National Aeronautics and Space Administration

www.nasa.gov

AOSP Newsletter

Airspace Operations and Safety Program (AOSP)

APR-JUN 2023 | Quarter 3

AAM National Campaign and 

Partner Complete Profile B 

Flight Test

4

HDV Accomplishments to 

Support SAO-BVLOS Simulation 

and Flight Tests

21
2 AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023

AOSP IN THE NEWS

NASA Explores the Future 

of an Airspace Filled 

with Flying Taxis

Federal News Network (4/3) 

reports “Aviation is changing thanks 

to the emergence of new types of 

manned and unmanned aircraft. 

NASA’s Advanced Air Mobility 

Mission seeks, in its words, to help 

emerging aviation markets operate 

safely. The program pulls in many 

public and private partners. Joining 

the Federal Drive with a flyover 

view, NASA research and test pilot 

Gerrit Everson.”

New York Port Authority, 

NASA Partner To Study 

AAM Integration

Aviation Week (4/11) reports 

“the Port Authority of New York 

and New Jersey (PANYNJ) has 

entered into a Space Act agreement 

with NASA to collaborate on the 

integration of electric verticaltakeoff-and-landing (eVTOL) 

vehicles and uncrewed aircraft 

systems (UAS) in the Greater New 

York City area, part of an effort to 

prepare for...”

Reliable Robotics, NASA 

Test Detect-and-Avoid 

with FAA Radars

Aviation Week (4/26) reports 

“during the test campaign, Reliable 

Robotics coordinated encounters of 

two of its aircraft in California while 

data was being collected by FAA 

ground-based radar.”

FAA’s Updated Blueprint for 

Air Taxi Services Places New 

Emphasis on Cooperation with 

Industry, Other Agencies

Aerospace America (5/5) reports 

“aircraft developers and analysts 

are poring over FAA’s updates to 

its airspace blueprint for urban air 

mobility, the term for flights in and 

around cities by electric air taxis and 

cargo aircraft under the advanced air 

mobility movement. The 33-page 

‘UAM Concept of Operations 

Version 2.0’ released by FAA May 3 

provides more details about the air 

taxi ‘corridors’ the agency plans to 

establish — a traffic management 

concept developed together with 

NASA and first identified in the 

original blueprint released in 2020.”

U.S. Forms Team to Set 

Strategy on Flying Air Taxis

Reuters (5/16) reports “the Biden 

administration said Tuesday it 

has formed an interagency team 

to develop a national strategy 

on advanced air mobility efforts 

like flying taxis. Electric vertical 

takeoff and landing aircraft 

(eVTOL) have been touted as the 

future of urban air mobility. The 

low-altitude urban air mobility 

aircraft has drawn intense interest 

around the world as numerous 

eVTOL companies have gone 

public. The U.S. Transportation 

Department said the team includes 

NASA, Transportation Security 

Administration, Federal Aviation 

Administration and Federal 

Communications Commission.”

NASA Uses PC-12 for 

Advanced Air Mobility 

Flight Trials

Aviation International News (5/18) 

reports “NASA is deploying a 

Pilatus PC-12 for test flights in the 

Cleveland area as part of its work to 

pave the way for the autonomous 

operations envisaged for the 

advanced air mobility sector. The 

flights started today and run through 

June 25, with the agency’s pilots 

following roadways over Cleveland, 

Lodi, Mansfield, and Medina in 

Ohio to test communications 

technology expected to be used by 

eVTOLs and other new air vehicles.”

Reliable Robotics and 

NASA Conduct Flight 

Tests to Advance Aircraft 

Automation Systems

Aviation Today (5/24) reports “last 

month, Reliable Robotics and NASA 

announced that they had completed 

a series of flight tests to validate the 

use of existing primary surveillance 

radar (PSR) data from the FAA for 

improving safety in the airspace.”

UAM Business Models: Flying 

Taxis, Personal Drones and the 

3rd Dimension of Vehicles

AP (5/25) reports “the ‘Urban Air 

Mobility Business Models: Flying 

Taxis, Personal Drones and the 3rd 

Dimension of Vehicles’ report has 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023 3

AOSP IN THE NEWS

been added to ResearchAndMarkets.

com’s offering. This report captures 

the business models, technological 

innovation and emerging 

opportunities in Urban Air Mobility, 

from drones to flying taxis. ... 

NASA and the FAA are working 

with private-sector companies to 

determine the right regulatory 

processes and technical standards 

for a class of air vehicles that will be 

help full to overcome ground traffic 

and sets flying vehicle standards.”

NASA Research Gathers Key 

Radar Data for Autonomous 

Air Cargo Delivery

Space Daily (6/8) reports “when 

autonomous air taxis and cargo 

delivery vehicles fly above 

neighborhoods, safe operations will 

depend on their ability to detect and 

avoid other aircraft and obstacles. 

As part of the agency’s broad 

portfolio of work on Advanced Air 

Mobility, NASA researchers visited 

the Mountain View, California 

headquarters of industry partner 

Reliable Robotics in late February to 

observe flight testing.”

Frontier Airlines and APiJET 

Announce Agreement to Test 

APiJET’s Real-Time Route 

Optimization Technology 

Furthering Frontier’s 

Commitment to Fuel 

Efficiency and Sustainability

Space Daily (6/13) reports “Frontier 

Airlines (NASDAQ: ULCC), a 

leader in sustainable aviation and 

America’s Greenest Airline, and 

APiJET, the technology leader in 

real-time flight optimization for 

fuel and carbon savings, today, 

announced an agreement to test 

APiJET’s Digital WingletsTM for 

operations centers. ‘We’re very 

excited to partner with APiJET in 

testing Digital WingletsTM’ said Barry 

Biffle, CEO of Frontier Airlines. ... 

Digital Winglets utilizes TASAR 

(Traffic Aware Strategic Aircrew 

Requests), a technology initially 

developed by NASA and refined and 

productized by APiJET, that analyses 

hundreds of variables and potential 

flight paths in real-time to provide 

route optimizations that result in 

significant fuel and carbon savings.”
4 AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

AAM National Campaign 

and Partner Complete 

Profile B Flight Test 

POC: MIKE MARSTON

On April 21, test team members 

from Reliable Robotics, in 

partnership with the Advanced 

Air Mobility (AAM) project’s 

National Campaign subproject, 

conducted the “Profile B” live 

flight test. The flight test was a 

culmination event of the twopart test series that began with 

Reliable Robotics conducting 

Profile A in March 2023 using their 

Cessna 172 test aircraft. Profile B 

Reliable Robotics’ Cessna 208 test aircraft.

Profile A required the Cessna 172 (shown in blue) to fly a series of maneuvers between Monterey and 

Stockton, California.
AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023 5

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

included intercept-type encounters 

using both the 172 and Reliable’s 

Cessna 208 test aircraft. The FAA 

requires all pilots to see and avoid 

other aircraft while flying in the 

National Airspace System. For 

unpiloted aircraft to meet this 

requirement, an equivalent level 

of safety to a pilot onboard the 

aircraft is required. One proposal 

to meeting this requirement is via 

a detect and avoid system. Both 

NASA and Reliable Robotics think 

the potential use of current FAA 

surveillance radars can be part 

of that solution. The purpose of 

this testing was to collect aircraft 

radar detection data sourced from 

multiple FAA-operated surveillance 

radar systems in central California. 

