Class E Traffic Management 

(ETM) team. During the RCR, the 

ETM team briefed stakeholders 

and reviewers on the project 

management, status, and technical 

work being undertaken by the team 

for the CE-1 activity. This included 

a prototype NASA research ETM 

system and its ability to support 

simulated cooperative operations 

in high altitudes which will be 

evaluated with partners in the CE-1, 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2022 17

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

currently scheduled for August 

2023. Reviewers and stakeholders 

were solicited to provide feedback 

and suggested actions to the ETM 

team to ensure that ETM CE-1 

work is: 1) well-aligned with NASA, 

AOSP, and ATM-X objectives and 

goals; 2) appropriately scoped 

and resourced; 3) sufficiently 

rigorous that the work proposed 

and underway is likely to result 

in a viable study with meaningful 

results that can be used to further 

future work; and 4) that effective 

and robust project management and 

systems engineering practices and 

procedures are being prepared. The 

ETM team plans to incorporate the 

feedback, address the actions, and 

progress to an experimental review. 

DIP Completes First 

University Challenge 

POC: MIRNA JOHNSON

On Aug. 3, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration 

project’s Digital Information 

Platform (DIP) subproject 

announced the winners from its 

first ever University Challenge. 

The challenge was to use machine 

learning to predict airport 

configuration changes for multiple 

airports, utilizing real-time air 

traffic and weather data, to assist 

flight operators, planners, and other 

decision makers with strategic and 

tactical planning. The challenge 

was launched on Jan. 25, 2022 and 

participants had until Apr. 25, 2022 

to submit. Out of 369 submissions, 

four teams were selected for 

award money. First place was a 

team from New York University, 

second from the Massachusetts 

Institute of Technology, third from 

the University of Maryland, and 

fourth from Pennsylvania State 

University. Winners’ algorithms 

showed substantial improvement 

over the baseline case where no 

changes of airport configuration 

were expected. The DIP team is 

evaluating how to use these results 

in their research. This University 

Challenge illustrated the use of 

these datasets for open innovation 

and encouraged engagement from 

universities. The DIP subproject 

team plans to set up a second 

University Challenge, which will 

be more complex, focusing on 

federated learning methods to 

resolve the challenge of leveraging 

proprietary data without exposing 

it to develop prediction models.

SWS Completes Identifying 

Key Gaps and Milestone 

Prioritization Needs 

POC: NATASHA NEOGI AND SUMMER BRANDT

On Aug. 3, the System-Wide 

Safety (SWS) project completed 

an exercise for the identification 

of key gaps and prioritization of 

NASA SWS needs. Researchers 

supporting Technical Challenge-5, 

“Safety Demonstrator Series,” 

worked with colleagues supporting 

Technical Challenge-2, “In-Flight 

Safety Predictions for Emerging 

Operations,” to perform a gap 

analysis to document the state of 

the art and state of practice with 

respect to the availability, maturity, 

and assurance of the current 

services, functions, and capabilities 

Top submissions to the Digital Information Platform University Challenge.
18 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2022

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

under development for the In-Time 

Safety Management System. 

AAM National Campaign ATI 

Hosts “Real-Time Visualization 

Using Grafana” Tech Talk 

POC: JOHN SPRAGUE AND MICHELE CENCETTI

On Sept. 2, the Advanced Air 

Mobility (AAM) project’s National 

Campaign (NC) subproject held a 

tech talk on real-time visualization. 

The talk was conducted by the NC’s 

Airspace Testing and Integration 

(ATI) team. The purpose of the tech 

talk series is to engage with the AAM 

community on types of technologies 

currently being used and developed 

during flight test activities and 

simulations. This was the fourth talk 

in the series and focused on the use 

of the Grafana platform as a realtime data visualization tool and the 

features that have been developed 

and customized to support the data 

collection process in the NC. The 

first half of the talk described what 

Grafana is, how this framework has 

been used within the context of the 

Unmanned Aircraft Systems Traffic 

Management (UTM) subproject, 

and how its features have been 

integrated and enhanced within 

the NC subproject. The second 

half of the talk was centered on 

the implementation details of this 

environment as used in the NC 

subproject – providing examples of 

the developed plug-ins including 

custom panel plug-ins, scatter 

plots panel, two-dimensional map 

panel, three-dimensional map 

panel, table data panel, export/data 

control panel, radargram panel, and 

envisioning the development of 

additional features on future research. 

A recording of the tech talk will be 

posted here: https://www.nasa.gov/

aamnationalcampaign/techtalks. 

The talk was well attended by 

multiple subprojects under the AAM 

ecosystem, aeronautics researchers, 

and others interested in this new 

technology, across all NASA centers. 

AFCM Completes 

Hazard Perception and 

Avoidance Simulation 

POC: CASEY SMITH AND CONRAD RORIE

On Aug. 15–Sept. 2, the 

Advanced Air Mobility project’s 

Automated Flight and Contingency 

Management (AFCM) subproject 

team hosted a human-in-the-loop 

simulation test in the Vertical 

Motion Simulator at NASA’s Ames 

Research Center in California. 

The simulation was conducted 

by AFCM’s Hazard Perception 

and Avoidance research team 

and featured an FAA-sponsored 

prototype version of the Airborne 

Collision Avoidance System 

(ACAS) standard currently in 

design for rotorcraft, ACAS-Xr, in 

application for electric Vertical 

Takeoff and Landing vehicles and 

with assistive automation concept 

software. This motion-based testing 

was designed to incite and evaluate 

varied avoidance maneuvers 

recommended by the system 

in response to a wide variety of 

encounter geometries and a range 

of flight phases in preparation for 

the spring 2023 flight testing as 

part of the National Campaign’s 

Integration of Automation Systems 

first series of research flight tests. 