Additionally, aircraft flight data 

from both aircraft and onboard 

surveillance radar data installed 

on the Cessna 208 was collected 

and will contribute to data analysis 

performed by the NASA team. 

Weather data was also collected for 

analysis. Pilot ability to visually 

see and identify the opposing 

aircraft was also evaluated. The 

research will provide three main 

benefits: 1) potentially developing 

or contributing to data that could 

justify a detect and avoid safety 

case based on integration of near 

real-time primary surveillance 

radar data; 2) development of 

a radar probability of detection 

prediction model that industry 

could use to substantiate the use 

of real-time surveillance radar 

data to support a detect and avoid 

safety case with the FAA; and 

3) provide comparative analysis 

opportunities to determine if 

a proposed detect-and-avoid 

system is as good as, or better 

than, the best possible human 

performance for see and avoid.

SWS Hosts Workshop on 

Topological Data Analysis 

for Assurance for SafetyCritical Systems 

POC: ALWYN GOODLOE

On April 3, the System-Wide Safety 

(SWS) project hosted the second 

workshop on Topological Data 

Analysis Applied to Assurance of 

Safety-Critical Systems at NASA’s 

Langley Research Center in Virginia. 

SWS project researcher Alwyn 

Goodloe organized the event, which 

was held in a hybrid style, and was 

joined by Terry Morris, Natasha 

Neogi, and other SWS researchers. 

Additional speakers included 

representatives from Geometric 

Profile B required both the Cessna 172 (shown in blue) and Cessna 208 (shown in red) to fly intercept-type encounters in the general vicinity of Gustine Municipal 

Airport in California.
6 AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

Data Analytics, the University of 

Virginia, Department of Defense, 

National Science Foundation, and 

other industry representatives. 

Leading off the workshop, Goodloe 

gave a short talk on introductions 

and motivation. He was followed 

by Danette Allen, lead for 

autonomy at NASA Headquarters 

in Washington, DC, who provided 

an overview of current autonomy 

research at NASA. Topologists 

from Geometric Data Analytics 

presented significant advances 

in applying the mathematical 

techniques in algebraic and 

differential topology, as well as 

algebraic and differential geometry 

to obtain actionable specifications 

from large high-dimensional 

datasets used in training machine 

learning systems. Tom Fletcher 

of the University of Virginia 

gave a talk on how he is applying 

these approaches in his research, 

prompting additional discussions. 

As a result of Goodloe’s efforts, 

several government and industry 

attendees have reached out to him 

with respect to moving the work 

beyond the realm of basic research. 

HDV Achieves Breakthrough 

to Enable Comprehensive 

Voice Communications 

POC: LOU GLAAB

On April 10, the Advanced Air 

Mobility project’s High Density 

Vertiplex (HDV) subproject team 

completed a primary hurdle involving voice communications for 

the flight operations team. There 

was a breakthrough regarding the 

Clear-Com voice communications equipment Plan-D to enable 

comprehensive voice communications. In transitioning from current 

operational capability and moving 

toward beyond visual line of sight 

operations (BVLOS), a series of 

intermediate steps are planned. At 

the end of the Advanced Onboard 

Automation schedule work package in fiscal year 2022, the HDV 

team achieved extended visual line 

of sight (EVLOS) capabilities with 

the ground control station operator located within the Remote 

Operations for Autonomous Missions (ROAM) Unmanned Aircraft 

Systems operations center. Safety 

pilots, range safety officers, and 

visual observers were still on the 

flight line. For the Scalable Autonomous Operations (SAO) schedule 

work package flight test that will 

begin in May, the range safety officer will be relocated to ROAM 

to establish EVLOS+ operations. 

Most of the SAO Prototype Assessment Operations flight testing will 

be performed in EVLOS+. Once 

the ground control station operators are trained to become pilots 

in command through usage of the 

SAO-BVLOS simulation, flight operations will transition to EVLOS++ 

with the removal of the safety pilot. This will leave only the visual 

observer on the flight line. Once 

the surveillance systems have been 

evaluated and provided adequate 

situational awareness, the visual observers will be removed to establish 

BVLOS flight operations planned 

for the end of fiscal year 2023. 

Achieving adequate voice communications is essential for the progression of modes of flight operation. 

The HDV team was confronted 

with a challenge regarding voice 

communications when a key piece 

of equipment (Clear-Com Eclipse 

Matrix) was recently rendered unusable due to IT security issues. Several fallback plans and options were 

considered. Last week the HDV 

team identified that key functionality was present within an alternative 

Clear-Com Delta Matrix currently 

within use by the Research Services 

Directorate for piloted simulator 

voice communications. This discovery will enable communications to 

be established between ROAM and 

the flight line and enable multiple 

subchannels of communication. 

ATM-X Hosts FAA/NASA 

Quarterly Review 

POC: WILLIAM CHAN

On April 10–12, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration (ATMX) project hosted a hybrid quarterly 

review with the FAA. The review 

was hosted by the NASA Aeronautics Research Institute at NASA’s 

Ames Research Center in California. 

The first day started with a review of 

the Urban Air Mobility subproject, 

including discussions on a recent 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023 7

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

simulation study, assistive see and 

avoid and secure airspace, and a 

tabletop on operational integration 

assessment. The second day focused 

on the Extensible Traffic Management (xTM) subproject’s Upper 

Class E Traffic Management subproject, xTM-Air Traffic Services interactions, and the Pathfinding for 

Airspace with Autonomous Vehicles 

subproject. The last day began with 

an FAA briefing titled “National 

Airspace System (NAS) Landscapes” 

highlighting roadmaps of their 

focused research activities. This was 

followed by discussions on NASA’s 

Sky for All Vision for 2045 and its 

near-term alignment with the FAA’s 

Info-Centric NAS Vision for 2035. 

The day concluded with discussions 

focused on the Digital Information 

Platform subproject. Concluding 

the meeting, Diana Liang from the 

FAA provided a briefing on their 

Info-Centric NAS Vision for 2035. 

The next quarterly review is tentatively planned for July 2023. 

HDV Hosts Wisk Aero 

at NASA Langley 

POC: LOU GLAAB

On April 13–14, the Advanced Air 

Mobility project’s High Density 

Vertiplex (HDV) subproject hosted 

personnel from Wisk Aero for a 

technical interchange meeting at 

NASA’s Langley Research Center 

in Virginia. HDV is performing 

research and testing ways to develop 

a vertiport automation system as 

well as performing system integration, prototyping, and assessments 

for an Urban Air Mobility (UAM) 

ecosystem. The meeting had the following objectives: 1) review Wisk’s 

latest concept of operations, which 

features a UAM concept aircraft; 2) 

present latest results from HDV’s 

Scalable Autonomous Operations 

Prototype Assessment Operations 

(SAO-PAO) simulation; 3) review 

the joint NASA/Wisk report; and 

4) discuss and define future NASA/

Wisk collaborative testing opportunities. Part of the meeting included 

several hours in the Remote Operations for Autonomous Missions 

Operations Center developed and 

used for HDV testing. For this 

visit, the Operations Center was 

configured to show video recordings 

from the SAO-PAO simulation that 

was completed in March. Further 

collaborations are planned.