Additionally, analysis of the system’s 

performance with feedback from 

pilots will be reported to the 

FAA’s Traffic Collision Avoidance 

System office to support continued 

ACAS-Xr standards development. 

ATM-X Represents NASA at 

the Emerging UAM Roundtable

POC: SHIVANJLI SHARMA

On Sept. 6, Shivanjli Sharma, 

deputy project manager of Air 

Traffic Management – eXploration 

(ATM-X), represented NASA at 

the Emerging Urban Air Mobility 

(UAM) Roundtable hosted by San 

Jose State University (SJSU) and 

the California Governor’s Office 

of Planning and Research. The 

Roundtable, “Governing Land Use 

for California and the European 

Union,” included members from 

the United States and Netherlands. 

Sharma presented perspectives on 

Advanced Air Mobility (AAM)/

UAM, research for AAM/UAM, 

and the challenges to achieve 

mature AAM/UAM operations. 

Other panelists included members 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2022 19

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

from Archer Air, the University of 

California, Berkeley’s Institute of 

Transportation Studies, Caltran’s 

Division of Airport Operations, 

the Community Air Mobility 

Initiative, and SJSU’s Department 

of Aviation. This forum gave the 

ATM-X project connections with 

the California Governor’s Office 

of Planning and Research and a 

pathway to building connections 

with localities in the state. 

SWS Participates at Drone 

Safety Team Meeting 

POC: BECKY HOOEY

On Sept. 6, Becky Hooey 

represented NASA’s System-Wide 

Safety (SWS) project at the Drone 

Safety Team (DST) Quarter 3 

plenary meeting. The meeting 

was held in conjunction with the 

Commercial Unmanned Aerial 

Vehicle Expo in Las Vegas. The 

DST is a government/industry 

group chartered in 2016 to develop 

consensus-based and data-driven 

safety enhancements for unmanned 

aircraft systems (UAS) and 

operations. The team consists of 

more than 80 leaders representing 

organizations that span the UAS 

community. At this meeting, agenda 

topics included status reports from 

three active working groups. The 

Data Working Group (WG) status 

report summarized the Aviation 

Safety Reporting System (ASRS) 

ad-hoc working group, of which 

Hooey is a participating member. 

The Data WG chair described the 

group’s two objectives: 1) focus on 

ways to make use of the available 

ASRS data for research initiatives 

and identifying best practices for 

UAS operators and 2) focus on 

suggestions to increase adoption and 

reporting into the ASRS by UAS 

operators. The Safety Assurances 

WG reported on three ongoing 

efforts. The first was an update on 

data analyses conducted under the 

FAA’s Center of Excellence for UAS, 

otherwise known as the Alliance 

for System Safety of UAS through 

Research Excellence; the second 

was a discussion of scalable safety 

management system guidelines 

for UAS operators; the third was 

a description of the Academy of 

Model Aeronautics safety assurance 

practices. The Communications 

WG provided talking points for 

members to use when talking to 

others in industry to describe the 

DST. They also encouraged the DST 

membership to continue to share 

information about ASRS using the 

tagline “When in Doubt, Fill it 

Out.” https://dronesafetyteam.org

AEWG Conducts Crosscutting 

WG Crosscutting V&V Vision 

2045 Roadmap Meetings 

POC: MISTY DAVIES

The Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) 

Ecosystem Working Group’s 

Crosscutting Working Group 

convened twice this past quarter. 

The first meeting, held on July 19, 

was for an “Autonomy Verification 

and Validation (V&V) Deep 

Dive.” The deep dive included an 

introduction and discussion of the 

development of the V&V Autonomy 

and Validation Roadmap. This 

work is being co-funded by NASA’s 

Transformative Aeronautics Concepts 

Program and AOSP. To validate 

the roadmap, agreements were 

sought within the AAM community 

based on major gaps identified 

by the programs, NASA Research 

Announcements, industry needs, and 

the future market. The goal of the 

deep dive was to engage the audience 

for suggestions and comments. 

The second meeting was held Sept. 

8. Misty Davies, System-Wide 

Safety (SWS) project manager, 

moderated the discussion. She was 

followed by Huafeng Yu of Boeing, 

who gave an overview of the work 

conducted to date. Yu was followed 

by Darren Cofer of Collins, Chuchu 

Fan of the Massachusetts Institute 

of Technology, Ella Atkins of the 

University of Michigan, Szabolcs 

Borgyos and Baoluo Meng of 

General Electric Research, and 

Georgios Bakirtzis of the University 

of Texan, Austin; each participated 

in updates, discussion, and feedback 

on the Autonomy V&V Roadmap. 

For more information, visit: https://

nari.arc.nasa.gov/aam-portal/ 
20 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2022

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

HDV Opens and Verifies 

Communication Ports 

Between Ames and Langley

POC: LOUIS GLAAB

In September 2022, the Advanced 

Air Mobility project’s High Density 

Vertiplex (HDV) subproject 

completed an approximately 

five-month effort to establish an 

essential capability to support the 

HDV team’s Scalable Autonomous 

Operations simulations. This effort 

has resulted in an Interconnection 

Security Agreement between 

NASA’s Langley Research Center 

in Virginia and Ames Research 

Center in California, and involved 

support from the Office of the Chief 

Information Officer. Resolution of 

the communication ports enables 

integration testing to begin, which 

links systems at NASA Ames and 

NASA Langley and is required to 

support planned HDV testing. 

SWS-21 Flight Testing 

Transitions to Final Stages 

POC: STEVE YOUNG

The System-Wide Safety (SWS) 

project team completed a series 

of tests demonstrating the ability 

of onboard services, functions, 

and capabilities (SFCs) to change 

autopilot flight commands 

when flight risk estimates exceed 

defined testing thresholds. Prior 

to the tests, the SWS team gave 

a presentation on Aug. 11 to the 

Airworthiness Review Board for 

approval of Stage 3 flight testing 

that would enable testing this new 

capability. Tentative approval was 

received at the meeting and a series 

of flight tests followed, occurring 

in August and September. During 

these tests, flight mode autopilot 

commands were successfully 

triggered by the onboard SFCs. 

With this progress in SWS-21 flight 

testing, Technical Challenge-2, 

“In-Flight Safety Predictions for 

Emerging Operations,” is projected 

to meet green success criteria 

for the assigned milestone and 

annual performance indicator. 

xTM Briefs ETM Research at 

the 5th Federal UxS Workshop 

POC: JEFF HOMOLA

On Sept. 13, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration 

(ATM-X) project’s Extensible Traffic 

Management (xTM) subproject 

team briefed NASA’s Upper Class 

E Traffic Management (ETM) 

research at the 5th Federal UxS 

Workshop. The workshop was an 

in-person event at NASA’s Ames 

Research Center in California 

that included an introduction to 

the xTM concept. The briefing 

included how core principles from 

the Unmanned Aircraft Systems 

Traffic Management (UTM) evolved 

to become xTM principles, the 

development of a prototype NASA 

research ETM system that inherits 

the xTM principles, and NASA’s plan 

for collaborative evaluation of the 

prototype research ETM system for 

enabling simulated concurrent and 

co-located high-altitude operations in 

2023. The ETM team plans to return 

to the next workshop to share more 

information about the collaborative 

evaluation. For more information, 

Photos from NASA Langley flight testing activities.

Presenter at 5th Federal UxS Workshop
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2022 21

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

visit: https://www.usgs.gov/centers/

national-innovation-center/

science/5th-federal-uxs-workshop

ATM-X PAAV Conducts 

Collaborative Meeting 

with DLR 

POC: ARWA AWEISS AND HUSNI IDRIS

On Sep. 15, members of the Air 

Traffic Management - eXploration 

project’s Pathfinding for Airspace 

with Autonomous Vehicles 

(PAAV) subproject, , held a virtual 

meeting with Felix Sievers from the 

German Aerospace Center (DLR). 

Representing the PAAV team were 

Dr. Jordan Sakakeeny, Dr. Husni 

Idris, Kurt Swieringa, Dr. Heather 

Arneson, and Tod Lewis. The 

purpose of the meeting was to 

discuss the outline of ongoing 

and future research, and to share 

initial analysis of the German air 

cargo market. The initial phase of 

the research is focused on a joint 

comparative analysis of regional air 

cargo operations in the United States 

and Germany and its potential for 

Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS). 

This joint comparative analysis 

will establish qualitative metrics by 

which airports in the United States 

and Germany can be compared for 

their accessibility and acceptability 

of cargo UAS. The focus of the 

collaboration will be on the airspace 

impacts of the introduction of UAS 

into the airspace, specifically around 

small, non-towered airports. This 

work will build on previous NASA 

work, “Preliminary Characterization 

of Unmanned Air Cargo Routes 

Using Current Cargo Operations 

Survey,” AIAA Aviation 2022. 

This meeting was one of a series 

of ongoing collaborative research 

meetings related to the NASA-DLR 

Work Package 2. This work will 

lay the foundation for future 

collaborative efforts in the coming 

years by identifying use cases or 

reference missions which can be used 

for future analysis and simulations, 

in addition to assisting in PAAV 

trajectory research. It is expected 

that the PAAV-DLR team will have 

an outline of this joint comparative 

analysis by the end of September. 

AAM/NC Conducts 

Collaborative Simulator 

Tests with Joby Aviation 

POC: DAVID ZAHN

Members of the Advanced Air 

Mobility project’s National Campaign 

(NC) team conducted engineering 

flight simulator tests with Joby 

Aviation personnel in Marina, 

California, Sep.12–16. The goal 

of the tests was to collaborate on 

developmental testing of potential 

future instrument flight procedure 

designs. The test team was joined by 

representatives of the FAA’s Flight 

Standards Service and Unmanned 

Aircraft Systems Integration Office. 

This work was part of the ongoing 

NC-1 series, and directly related 

to the NC subproject’s objective to 

develop instrument flight procedure 

(IFP) criteria for Urban Air Mobility/

electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing 

(UAM/eVTOL) operations. The 

collaborative test effort between 

Joby Aviation, NASA, and the FAA 

involved four NASA research pilots 

who received simulator training from 

Joby Aviation, and then executed 

different variations of developmental 

UAM/eVTOL IFPs, including 

departures, approaches, missed 

approaches and en route portions. 

The tests involved an experimental 

candidate terminal airspace construct 

termed a “deproach,” a circular wheel 

traffic profile which consolidates 

departure, approach and missed 

procedures to allow for conservation 

of airspace and streamlined tailoring 

to specific vertiports. The tests were 

accomplished using Joby Aviation’s 

engineering aircraft simulator, which 

includes avionics, inceptors, and 

aircraft performance modeling 

representative of Joby Aviation’s 

upcoming production aircraft. 

Testing involved manually flying 

the aircraft along the waypoints of 

the candidate IFPs and collecting 

the simulator data to analyze which 

versions of the IFPs score optimally 

across competing goals of obstacle 

avoidance, route efficiency and 

passenger comfort. This was the NC’s 

first opportunity to test experimental 

UAM IFP concepts with an eVTOL 

industry partner’s aircraft simulator. 

The tests will enable the NC to assess 

if the IFPs are compatible with the 

aircraft performance and identify 

which variations of the IFPs might 
22 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2022

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

be most successful considering 

the expected operating practices 

of a specific leading eVTOL 

aircraft. Planned next steps and 

future work include analyzing the 

simulator data and processing 

results, continuing efforts with 

the FAA to refine and produce 

Aeronautical Radio, Incorporated 

424 IFP code for potential 

ingestion by the eVTOL flight 

management systems, and further 

work with Joby Aviation to collect 

additional IFP aircraft simulator 

data using Joby Aviation pilots. 