NASA Langley HDV 

Researchers Visit NASA Ames

POC: LOU GLAAB

During the week of April 17, the 

Advanced Air Mobility project’s High 

Density Vertiplex (HDV) subproject 

researchers Steve Alperin, Lou Glaab, 

and Robert McSwain travelled 

to NASA’s Ames Research Center 

in California. The two objectives 

of the trip were to perform a site 

visit with Wisk Aero in Mountain 

View, California and to evaluate a 

Lightweight Surveillance and Track 

Acquisition Radar (LSTAR) enabling 

beyond visual line of sight flight 

operations for potential transfer to 

NASA’s Langley Research Center in 

Wisk Aero team visiting NASA Langley.
8 AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

Virginia. The visit with Wisk Aero 

followed a meeting held on April 

13–14 at NASA Langley to continue 

to discuss Wisk Aero’s concept of 

operations and collaborate with 

testing planned for the HDV subproject. Wisk’s concept of operations is directly related to Urban Air 

Mobility Maturity Level-4 – Urban 

Air Mobility ecosystem prototype 

testing performed by HDV. A joint 

NASA/Wisk conference report 

is in development. Results from 

the recently completed Scalable 

Autonomous Operations Prototype 

Assessment Operations Human 

Hardware in the Loop simulation 

were presented along with plans for 

subsequent flight testing and plans 

for fiscal year 2024. For LSTAR 

radar testing, the initial LSTAR 

(LSTAR-1) transferred to Langley 

from Ames in 2021 has exhibited 

less-than-adequate performance as 

evaluated through a series of calibration flight tests. It will be removed 

from the radome and repaired at 

SRC. To fill the radar coverage gap 

created during the multi-month 

repair process, a second LSTAR will 

be temporarily loaned to Langley. 

The Ames/Langley HDV team 

performed checkout of LSTAR-2 on 

the ramp of Ames’s Hangar N248 

with good results for targets of 

opportunity. A meeting to discuss 

Ames/Langley small Unmanned 

Aircraft Systems operations collaboration was also performed.

ACERO Participates in COSTA 

Live Flight Shakedown and 

NASA/FAA Executive Day 

POC: MARCUS JOHNSON

On April 14, a NASA team 

including members from the 

Advanced Capabilities for 

Emergency Response Operations 

(ACERO) project visited Hollister 

Municipal Airport in California 

HDV researchers Robert McSwain, Quang Dao, and Lou Glaab at Wisk Aero.

LSTAR-2 outside Hangar N248 at NASA Ames.
AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023 9

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

to participate in the Crosscutting 

Operations Strategy and Technical 

Assessment (COSTA) live flight 

shakedown and NASA/FAA 

Executive Day. COSTA is an 

FAA-led activity that examines 

how information across service 

environments may support general 

aviation and common situational 

awareness (e.g. information 

exchange between Extensible Traffic 

Management systems and Air Traffic 

Services). One of COSTA’s use 

cases focuses on the operational 

encounter between civil aircraft 

operations and incident response 

operations in the vicinity of wildfire 

suppression operations. ACERO 

project members guided the 

development of the simulated aerial 

firefighting operations – adding 

fidelity to the simulated flights. 

NASA participants included NASA’s 

COSTA work management team, 

Steven Weidner and Christine 

Clark; Kee Palopo and Kevin 

Keenan from the Aviation Systems 

Software Facility at NASA’s Ames 

Research Center in California; 

Joseph Rios and Steven Beard from 

the Aviation Systems Division; and 

Aaron Burns and Jaewoo Jung from 

the ACERO project. The outcome 

of the COSTA work is expected to 

inform the ACERO project as the 

project collaborates with the FAA 

and other government agencies, 

the scientific community, and 

commercial industries to develop 

a concept of operations for future 

wildland fire management. The 

NASA and FAA COSTA team will 

continue preparations for the live 

flight data collection scheduled in 

May – addressing the issues that 

may arise during the shakedown 

flights. COSTA is supported by the 

Aviation Systems Software Facility 

for the development of a public 

safety network, which is based on 

the Unmanned Aircraft Systems 

Traffic Management system. This 

public safety network is used 

to simulate aerial firefighting 

operations and enables information 

related to wildfire suppression 

operations to be exchanged. 

NASA Participation in SAE 

S-18 Committee Meeting 

POC: MALLORY GRAYDON

On April 17–21, System-Wide 

Safety project researcher Mallory 

Graydon participated in the 2023 

Quarter 2 plenary meeting of 

SAE’s S-18, S-18A, and S-18H 

committees in Köln, Germany. 

Attending standards meetings 

allows NASA to provide guidance 

to the aviation community through 

our research efforts that influence 

the development of fair, safe, and 

realizable standards to design, 

develop, assess, and operate safe 

aviation systems. S-18 meetings 

revolve around “upgrading” two of 

the most important standards that 

the aviation community utilizes 

for both design and operations. 

Participation and contributions 

are important to NASA and the 

broader aviation community. S-18 

has completed revisions to two wellknown aviation safety standards: 

ARP4754A “Guidelines for 

Development of Civil Aircraft and 

Systems” and ARP4761 “Guidelines 

and Methods for Conducting the 

Top Left: NASA ACERO and COSTA team and the FAA lead, Collin Roche. Top Right: COSTA prototype display used in the shakedown. Bottom Left: COSTA partner aircraft – Xwing optionally piloted 

Cessna Caravan. Bottom Right: COSTA partner aircraft, SeaHunter UAS.
10 AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

Safety Assessment Process on Civil 

Airborne Systems and Equipment.” 

Revised versions of these standards, 

ARP4754B and ARP4761A, are 

likely to be released later this year. 

S-18, S-18A, and S-18H are also 

writing reports on: 1) the subject 

of “generic errors,” including the 

meaning of the no single failure 

requirement for critical functions 

and whether this can be addressed 

by development assurance or 

diversity; 2) the use of the Systems 

Theoretic Process Analysis in a civil 

aviation context; 3) the applicability 

of ARP4754B and ARP4761A 

processes to unmanned aerial 

systems; 4) the interaction between 

human-factors-related assurance 

activities and the safety assessment 

process; and 5) the use of tools and 

modeling in aircraft development. 

ACERO and SWS Teams 

Attend TFRSAC Meeting 

at NASA Ames 

POC: MARCUS JOHNSON AND SUMMER BRANDT

On April 19–20, researchers from 

the Advanced Capabilities for 

Emergency Response Operations 

(ACERO) and System-Wide 

Safety (SWS) projects attended 

the Tactical Fire Remote Sensing 

Advisory Committee (TFRSAC) 

meeting hosted at NASA’s Ames 

Research Center in California. 

TFRSAC is a longstanding 

community of practice focusing on 

remote sensing support to wildland 

fire operations and includes many 

NASA colleagues. It is a forum for 

remote sensing experts and wildfire 

support personnel to share ideas 

and build awareness of ongoing 

activities and needs in the wildfire 

and research and development 

communities. The meeting offered 

the ACERO team insight into 

work and research conducted in the 

remote sensing field by government 

agencies such as the United States 

Geological Survey, the National 

Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Administration, the United States 

Department of Agriculture/Forest 

Service, state agencies such as the 

California Department of Forestry 

and Fire Protection, academia, 

private sector companies, and other 

NASA mission directorates. The 

event also highlighted emerging 

technologies and potential 

capabilities that could be useful to 

ACERO’s efforts. In addition, SWS 

researcher Peter Melitz presented 

on the Open Data Integration 

Framework for Wildland Fire 

Management (ODIN-Fire) and the 

recent integration of micro-grid 

wind. The goal of this presentation 

was to inform the remote 

sensing community of open data 

integration capabilities. This effort 

was in collaboration with Missoula 

Fire Sciences Laboratory and 

Delphire. The vision for ODINFire is to create a free and extensible 

ecosystem for fire agencies, 

research organizations, and local 

communities to enable sharing of 

data, visualizations, and algorithms. 