SWS-Funded Research Leads 

to MATLAB/Python Toolbox 

Development and Release 

POC: WENDY OKOLO AND MISTY DAVIES

Research funded by the SystemWide Safety (SWS) project has 

culminated in a collection of 

customizable MATLAB/Python 

tools and functions to quantify and 

propagate uncertainty. This research 

was conducted in collaboration with 

the University of Texas at Arlington 

and principal investigator Kamesh 

Subbarao. The toolbox focuses on 

the quantification of uncertainties 

in small Unmanned Aircraft 

Systems’ parameters and operating 

conditions, thus contributing to 

safer traffic management. This 

toolbox is applicable to any dynamic 

system, such as urban air mobility 

vehicles, other air vehicles, and even 

spacecraft containing uncertainties 

from the surrounding environment, 

wind, aircraft weight, etc. In 

addition, the toolbox gives users the 

advantage of faster computations 

when compared to currently 

available MATLAB options for 

certain classes of systems. Potential 

end users and stakeholders such 

as operators and decision makers 

can customize the information 

used for processing or uncertainties 

to be quantified, and how the 

corresponding results are presented. 

The MATLAB/Python toolbox is 

available via GitHub at: https://

github.com/aslResearch/aslUQ/

DLR Visits Langley

POC: SHIVANJLI SHARMA AND EVAN DILL

On Sept. 16, researchers from the 

German Aerospace Center (DLR) 

visited NASA’s Langley Research 

Center in Virginia. Both the Air 

Traffic Management – eXploration 

(ATM-X) project, represented by 

Shivanjli Sharma and Kurt Swieringa, 

and the Advanced Air Mobility 

project, represented by Evan Dill, 

participated in the meeting. The 

visit provided an opportunity to

discuss the upcoming ATM-X 

visit to DLR, scheduled for late 

November through early December, 

to review research from the NASA/

DLR collaboration – as well as 

the DLR HorizonUAM Symposium. 

The meeting included an overview 

of the ATM-X project presented by 

Kurt Swieringa. In addition, tours of 

various NASA Langley facilities and 

previews of the 2022 Digital Avionics 

System Conference presentation were 

also discussed. Both the ATM-X 

project and the System-Wide Safety 

project participated in the tours 

and discussions.

UAM Revises Roadmap 

Using Machine Learning 

Natural Language 

Processing Algorithm

POC: KEVIN WITZBERGER

On Sept. 21–22, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration 

(ATM-X) project’s Urban Air 

Photos from DLR visit.
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2022 23

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

Mobility (UAM) Airspace subproject 

revised the UAM Airspace Research 

Roadmap (Roadmap), that uses 

model-based system engineering 

and machine learning for 

natural language processing. The 

Roadmap supports UAM research 

to achieve a highly automated 

and operationally flexible UAM 

airspace management system. Nipa 

Phojanamongkolkij, Braxton Van 

Gundy, and Ian Levitt described 

the use of these technologies at 

the Systems Engineering Research 

Center AI4SE & SE4AI Workshop 

2022. The workshop was hosted by 

the Stevens Institute of Technology. 

The presentation, with a live demo, 

gave an overview of the natural 

language processing application. 

NASA/CANSO/FAA 

Collaborating for our 

Future Skies Meeting 

POC: PARIMAL KOPARDEKAR

At the FAA’s request, the NASA 

Aeronautics Research Institute and 

NASA’s “Sky for All“ initiative 

hosted a three-day in-person 

meeting to bring international 

stakeholders together on Sept. 

20–22. The purpose of the meeting 

was to meet with innovators, present 

work on future airspace planning 

and strategy, and discuss how 

the Civil Air Navigation Services 

Organisation (CANSO), the FAA, 

and NASA can better collaborate to 

ensure stakeholder needs are met in 

the coming decades. The meeting, 

held at NASA’s Ames Research 

Center in California, included 

about 50 people and created 

a forum in which three future 

aviation plans could be discussed 

and harmonized. These included 

FAA’s Info-Centric National 

Airspace System, CANSO’s 

Complete Air Traffic System 

(CATS) Global Council Vision for 

2045, and NASA’s “Sky for All,” a 

capability framework to inform 

NASA’s research and development 

strategy through the mid-21st 

century. Industry was invited to 

share their perspectives and ideas 

throughout the meeting. The 

three future-focused plans shared 

many of the same key challenges 

and opportunities, including an 

emphasis on sustainable practices, 

ubiquitous communications, and 

highly automated and autonomous 

operations. Both the CATS 

Global Council Vision and “Sky 

for All” presented their strategies 

in five-year increments that built 

successively upon the last to achieve 

the respective visions by 2045. On 

Tuesday and Thursday, industry 

tours at Wisk, Wing, Microsoft, and 

Reliable Robotics introduced global 

representatives from CANSO to 

American Silicon Valley innovators. 

Follow-up meetings are in the 

process of being scheduled, and 

all three organizations are eager to 

continue working together toward 

a sustainable, highly automated 

future airspace system that will 

enhance the quality of life for all. 

UAM Team Visits Archer 

Headquarters 

POC: KEVIN WITZBERGER

On Sept. 26, members of the Air 

Traffic Management – eXploration 

project’s Urban Air Mobility (UAM) 

Airspace subproject visited Archer’s 

headquarters in San Jose, California. 

NASA representatives met with 

key Archer leaders including Adam 

Goldstein, co-founder and chief 

executive officer; Mark Mesler, chief 

financial officer; Andy Missan, chief 

legal officer; Tom Muniz, chief 

operating officer; Tom Anderson, 

chief operating officer, UAM; 

Michael Romanowski, head of 

government relations; and Deborah 

Dias, board of directors member. 