SWS researcher Peter Melitz presented on Open Data Integration Framework for Wildland Fire 

Management and the recent integration of micro-grid wind.
AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023 11

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

There was great engagement from 

the audience. For more information, 

visit: https://nasarace.github.io/

race-odin.

UAM Conducts Integration 

Demo for ARMD Leadership 

POC: KEVIN WITZBERGER

On April 25, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration 

project’s Urban Air Mobility 

(UAM) subproject performed a 

demonstration at FutureFlight 

Central for leaders of NASA’s 

Aeronautics Research Mission 

Directorate (ARMD) from NASA 

Headquarters in Washington, 

DC. The demonstration showed 

airspace system technologies to 

enable future UAM electric vertical 

takeoff and landing operations. The 

demonstration highlighted how 

NASA technology can be used at 

Dallas Fort Worth International 

Airport to enable UAM operations 

while minimizing any additional 

workload to the FAA controllers. 

FutureFlight Central, which is 

located at NASA’s Ames Research 

Center in California, will be used 

later this year for a simulation with 

Joby Aviation to evaluate near- and 

far-term UAM airspace procedures.

AOSP Participates at ATCA 

Technical Symposium 

POC: PAUL KROIS AND BARRY SULLIVAN

On April 25-27, representatives 

from AOSP and its respective 

projects participated in the 2023 

Air Traffic Control Association 

(ATCA) Technical Symposium in 

Atlantic City. The week’s events 

began with Aviation STEM 

Day at the William J. Hughes 

FAA Technical Center (FAATC). 

Students from the south New Jersey 

area toured FAATC throughout 

the day and were able to visit 

numerous booths highlighting FAA 

programs along with two booths 

representing NASA. AOSP hosted 

a booth highlighting the program’s 

research portfolio and two Urban 

Air Mobility (UAM) Flyers from 

NASA’s Langley Research Center 

in Virginia. The UAM Flyers were 

crewed by Dave West, Saiedeh 

Samani, Terence McClain, and Neil 

O’Connor from NASA Langley 

and were clearly the hit of the 

show for Aviation STEM Day. 

Alina Eskiridge and Barry Sullivan 

crewed the AOSP booth. Joining 

them was Paolo Masci, also from 

Langley, who highlighted the Air 

Traffic Management – eXploration 

project’s Detect and Avoid in 

the Cockpit tool – a prototype 

electronic flight bag incorporating 

an assistance detective and avoid 

capability. The following day, Tech 

Center Tuesday, took place at 

FAATC. Opening remarks were 

provided by FAATC director 

Shelley Yak, Barry Sullivan of 

NASA, and Brian Bruckbauer of 

ATCA. The purpose of Tech Center 

Tuesday was to enable symposium 

The panel discussed the technical safety issues and challenges to enable safe operations in the future and was 

moderated by Deborah Kirkman of the Flight Safety Foundation.

Bob Pearce, NASA’s associate administrator for 

ARMD, and senior staff observe a demonstration by 

UAM team members at the FutureFlight Central 

facility at NASA Ames.
12 AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

attendees an opportunity to see 

the various technologies and 

capabilities being developed 

by the FAA, NASA, and their 

industry partners in addition to 

participating on various tours of 

the FAATC. The following days, 

the symposium moved over to the 

Resorts Hotel in Atlantic City and 

included numerous plenary sessions 

and speakers. The theme of this 

year’s symposium was “Enabling 

Technologies and Capabilities 

for the Future National Airspace 

System.” Representing NASA, 

Kurt Swieringa participated on the 

Info-Centric National Airspace 

System panel, Paul Hoyt Nelson 

participated on the Cybersecurity 

panel, Paul Krois participated on 

the Integrated Safety Management 

panel, and Rich Wahls participated 

on the Aviation Sustainability panel.

DIP Conducts Kickoff Meeting 

with Airline Partners at NTX

POC: GILBERT WU

On May 2–3, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration 

project’s Digital Information 

Platform (DIP) subproject team 

held a kickoff meeting with major 

airline partners at NASA’s North 

Texas Research Facility (NTX) 

in Fort Worth. The meeting 

included five partners who recently 

signed non-reimbursable Space 

Act Agreements with NASA; 

these included American Airlines, 

Delta Air Lines, JetBlue Airways, 

Southwest Airlines, and United 

Airlines. This event facilitated 

in-person interactions between the 

airline partners and the mission 

integration manager of NASA’s 

Sustainable Flight National 

Partnership (SFNP), Rich Wahls. 

Wahls and his team shared the 

vision for SFNP and discussed 

opportunities for broader industry 

partnership for sustainable aviation. 

A demonstration of SFNPOps-1A field evaluation of DIP’s 

Collaborative Digital Departure 

Rerouting capability was also 

provided. The meeting included 

a visit to the Dallas-Fort Worth 

Air Route Traffic Control Center 

and American Airlines’ Integrated 

Operations Center. The DIP team 

and major airline partners discussed 

alternative technical approaches for 

future SFNP-Ops demonstrations 

and announced DIP’s SFNP-Ops-1 

site: the Houston area’s Air Route 

Traffic Control Center and I90. For 

more information, visit: https://

www.nasa.gov/image-feature/ames/

nasa-partners-with-airlines-to-savefuel-reduce-flight-delays. 

SWS and ATM-X Participate 

at AUVSI Xponential 2023 

POC: MICHAEL VINCENT, SHIVANJLI SHARMA AND 

HUSNI IDRIS

On May 8–11, both the SystemWide Safety (SWS) and Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration 

(ATM-X) projects participated at 

the Association for Unmanned 

Vehicle Systems International 

(AUVSI) Xponential Conference in 

Denver. Michael Vincent, associate 

project manager for SWS, and 

researcher Paul Krois represented 

the SWS team and supported the 

Advanced Air Mobility safety table 

at the NASA pavilion. Visitors 

attending the conference were 

able to experience the In-Time 

Aviation Safety Management 

virtual reality software and view 

the SWS Safety Demonstrator 

Series wildland firefighting video. 

Several contacts were made during 

the event which have potential for 

future collaboration or tech talks 

including MITRE, Draper Labs, 

and several other drone service 

providers and operators. Vincent 

and Krois also participated in 

a meeting of the Flight Safety 

Foundation Autonomous and 

Remotely Piloted Aviation 

System Advisory Committee, 

which reviewed the results of a 

recent airspace characterization 

study conducted by the Lincoln 

Laboratory at the Massachusetts 

Institute of Technology. 