Goldstein opened the meeting by 

providing an overview of Archer’s 

business plan, Maker demonstration 

aircraft, and timeline to certification 

for the Midnight production aircraft 

by the end of 2024 to enable 

commercial operations in 2025. 

Anderson covered Archer’s initial 

route structure options in the New 

York area that have been informed 

by an in-house proprietary software 

package and their partnership with 

United Airlines. Following these 

discussions, NASA received a tour 

of their engineering simulator and 

a couple of NASA researchers flew 

the simulator (some flew better 

than others!). After wrapping 

up at Archer’s headquarters, the 

NASA team headed north to Palo 

Alto, California and received a 
24 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2022

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

tour of Archer’s manufacturing 

site to see their second Maker 

demonstration aircraft. Archer 

has two demonstration 

aircraft – one flying under an 

FAA Certificate of Authorization 

at Salinas Municipal Airport in 

Monterey County, California 

and the second in Palo Alto.

Archer’s vice president of 

manufacturing, Glen Burks, 

provided an overview of Maker, 

lessons learned from flight testing, 

and expected differences with their 

Midnight production aircraft. Before 

ending the tour for the day, NASA 

invited Archer to visit its Ames 

Research Center in California in 

the future and to learn about UAM 

Airspace’s research and development 

efforts. Given NASA’s expertise in 

airspace and Archer’s in vehicles, 

there is anticipation for future 

research collaboration opportunities.

NASA team with Archer.

NASA team touring Archer facility.
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2022 25

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

ATM-X Hosts the NASA/

FAA Quarterly Review 

POC: WILLIAM CHAN

The Air Traffic Management – 

eXploration (ATM-X) project 

hosted a two-day hybrid NASA/FAA 

Quarterly Status Review Meeting 

at NASA’s Ames Research Center 

in California on Sept. 28–29. The 

review was hosted by the NASA 

Aeronautics Research Institute. 

Each day consisted of ATM-X 

presentations on research status and 

schedule updates from the ATM-X 

subprojects. Subprojects included 

the Digital Information Platform, 

Extensible Traffic Management, 

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) Airspace 

Management, Pathfinding for 

Airspace with Autonomous Vehicles, 

and “Sky for All.” Each subproject 

also conducted breakout sessions 

with the FAA which discussed 

coordination and more detailed 

topic-specific items. In addition 

to the ATM-X presentations, the 

FAA presented updates on their 

Info-Centric National Airspace 

System vision and updates to 

their Unmanned Aircraft Systems 

Traffic Management and UAM 

demonstrations. The next quarterly 

review is planned for December 2022.

HDV LSTAR Fully Hooked 

Up to Langley Network 

POC: LOUIS GLAAB

The Advanced Air Mobility project’s 

High Density Vertiplex (HDV) 

subproject’s Lightweight Surveillance 

and Target Acquisition Radar 

(LSTAR) was successfully powered 

up this past quarter – remotely 

testing the power and internet 

connection to the LSTAR in its new 

location at NASA’s Langley Research 

Center in Virginia. This marks the 

conclusion of several months of work 

to get power/internet connectivity to 

the LSTAR so that the HDV team 

can proceed with LSTAR integration 

with the ANRA Technologies 

SmartSkies (SS) CTR airspace 

surveillance system. Given the recent 

relocation of the LSTAR to the roof 

of the building, the radar needed to 

be disassembled and reassembled in 

its new location. Subsequently, the 

GA-9120 radars were mounted on 

the gantry at NASA Langley and the 

HDV surveillance team completed 

the power and internet cabling work 

to those two radar panels. A quick 

demonstration was provided on July 

8 showing live radar data displayed 

on a computer in a lab area of the 

building. This opened the door for 

live radar data integration with the 

ANRA SS CTR system and display 

of traffic in the Remote Operations 

for Autonomous Missions 

laboratory’s Unmanned Aircraft 

Systems (UAS) Operations Center.

On Sept. 9, the team successfully 

integrated simulated radar data 

(Sim Asterix) with the ANRA 

Technologies SS CTR that replicates 

output from the LSTAR. This will 

enable the HDV team to perform 

comprehensive testing of the ANRA 

SS CTR surveillance data fusion and 

display system much more effectively 

than with actual sensors. In addition, 

the Anra SS CTR integration 

team installed the latest update of 

the system onto the NASA host 

computers and resolved a major issue 

regarding additional user accounts, 

removing a major challenge to the 

implementation team. For uses 

This picture shows simulated air traffic from the Sim Asterix data.
26 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2022

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

in HDV, the ANRA SS CTR will 

integrate airspace surveillance 

information from a series of sensors 

and provide an Integrated Airspace 

Display (IAD). The UAS operations 

team will use the IAD to make 

decisions regarding launching 

aircraft for beyond visual line of 

sight (BVLOS) operations as well as 

when to potentially abort operations. 

Lastly, on Sept. 30, the LSTAR was 

successfully powered up, remotely 

testing the power and internet 

connection to the LSTAR in its 

new location at NASA Langley. 

This marked the conclusion of 

several months of work to get 

power/internet connectivity to the 

LSTAR so that the HDV team can 

proceed with LSTAR integration 

with the ANRA SS CTR airspace 

surveillance system. When fully 

integrated, the HDV team will 

have the LSTAR radar on top 

of B1244, two smaller GA-9120 

panel radars on the Langley gantry, 

ground-based ADS-B and flight 

alarm sensors all feeding into the 

ANRA SS CTR for display to the 

UAS operations team in the control 

lab to enable BVLOS operations. 

SWS Completes Assessing 

NASA’s Risk Monitoring 

and Assessment Tools 

POC: NIKUNJ OZA AND CHAD STEPHENS

NASA’s System-Wide Safety 

(SWS) project recently completed 

important work regarding 

extending NASA’s risk monitoring 

and assessment tools for the 

inclusion of non-traditional data 

and analyzing the cost and benefit 

for including these sources. As of 

Sept. 30, two assessments were 

performed: costs and benefits of 

using Aviation Safety Reporting 

System (ASRS) reports, and costs 

and benefits of using Aviation 

Safety Action Program (ASAP) and 

ASAP Event Review Committee 

(ERC) debrief sessions/interviews. 

The key findings from this work 

were that the ASRS, together 

with associated Google Analytics 

and geographic information 

associated with the reports, seem 

promising to use together with 

other traditional/objective data 

such as System Wide Information 

Management (SWIM) and Flight 

Operations Quality Assurance 

(FOQA). Also, human factors 

expertise can provide additional 

information about ASAP reports 

beyond the information collected 

in a typical debrief. Therefore, 

having human factors experts 

present during debriefs would be 

valuable. The work has resulted in 

two reports being generated. One 

describes how ASRS and associated 

information can be used, together 

with traditional/objective data such 

as SWIM and FOQA, to obtain 

information beyond what each 

one could provide on its own. The 

other is a report giving an example 

of insights that a human factors 

expert can provide on an ASAP 

report, some key questions about 

the ASAP ERC debrief process, 

and what additional value can be 

gained from the ASAP reports 

and ERC debrief information. 

FSF and SWS Complete 

IASMS Roadmap Workshops 

POC: MISTY DAVIES

The Flight Safety Foundation (FSF) 

and the System-Wide Safety (SWS) 

project have collaborated to develop a 

high-level, long-term roadmap for the 

In-Time Aviation Safety Management 

System (IASMS). This roadmap 

will identify key dependencies, 

enablers, risks, and opportunities that 

facilitate the operations envisioned 

in the 2035–2045 timeframe and 

will help inform NASA’s long-term 

research strategy. It will also identify 

external initiatives that NASA 

could encourage that contribute 

to aviation safety objectives. As of 

Sept. 30, FSF completed, through 

a series of “mini workshops,” 

NASA-internal coordination 

on the high-level content that 

would be shared with external 

stakeholders during a planned 

in-person workshop in January 2023. 

Each mini workshop explored a 

number of themes, most of which 

were captured from stakeholder 

interviews conducted last fall. 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2022 27

RECOGNITION

AOSP Researchers Serve on 

Panels on Automation and 

Autonomy in General Aviation 

POC: KEN GOODRICH AND NATASHA NEOGI

On July 13, Ken Goodrich, deputy 

project manager for technology 

for the Advanced Air Mobility 

project, along with Natasha Neogi, 

the subproject manager for the 

Safety Demonstrator Series within 

the System-Wide Safety (SWS) 

project, served as panelists for a 

webinar entitled “Automation and 

Autonomy in General Aviation: 

Opportunities and Challenges 

for Safety, Accessibility and 

Sustainability.” The webinar was 

co-sponsored by the American 

Institute for Aeronautics and 

Astronautics (AIAA) Intelligent 

Systems Technical Committee and 

the Partnership to Enhance General 

Aviation Safety, Accessibility and 

Sustainability which is an FAA 

Center of Excellence for General 

Aviation. The virtual event was 

joined by 149 attendees and will be 

archived on an AIAA website. Other 

panelists included Nicoletta Fala, 

assistant professor of Mechanical 

and Aerospace Engineering at 

Oklahoma State University; Joe 

Phillips, director of Engineering 

Flight Test at Textron Aviation; 

and John Valasek, professor of 

Aerospace Engineering at Texas 

A&M University. Bill Crossley, 

head of Purdue University’s School 

of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 

served as the panel moderator. 

ATM-X Participates at Future 

of Aviation Conference 

POC: SHIVANJLI SHARMA

The Air Traffic Management – 

eXploration (ATM-X) project 

participated in the Future of 

Aviation Conference, hosted at San 

Francisco International Airport 

on Aug. 3–4. The goal of the 

conference was to advance key 

research and policy discussions 

around environmental impacts, 

safety, security, equity, multimodal 

integration, and the role of 

government. ATM-X deputy project 

manager Shivanjli Sharma spoke 

on a panel titled “Advancing 

Aerial Mobility: Current Practices, 

Innovations, and Emerging Futures,” 

where they discussed views on 

opportunities, risks, and indicators 

to watch in preparation for enabling 

Advanced Air Mobility. Kenneth 

Freeman also spoke on a panel titled 

“Securing Advanced Air Mobility 

– Clipper.” This panel discussed 

ensuring personal, personnel, 

physical, and cybersecurity of all 

aspects of Advanced Air Mobility 

that will be critical to maintaining 

safety and public trust. 

SWS-Sponsored 

Research Results in New 

Licensed Technology

POC: CHAD STEPHENS

On Aug. 4, research that was 

sponsored by NASA’s System-Wide 

Safety (SWS) project resulted 

in a new license (DN-1710) 

with Rightvarsity Technologies, 

LLC (https://rightvarsity.

com/) for a patented NASA 

technology (LAR-18880-1, U.S. 

patent US20180103867A1). 

Rightvarsity specializes in program 

improvement, new program/project 

implementation and program/

project management, IT consulting, 

IT workforce apprenticeship 

training, and higher demand skills 

immersion/augmentation services. 

Rightvarsity training services include 

on-demand and value-added 

development and documentation 

for custom training, eLearning, 

remote job aids, instructor-led 

training, and leadership/technical 

training. Rightvarsity is an approved 

training provider of e-health 

(EPIC consulting services) and the 

Department of Homeland Security 

through the National Initiative 

of Cybersecurity Career Studies. 