Representing the ATM-X project, 

Shivanjli Sharma participated on 

a panel discussion titled “Lessons 

Learned in Paving the Roadway to 

Autonomy.” The panel comprised 

several subject matter experts who 

shared their valuable insights and 

personal experiences with different 

airspace and communication, 

navigation, and surveillance 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023 13

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

infrastructure projects. These 

projects have played a crucial role 

in establishing the foundation for 

advancing autonomous technologies. 

Kurt Swieringa, deputy project 

manager of ATM-X for technology, 

also took part in various panel 

discussions. These panels focused on 

topics such as Regional Air Mobility 

and the universal approach to future 

airspace integration. Prominent 

industry experts participated in 

these discussions and highlighted 

the transformative benefits that 

future aviation efforts, facilitated 

by Regional Air Mobility, will bring 

to the transportation of goods and 

people. The panelists emphasized 

the importance of ongoing 

planning, research, and development 

endeavors in enabling safe and 

equitable utilization of the national 

airspace by delivery drones, regional 

shuttles, and remotely piloted 

cargo aircraft. In addition, ATM-X 

project’s Pathfinding for Airspace 

with Autonomous Vehicles (PAAV) 

subproject researchers participated in 

a m:N workshop. The government/

industry m:N working group has 

made significant progress on m:N 

operational approval. This working 

group has developed multiple 

use-cases that will inform analysis 

going forward. The efforts and plans 

for the future of m:N were discussed 

during this workshop. Husni Idris of 

PAAV participated with other NASA 

colleagues in an m:N panel and 

spoke about some of NASA’s PAAV 

research in this domain.

SWS Gives Invited 

Presentation at ICAO SMP 

Meeting 

POC: KYLE ELLIS

On May 8–12, the International Civil 

Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) Sixth 

Safety Management Panel (SMP) 

meeting took place in Montreal. Kyle 

Ellis, System-Wide Safety (SWS) 

deputy project manager and technical 

advisor to the ICAO SMP, gave an 

invited presentation on the In-time 

Aviation Safety Management System 

(IASMS). The aim of the presentation 

was to share the advanced safety 

concepts included in the IASMS 

concept of operations necessary 

to assure safety in a transformed 

aviation industry. The main objective 

of this meeting was to review draft 

content for the fifth edition of the 

Safety Management Manual and 

new Safety Intelligence Manual in 

support of Amendment 2 to Annex 

19 - Safety Management, as well as 

coordination with other ICAO expert 

groups. The SMP work program was 

also reviewed, with new consideration 

for inclusion of an IASMS job card 

to be reviewed by the ICAO Air 

Navigation Commission. 

Visitors were able to experience the SWS In-Time 

Aviation Safety Management virtual reality software and view the SWS Safety Demonstrator Series 

wildland firefighting video.

Kyle Ellis, SWS deputy project manager and technical advisor to the ICAO SMP, gave an invited presentation on IASMS to the ICAO Sixth SMP in Montreal.
14 AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

ATM-X Hosts NATCA 

at NASA Ames 

POC: SHIVANJLI SHARMA

On May 15–16, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration (ATM-X) 

project hosted the National Air Traffic 

Controllers Association (NATCA) 

at NASA’s Ames Research Center in 

California. There were briefings on 

projects within ATM-X subprojects 

and demonstrations given in various 

labs. Included in the demonstrations 

were: Urban Air Mobility subproject 

Airspace Management;Sustainable 

Flight; and Unmanned Aircraft 

Systems Traffic Management. In 

addition, a tour of the Vertical 

Motion Simulator was conducted. 

ATM-X and NATCA plan to have 

follow-on activities from this visit to 

include an FAA NATCA meeting in 

North Texas focused on the rollout 

of 1B for the Digital Information 

Platform subproject, briefings for 

specific NATCA representatives 

for the Sky for All Vision, Upper 

Class E Traffic Management efforts, 

and assessment of the best manner 

for NASA to continue regular 

engagement with NATCA. 

Joint Design Reviews 

Completed for SWS Partners 

POC: STEVE YOUNG, LILLY SPIRKOVSKA 

AND EVAN DILL

On May 23, three teams of 

external partners supporting the 

System-Wide Safety (SWS) project 

presented systems they have 

designed to support testing, as well 

as some preliminary results. The 

projects and their teams are: 1) 

“In-time Learning-based Aviation 

Safety Management System 

(ILASMS)” by George Washington 

University/Massachusetts Institute 

of Technology/Lincoln Laboratory, 

Vanderbilt University, and the 

University of Texas at Austin; 

2) “Safe Deployment of Small 

Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS) 

On-Board Monitoring and 

Assessment” by University of Notre 

Dame and Iowa State University; 

and 3) “Pervasive Runtime 

Monitoring for Detection and 

Assessment of Emerging Hazards 

for Advanced Urban Air Mobility 

(UAM) Systems” by Virginia 

Commonwealth University and 

the National Institute of Standards 

and Technology. 

The joint design review enabled 

coordination and collaboration 

across the three complementary 

activities and with NASA’s internal 

research, which in turn provides 

more comprehensive coverage of 

a broad concept for future safety 

management systems.

SWS Continues Support 

for JIMDAT Meetings 

POC: LANCE PRINZEL AND KYLE ELLIS

The System-Wide Safety (SWS) 

project continued to support the 

Joint Implementation Measurement 

Data Analysis Team (JIMDAT) 

this past quarter. The first meeting 

was held at the Air Line Pilots 

Association (ALPA) Headquarters 

in Virginia on April 4–6. Kyle 

Ellis and Lance Prinzel represented 

SWS. JIMDAT monitors the 

implementation and effectiveness 

of Commercial Aviation Safety 

Team (CAST) safety enhancements 

and recommends modifications 

and changes to the CAST Safety 

Representative design concepts provided by SWS partners in support of In-time Aviation Safety 

Management System–design concepts for future operations.
AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023 15

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

Portfolio. JIMDAT, in conjunction 

with Aviation Safety Information 

Analysis and Sharing, also identifies 

emerging risks and additional areas 

of study. Although the proceedings 

of the JIMDAT meetings are 

sensitive and restricted, the SWS 

project did provide several critical 

briefings to secure new research 

safety enhancements. Prinzel 

developed extensive briefing 

materials that were presented by the 

ALPA Committee Chairperson on 

potential design safety enhancements 

focused on new flight deck 

technologies. Ellis also presented 

a proposal to develop an In-time 

Aviation Safety Management System 

research safety enhancement. Both 

proposals were well received and will 

be promoted for consideration by 

CAST. Additionally, a Sky for All 

overview briefing was also provided 

by Jeanne Yu, Sky for All’s chief 

strategist, and Shawn Engelland, 

NASA’s technical lead for Sky for All. 

Ellis presented an overview of small 

Unmanned Aircraft Systems research 

and development in the Hampton 

Roads, Virginia area. NASA 

continues to work on multiple safety 

enhancements and other actions 

in support of JIMDAT and CAST, 

leveraging SWS’s internationally 

renowned experts in aviation safety.