The patented NASA technologies 

are expected to contribute to the 

Rightvarsity focus areas of eLearning 

and remote job aids (educational 

apps/games and instructional 

design and development). The 

co-inventors on the licensed patents 

include Chad Stephens and Alan 

Pope of NASA’s Langley Research 

Center in Virginia and William 

Hollingsworth, former NASA 

intern. For more information, visit: 

https://ntts-prod.s3.amazonaws.

com/t2p/prod/t2media/tops/

pdf/LAR-TOPS-276.pdf 
28 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2022

RECOGNITION

SWS Associate Project 

Manager Serves as Panelist 

on NASA Ames WoW Panel 

for Women’s Equality Day 

POC: WENDY OKOLO

On Aug. 25, the Women’s Influence 

Network and the African American 

Advisory Group at NASA’s Ames 

Research Center in California hosted 

the Women of Worth (WoW) 

panel discussion. This insightful 

agencywide women’s empowerment 

session highlighted the worth 

and value of women at NASA in 

commemoration of Women’s Equality 

Day. The discussion was moderated 

by Deborah Feng, former associate 

director at NASA Ames, and featured 

Wendy Okolo, System-Wide Safety 

(SWS) associate project manager, as 

one of the panelists. The virtual event 

drew more than 150 attendees across 

the agency including NASA Ames 

Center Director Eugene Tu and 

Clayton Turner, director of NASA’s 

Langley Research Center in Virginia. 

SWS’s Aviation Security 

Liaison Presents at COI Series 

POC: PAUL HOYT NELSON

The System-Wide Safety (SWS) 

project’s aviation security liaison, 

Paul Nelson, in his role of senior 

cybersecurity advisor for NASA 

Aeronautics, gave a presentation 

on “UTM System Security 

Engineering and ASTM Standards 

Development” on Aug. 25. The 

meeting was held via Webex as 

part of the Aeronautics Research 

Mission Directorate Cybersecurity 

Community of Interest (COI) series 

of presentations. Link to presentation 

recording: https://nen.nasa.gov/web/

sse/documents/-/document_library/

h5fJYiGhs1eZ/view_file/28058233. 

AAM Project Lead Strategist 

to Serve as a Member on 

the 2023 AVIATIONGC 

POC: STARR GINN

Starr Ginn, lead strategist in 

the Advanced Air Mobility 

(AAM) project office, was 

appointed and confirmed 

by the American Institute of 

Aeronautics and Astronautics to 

serve as a member on the 2023 

AVIATION Forum Guiding 

Coalition (AVIATIONGC). This 

committee of thought leaders from 

throughout academia, industry, 

and government will provide the 

high-level vision and guidance for 

the continued development of this 

annual event. Under the leadership 

of the AVIATION executive 

producer, Ginn will advise on 

the event’s development, provide 

insight into the theme and key 

topics/issues, identify and recruit 

relevant experts and speakers, 

and facilitate communication 

with peers, colleagues, and 

potential partner organizations. 

SWS Researcher 

Contributes to New RTCA 

Document DO-397 

POC: EVAN DILL

As part of the RTCA SC-228 effort 

to develop minimum performance 

standards for Unmanned Aircraft 

Systems (UAS), four subgroups were 

established to investigate specific 

areas of interest. Evan Dill from the 

System-Wide Safety (SWS) project 

participated as a subject-matter expert 

in Working Group 4, studying gaps 

in navigation system performance 

for UAS. During this effort, Dill 

provided multiple technical 

contributions and editorial comments. 

The efforts of this working group 

recently led to the publication 

of new RTCA guidance material 

titled “DO-397, Guidance Material: 

Navigation Gaps for Unmanned 

Aircraft Systems” on Sept. 15. 

ATM-X Participates in the 

ITS World Congress 

POC: SHIVANJLI SHARMA

On Sept. 20, Shivanjli Sharma, Air 

Traffic Management – eXploration 

(ATM-X) deputy project manager, 

was part of a panel titled “Policy 

and Governance Implications 

of Urban Air Mobility” at the 

Intelligent Transportation Systems 

(ITS) World Congress Meeting 

in Los Angeles. This meeting is a 

global event that brings together 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2022 29

RECOGNITION

world leaders, practitioners, policy 

makers, researchers, and private 

industry to advance and unite the 

ITS industry. On the panel, they 

discussed the concept of Urban 

Air Mobility and how it impacts 

governance and policy. Some of 

the topics of discussion included 

ground operations, vehicle routing, 

impact on highways, routing 

in the sky, and integration into 

multi-modal hubs. The next ITS 

World Congress Meeting will 

be held in Atlanta in 2025. 

SWS Has Significant 

Representation at DASC 2022 

POC: TERRY MORRIS AND JEFF HOMOLA

The Digital Avionics Systems 

Conference (DASC) took place 

this year in Portsmouth, Virginia 

on Sept. 18–22. The conference 

focused on industry, academia, 

and government research and 

analyses from aeronautics and 

space domains. The theme for the 

conference was “Roadmap for 

Increasingly Autonomous Systems 

in Air Transportation.” There 

were more than 47 paper sessions 

with up to four papers per session 

and more than 165 papers in the 

proceedings. NASA contributed 

substantially as authors and 

presenters, as well as organizers and 

managers of the conference. SystemWide Safety (SWS) team members 

Natasha Neogi, Evan Dill, Daniel 

Hulse, and Mahyar Malekpour all 

chaired sessions at the conference, 

while Steve Young served as track 

chair and Terry Morris served 

as general chair. Kaitlyn Fox, 

SWS strategic communications 

manager, served as publicity chair 

for DASC 2022. Consistent with 

the conference theme, sessions 

were held on machine learning 

and artificial intelligence tools and 

concepts for Urban Air Mobility 

(UAM)/Advanced Air Mobility 

(AAM); Navigation Performance, 

Test, Verification and Certification; 

and Safety, Risk, and Security, 

with a clear focus this year on 

small Unmanned Aircraft Systems 

operations and UAM autonomy 

and automation. Two distinctive 

panels were presented at the 

DASC. The first panel focused on 

industry perspectives provided by 

Cirrus, Joby, Xwing, and Reliable 

Robotics – industry leaders who 

are introducing new autonomyrelated vehicle technologies into 

(Top left to lower) Sequoia Andrade receiving 2nd place Best of Conference Award at DASC. Some of SWS team members who attended DASC. SWS / Air Traffic 