A second meeting was held at the 

National Air Carrier Association 

(NACA) Headquarters in Virginia 

on May 30–31. Lance Prinzel 

represented the SWS team again. At 

this meeting, NASA was requested 

to contribute to a JIMDAT 

go-around working group (pending) 

and received an invitation to attend 

an FAA go-around workshop to 

address etiologies and potential 

mitigations later this year. This 

invitation represents an opportunity 

to inform on this critical safety 

issue to include predictive safety 

intelligence. For more information, 

visit: https://www.cast-safety.org. 

xTM Hosts BVLOS Workshop

POC: JEFF HOMOLA AND MIN XUE

On June 1, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration project’s 

Extensible Traffic Management 

(xTM) subproject, in collaboration 

with the FAA, hosted an Unmanned 

Aircraft Systems (UAS) Traffic 

Management (UTM) Beyond Visual 

Line of Sight (BVLOS) workshop 

at NASA’s Ames Research Center 

in California. The purpose of the 

workshop was to solicit industry 

feedback on several topics related to 

enabling routine BVLOS operations 

for small UAS (sUAS). This hybrid 

meeting consisted of approximately 

50 participants. The FAA provided a 

recap of their UTM Field Test and a 

representative from law enforcement 

discussed their use of sUAS for 

public safety. Following these 

presentations were breakout groups 

to solicit industry feedback on 

standards progression, test harness 

for service assessment, navigation 

requirements for BVLOS, and 

operationalization of a service for 

BVLOS. The second day included 

follow-up discussions with the 

FAA to discuss future UTM work 

based on prior day’s feedback and 

discussions about the alignment of 

that work with the UTM research 

transition team deliverables. 

DIP Completes Phase I of 

University Challenge #2 

POC: AMELIA SCOTT

On June 1, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration 

project’s Digital Information 

Platform (DIP) subproject team 

completed the Phase I University 

Challenge #2, “Pushback to the 

Future: Predict Pushback Time at 

US Airports.” Predicting pushback 

times is valuable but difficult 

to compute using only publicly 

available data. To better predict 

pushback, airline proprietary data 

must be used. However, there are 

data privacy concerns that must be 

addressed before being able to use 

such data. Federated learning is a 

machine learning technique which 

allows models to be trained on 

private data without compromising 

the privacy of that data. For 

Phase I, the student teams trained 

a “traditional” (non-federated) 

model on public data to predict 

pushback times. This will be used 

as a baseline and starting point 

for Phase II, where the teams will 

federate their models, and compare 

the performance and accuracy of 
16 AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

the federated vs. non-federated 

models using private airline data. 

This first phase engaged a total of 

458 participants from across the 

United States. The five winning 

teams, from New York University, 

the California Institute of 

Technology, Weill Cornell Medicine, 

University of Washington Tacoma, 

and Syracuse University will start 

on Phase II in early June 2023. 

SWS Produces Human 

Factors Training Video 

for American Airlines 

POC: CHAD STEPHENS

American Airlines’ director of 

training reached out to the SystemWide Safety (SWS) project to 

help address an identified issue 

that American Airlines pilots 

were experiencing. As part of the 

NASA and American Airlines 

collaboration, the teams worked 

together to produce a nine-minute 

human factors video that is being 

shown to more than 14,000 pilots 

during recurrent training – required 

training which started on June 1. 

Kyle Ellis, Chad Stephens, and 

Kaitlyn Fox of SWS coordinated 

with Dan Kiggins, a NASA subject 

matter expert and American 

Airlines pilot, to develop a script 

and shoot the footage remotely and 

also in the studio at NASA’s Langley 

Research Center in Virginia. This 

project was a collaborative effort 

involving the NASA Langley Media 

Solutions Branch and Public Affairs, 

as well as NASA Headquarters 

in Washington, DC. Content 

presented in the video demonstrates 

the feasibility of the concept 

of the In-time Aviation Safety 

Management System. Feedback 

from American Airlines regarding 

the production has been positive. 

After the video was shown to pilot 

management, the American Airlines 

director of training gave feedback 

that the NASA video is “the most 

popular part of the training class.” 

The video is titled “The Future of 

Aviation Safety.”

SWS Hosts the University of 

Lorraine at NASA Ames 

POC: CHETAN KULKARNI

On June 7–8, researchers from the 

System-Wide Safety (SWS) project’s 

Diagnostics and Prognostics Group 

at NASA’s Ames Research Center in 

California hosted professors Mayank 

Jha and Hugues Garnier from the 

NASA and American Airlines teams worked together to produce a nine-minute human factors video that 

will be shown to more than 14,000 pilots during recurrent training.
AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023 17

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

University of Lorraine in France. 

The professors presented a talk 

titled “Safe Reinforcement Learning 

and System Identification Enabled 

Deep Learning for Prognostics” to 

the Intelligent Systems Division. 

The work demonstrates a safe 

reinforcement learning approach for 

learning control laws for nonlinear 

dynamical systems that guarantee 

stability and optimal performance 

and, most importantly, safety of the 

system under continuous time model 

development. A demonstration 

of the Continuous-Time System 

Identification toolbox for MATLAB 

and its use for data augmentation 

was also presented. The professors 

conducted discussions with SWS 

team members and toured the 

Systems Health Analytics Resilience 

and Prognostics lab to explore future 

collaborations. There is interest in 

integrating prognostics frameworks 

developed by SWS researchers with 

control optimization work being 

done by the University of Lorraine, 

closing the loop on the monitoring, 

prediction, and mitigation facets 

of the SWS emerging operations 

technical challenge. Currently the 

application is targeted toward 

autonomous electric drones which 

complements work being conducted 

under the SWS project. 

AFCM Begins Flight Testing 

POC: TRISH GLAAB

On June 5–9, the Advanced Air 

Mobility project’s Automated Flight 

and Contingency Management 

(AFCM) team’s tactical and strategic 

automation technologies conducted 

flight tests in Connecticut. These 

tests used the Sikorsky Autonomous 

Research Aircraft, a S-76B helicopter 

specially equipped with a faulttolerant research interface, and the 

Sikorsky Optionally Piloted Vehicle 

(OPV), a S-70 helicopter that can 

additionally be remotely piloted. 

The AFCM team delivered strategic 

flight path management algorithms 

and tactical conflict detection and 

avoidance algorithms for in-flight 

testing with two live vehicles 

deliberately planning conflicting 

trajectories that must safely be 

mitigated by the strategic or tactical 

algorithms. Dozens of virtual traffic 

aircraft were integrated in the tests 

to constrain the solution space and 

demonstrate efficient resolution 

in densely populated airspace 

without creating new conflicts. The 

flight testing is helping validate 

key components of simulation 

systems being used by AFCM to 

inform performance standards and 

governance for advanced air vehicles 

operating in the future airspace, 

where automation technologies can 

potentially enable higher densities 

of operation without compromising 

safety. As part of the buildup 

process to flight, the algorithms will 

complete a final on-site verification 

and validation in Sikorsky’s high 

fidelity simulation lab and the 

research pilots will conduct dry runs 

of flight cards in simulation for 

familiarization of these complex twovehicle operations. Though the preflight activities were completed for 

the strategic flight path management 

algorithms, heavy smoke from recent 

wildfires in Canada significantly 

limited visibility in the test range and 

forced an early termination of the 

flights for this cycle with very limited 

data collection. A second attempt 

to flight test the strategic flight path 

management algorithms is tentatively 

planned for late June. The tactical 

algorithms are planned to complete 

their verification and validation 

process in August, with flight testing 

scheduled for September. 

Professors Hugues Garnier (left) and Mayank Jha (right) from the University of Lorraine present to NASA 

Ames’s Intelligent Systems Division.
18 AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

SWS Hosts DLR Visitors 

at NASA Ames

POC: CHRISTOPHER TEUBERT

On June 8–9, System-Wide Safety 

(SWS) project researchers within the 

Diagnostics and Prognostics group 

at NASA’s Ames Research Center in 

California hosted visitors from the 

German Aerospace Center (DLR) 

Institute of Maintenance, Repair, 

and Overhaul. Kai Wicke presented 

a summary of his team’s work in 

product lifecycle management. 

The Diagnostics and Prognostics 

researchers, many of whom work 

on the SWS project, conducted 

discussions with the DLR team 

which included a new technology 

DLR is exploring for vertiportintegrated sensing for unmanned 

aircraft systems flight readiness 

assessment for firefighting missions. 

While visiting, the group toured 

the NASA Ames supercomputing 

facilities and the large wind tunnel. 

UAM CNS Team Completes 

Flight Testing 

POC: RAFAEL APAZA

On June 12, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration 

project’s Urban Air Mobility 

(UAM) subproject Communication, 

Navigation, and Surveillance 

(CNS) team at NASA’s Glenn 

Research Center in Cleveland 

successfully completed Phase 1 of 

its Cellular Receive Signal Quality 

Characterization flight testing. The 

testing was conducted aboard NASA 

Glenn’s new Pilatus PC-12 aircraft, 

passively scanning cellular signal 

quality along urban, suburban, and 

rural routes in the northeast Ohio 

area. A total of 14 flights were 

conducted from May 18 through 

June 12. The flight data collection 

campaign consisted of five flight 

routes, and each route was designed 

to measure signal performance at 

different altitudes and in diverse 

urban areas. While the aircraft is 

unavailable during its first annual 

inspection from June 13-July 14, 

the CNS team will analyze the 

data collected and determine if 

supplemental flights are needed in 

the area. 

Copilot Class D Runtime 

Verification Framework 

Officially Released 

as Open Source 

POC: IVAN PEREZ DOMINGUEZ AND 

ALWYN GOODLOE

NASA’s System-Wide Safety project 

is excited to announce the approval 

of the open-source release of 

the Copilot runtime verification 

framework as NASA Procedural 

NASA Glenn team conducting flight tests onboard the Pilatus PC-12.
AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023 19

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

Requirement 7150.2C Class D 

software in early June. Copilot is 

a runtime verification framework 

for monitoring embedded systems, 

with an emphasis on correctness 

and hard real-time requirements. 

It is typically used as a high-level 

monitoring language and supports 

temporal logic, clocks, and voting 

algorithms. Users of Copilot can use 

it to generate hard real-time C99 

code that can be easily integrated 

as part of a larger system of a 

hardware description intended to 

run on a field programmable gate 

array. Among other cases, Copilot 

has been used for monitoring test 

flights of drones at NASA’s Langley 

Research Center in Virginia. A key 

component of the Class D release 

is the new Copilot Verifier, which 

outputs a machine-verified proof 

that the C99 code produced, and 

when compiled with the low-level 

virtual machine compiler, is 

correct with respect to the original 

specification. Such a proof can 

be used for further assurance of 

the correctness of the process 

implemented by the Copilot 

compiler. Copilot is an ongoing 

project and is publicly available 

under BSD-3 license at: https://

github.com/copilot-language/

copilot. New versions of Copilot are 

published every two months. Users 

are encouraged to participate by 

opening issues and asking questions 

via our GitHub repository. 

UAM Conducts Interoperability 

Simulation Tabletop 

POC: ANNIE CHENG

On June 14–15, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration 

project’s Urban Air Mobility (UAM) 

subproject held a tabletop exercise 

at NASA’s Ames Research Center 

in California. The purpose of the 

tabletop was to explore notional 

procedures and information 

exchange requirements between Air 

Traffic Control and a pilot. A set of 

use cases and routes was developed 

jointly by NASA and Joby Aviation 

for the Dallas-Fort Worth area. 

These use cases will be simulated 

and evaluated during the Air Traffic 

Management Interoperability 

Simulation to be conducted 

at the FutureFlight Central 

simulation facility at NASA Ames 

in September 2023. This tabletop 

exercise was conducted with a 

broad set of stakeholders, including 

representatives from the FAA, 

National Air Traffic Controllers 

Association, Dallas Fort Worth 

International Airport, and industry. 

The purpose was to validate 

assumptions for the simulation 

activity. The exercise exceeded 

expectations and all stakeholders 

applauded the NASA-Joby team 

for their work in developing these 

initial procedures and hypothetical 

letters of agreements. Some 

discussions dove deeply into how 

to scale UAM operations and 

this diverse group of stakeholders 

provided valuable inputs from their 

unique perspectives. Participants 

expressed that corridors and 

modified procedures may provide 

benefits for scalability, while 

acknowledging that reduced 

communication is only one piece of 

a bigger solution toward scalability. 

Finally, there was recognition 

that some of the discussion topics 

need to be informed by data to 

make further progress and that 

the September simulation, and its 

results from data collection, will 

provide valuable insight to some of 

the open questions. 

New website banner for Copilot at https://copilot-language.github.io/.
20 AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

ACERO Participates in 

JAHAAX Exercise 

POC: MARCUS JOHNSON

On June 15, Xavier Elder and 

David Fuller of the Advanced 

Capabilities for Emergency Response 

Operations (ACERO) project’s 

Wildfire Airspace Management 

team attended the Joint All Hazards 

Awareness and Assessment Exercise 

(JAHAAX) at the Air Operations 

Center in Sacramento. JAHAAX is 

an annual hands-on inter-agency 

integrated training with live flights 

ensuring preparation for all-hazard 

civil support. Combined exercises 

supported collaboration on lifesaving technologies and tactics with 

numerous federal, state, and local 

partners including: NASA, the 

United States Forest Service, Federal 

Emergency Management Agency, 

Cybersecurity and Infrastructure 

Security Agency, and National 

Guard Bureau; California’s Office 

of Emergency Services, Department 

of Forestry and Fire Protection, 

Civil Air Patrol, Department 

of Transportation, and Military 

Department; Arizona’s Air National 

Guard; and New Mexico’s National 

Guard. Elder and Fuller took the 

opportunity to meet and exchange 

ideas, concepts, and contact 

information with as many of the 

participants as possible, including 

Sierra Nevada Corporation, 

system integrator for the airborne 

radio system demonstrated. 

Discussions focused on the need for 

improvement in communications 

and data transfer between agencies 

– as well as overall communications 

during emergency situations. Each 

agency has implemented a different 

common operating picture and used 

this meeting to demonstrate how 

they could organize data from live 

flights and display that information 

to its users. Interoperability between 

multiple common operating 

procedures is important for similar 

enhanced awareness applications and 

data-collecting systems like the Fire 

Integrated Real-Time Intelligence 

System plane. 

SWS Reports on Analyses of 

Data from 2021-2022 Testing 

POC: STEVE YOUNG, LYNNE MARTIN,

AND EVAN DILL

During fiscal years 2021 and 

2022, the System-Wide Safety 

(SWS) project performed testing in 

simulation and flight environments 

on a diverse set of services, 

functions, and capabilities in its 

investigation of design concepts 

for an In-time Aviation Safety 

Management System (IASMS). As 

of June 16, SWS completed a first 

round of data analysis on these 

tests – producing findings and 

lessons learned informing the design 

of future tests as well as summary 

recommendations to be produced 

at the end of fiscal year 2025. 