Management - eXploration booth at DASC. IASMS panel at DASC.
30 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2022

RECOGNITION

the National Airspace System 

(NAS). To provide a balanced 

perspective on autonomy and 

automation, SWS team members 

moderated and served as panelists 

on a government perspective’s panel 

called, “In Time Safety Management 

Systems for Future Operational 

Transitions,” which discussed how 

assuring safety as new entrants and 

expanding traditional operations 

become more integrated in the 

future NAS, which poses significant 

challenges due to increasing 

operational complexity. The panel 

discussed the benefits of the In-Time 

Aviation Safety Management 

System (IASMS) concept for 

AAM including carriers and cargo 

operators, and the implications for 

the FAA, industry standards, and 

cybersecurity. Michael Vincent, 

SWS associate project manager, 

served as the moderator. Panelists 

included SWS team members 

Misty Davies, Jim Ackerson, and 

Paul Hoyt Nelson. Other panelists 

were Scott LeMay, director of the 

Safety Analytical Services Division 

at the FAA and Deborah Kirkman, 

director of the Flight Safety 

Foundation. The audience was 

highly engaged, resulting with good 

questions and discussions. SWSsponsored research won several 

DASC 2022 team awards. SWS 

researchers Sequoia Andrade and 

Hannah Walsh’s paper, “What Went 

Wrong: A Survey of Wildfire UAS 

Mishaps Through Named Entity 

Recognition,” won best of session, 

best of track, and 2nd place best of 

conference awards. In the area of 

Test, Verification & Certification, 

SWS researcher Michael Holloway’s 

paper “False Beliefs About the 

Overarching Properties and 

Overarching Properties Related 

Arguments” won the best of session 

award. In the area of UAM/AAM 

Safety, Risk, and Security, the SWS 

IASMS team’s paper, “The In-Time 

Aviation Safety Management System 

Concept for Part 135 Operators,” 

also won the best of session award. 

SWS personnel staffed a booth at 

DASC, complete with SWS graphics 

display and virtual reality experience. 

Special thanks to Meghan Woodcock 

and Dan Coleman for booth and 

display setup and dismantling. 

In addition, the AAM project’s 

High Density Vertiplex subproject 

team received the best of session 

automation and teaming award 

for their paper titled “Usability 

Evaluation of Fleet Management 

Interface for High Density Vertiplex 

Environments” at the conference.

AAM Lead Strategist Gives 

Keynote Speech at the Drones 

and Robotics Summit 

POC: STARR GINN

Starr Ginn, the Advanced Air 

Mobility (AAM) project office lead 

strategist, provided the opening 

keynote speech at the Drones and 

Robotics Summit in New York on 

Sept. 20. This event focused on 

automation of vehicle, airspace, and 

infrastructure, the digital thread 

that needs to close the loop on this 

system, and then communicate 

to other missions and use cases. 

Ginn spoke about Small Business 

Innovation Research (SBIR) 

opportunities for small businesses 

and venture capitalists. An SBIR 

example was used to show how 

NASA invests in low technology 

readiness level to buy down risk 

and identify commercial use cases. 

Attending the conference was Genius 

VC, Empire State Development New 

York Ventures, and Silicon Valley 

Bank, among others. Most small 

businesses attending were based 

in New York, including NUAIR, 

TRUweather, and Circle Optics. 

Representatives from the United 

Kingdom and Israel were also present. 

Starr Ginn presenting at the Drones and Robotics 

Summit.
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JUL-SEP 2022 31

RECOGNITION

xTM Paper Accepted for 

Publication in IEEE TOR 

POC: KRISHNA KALYANAM

In September, a paper written 

by the Air Traffic Management – 

eXploration (ATM-X) project’s 

Extensible Traffic Management 

(xTM) subproject was accepted 

for publication in the prestigious 

“Institute of Electrical and 

Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 

Transactions on Robotics 

(TRO)” journal. The paper was 

authored by Krishna Kalyanam, 

Unmanned Aircraft Systems 

Traffic Management (UTM) 

research lead, in collaboration 

with representatives from the Air 

Force Research Laboratory, Texas 

A&M University, and Los Alamos 

National Laboratory. The paper, 

titled “Bounds on Optimal Revisit 

Times in Persistent Monitoring 

Missions with a Distinct and 

Remote Service Station,” presents 

a novel algorithm that solves 

the problem of determining 

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) 

routes that minimizes time spent 

on recharging when the targets 

and recharging stations are not 

co-located. The solutions from 

this algorithm are compared with 

optimal ones and found to be 

within 0.01 percent on average. 

This computationally difficult 

“NP-Hard” problem presents itself 

when realistic constraints, such 

as propulsion energy capacity 

of UAV and recharging time, 

are considered in UAV route 

generation and this work brings the 

UTM and Advanced Air Mobility 

community one step closer to 

designing energy-saving routes 

with operational constraints. The 

work delivers a bounding algorithm 

with performance guarantees 

on the quality of the solution. 
National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Headquarters

300 E. Street, SW

Washington, DC 20024

www.nasa.gov/aeroresearch

www.nasa.gov