Generally, all tests produced data 

well aligned with testing goals and 

have been documented in 

13 NASA-authored papers and 

10 papers by NASA Research 

Agreement partners – with eight 

pending submissions to date. An 

overarching and positive outcome 

was a consensus to collaborate and 

share as much as possible across 

the activities moving forward. Due 

to the complementary nature of 

the activities, this should result 

in more complete coverage of the 

broad IASMS concept and what 

NASA can contribute in terms of 

research-informed requirements and/

or recommendations. 

xTM Meets with AeroStar 

POC: MIN XUE

On June 20, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration project’s 

Extensible Traffic Management 

(xTM) subproject team met 

with AeroStar International 

engineering leads and management. 

Representing xTM was the Upper 

Class E Traffic Management 

team. Prior to the meeting, a nonreimbursable Space Act Agreement 

was signed between NASA and 

AeroStar. The purpose of the 

meeting was to prepare AeroStar 

for the upcoming collaborative 

evaluation (CE-1), which is 

designed to develop and test the 

cooperative operating concept for 

high-altitude airspace operations. 

The discussion covered various 

topics, including a CE-1 overview, 

CE-1 system diagram, capabilities 

at AeroStar, data application 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023 21

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

programming interface, and 

connectivity. To support CE-1, a 

biweekly meeting series was set up 

for further in-depth discussions. The 

collaboration will continue through 

the CE-1 evaluation scheduled for 

November 2023. 

DIP Meets with FAA 

and NATCA 

POC: GILBERT WU, JEREMY COUPE,

AND SHIVANJLI SHARMA

The Air Traffic Management – 

eXploration (ATM-X) project’s 

Digital Information Platform 

(DIP) subproject team hosted 

two meetings with representatives 

from the FAA and the National 

Air Traffic Controllers Association 

(NATCA) this past quarter. The 

first meeting was held May 30 at 

NASA’s North Texas facility, where 

participants discussed follow-on 

deployment of DIP technology 

outside of Dallas Fort Worth 

International Airport, where DIP is 

currently conducting evaluations, 

to another site. The DIP team 

along with the FAA has decided 

to evaluate the benefits of the DIP 

Collaborative Digital Departure 

Rerouting tool in the Houston area. 

This next site will evaluate its fuel 

savings and workload benefits in a 

different environment as well as the 

ease of deployment using cloudbased technologies. 

The second meeting was held 

in Washington, DC on June 20. 

This time the DIP subproject’s 

Sustainable Flight National 

Partnership-Ops-1 team met with 

the FAA’s Air Traffic Services (AJT) 

and Office of NextGen, as well as 

with members of NATCA. This was 

the first in-person meeting with 

NASA’s point of contact for AJT 

and was an important step toward 

building the relationship with AJT 

and NATCA. The team continued 

the discussion from the previous 

meeting at the North Texas facility 

on May 30, with FAA and NATCA 

regarding the Ops-1b deployment 

plan in the Houston airspace. 

The team received more clarity 

about the current capabilities and 

processes at the Houston Terminal 

Radar Approach Control Facility 

I90. The next step is an I90 area 

facility leadership meeting in Texas 

targeting the end of July to begin 

the information and requirements 

gathering phase for Ops-1b.

SWS Participates in 

DARPA ARCOS Meeting 

POC: MALLORY GRAYDON

On June 21–22, System-Wide 

Safety (SWS) researchers Mallory 

Graydon, Paul Miner, and 

Natasha Neogi participated in a 

principal investigators meeting of the 

Defense Advanced Research Projects 

Agency (DARPA) Automated Rapid 

Certification of Software (ARCOS) 

project. The meeting was virtual, 

however Miner participated in person. 

ARCOS participants discussed plans 

to refine assurance-case-related 

tooling that they are constructing. 

Graydon, Miner, and Neogi 

provided expert feedback in safety 

assessment and safety assurance, 

which will help keep participants 

on track to deliver rapid, low-cost 

means to assess and assure the safety 

and security of high-consequence 

software systems following changes. 

While ARCOS aims to reduce the 

cost of certifying software-intensive 

military systems, the tools and 

techniques it develops may have 

applications to software used in 

aviation and spaceflight applications. 

HDV Accomplishments 

to Support SAO-BVLOS 

Simulation and Flight Tests 

POC: LOU GLAAB

This past quarter, the Advanced Air 

Mobility project’s High-Density 

Vertiplex (HDV) subproject 

team achieved several significant 

accomplishments in support of the 

Scalable Autonomous Operations 

Beyond Visual Line of Sight (SAOBVLOS) simulation and flight tests. 

The team successfully completed 

the Flight Experiment Review on 

April 28, which covered numerous 

goals, objectives, success criteria, 

results, lessons learned, and more. 

The review closed with Eastern 

Region Aviation Review Board 

and Operational Readiness Review 

status. The presentation was well 

received with good engagement and 

comments. Subsequently, the
22 AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

team initiated flight operations 

May 1–5. This flight test expanded 

on results from the preceding SAO 

Prototype Operation Assessments 

(PAO) Human-Hardware-inthe-Loop flight test completed 

earlier. The objectives of the 

SAO-PAO flight test are to: 1) 

leverage surrogate small Unmanned 

Aircraft Systems (sUAS), airborne 

autonomous systems, and ground 

systems to create a realistic Urban 

Air Mobility (UAM) ecosystem 

prototype; 2) perform assessment 

of prototype Vertiport Automation 

System with relevant human factor 

flight test results; and 3) as defined 

within the HDV UAM concept 

of operations, demonstrate the 

integration of vehicle, airspace, 

and Vertiport Automation System 

technologies as required for UAM 

Ecosystem prototype using sUAS 

surrogate test techniques for highdensity operations. Flight testing is 

planned to extend through June 15 

with the operation of five vehicles 

simultaneously. Additionally this past 

quarter, the team received a 91.113 

Line-of-Sight Waiver from the FAA. 

This is a major step toward BVLOS 

flight at NASA. The application 

for the Certificate of Authorization 

which was subsequently submitted 

will help clear the way for BVLOS 

operations later this summer.

As of June 23, a total of four ground 

control station operators (GCSOs) 

have completed simulation training 

to transition to GCSO Pilots in 

Command (GCSO-PICs). The SAO 

BVLOS simulation test will start 

June 29 and acquire human factors 

data for a total of five GCSO-PICs. 

An Operational Readiness Review 

will be held on June 27 to enable 

transition into Extended Visual 

Line of Sight++ (EVLOS++) mode 

of flight operations that will enable 

operations without the Safety/

Visual Remote Control pilot. While 

visual observers are still included 

in the EVLOS++ operations, 

this will be a major step toward 

Brayden Chamberlain, sUAS safety pilot at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia.
AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023 23

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

BVLOS flight. EVLOS++ flights 

are planned in mid-July. Several 

major improvements to Independent 

Configurable Architecture for 

Reliable Operations of Unmanned 

Systems (ICAROUS) integration and 

operation were also realized this week 

by the team. One development was 

the ability to update ICAROUS’s 

flight path when return to launch 

mode is selected. This allows a sUAS 

to continue to proceed toward 

the landing location after a traffic 

incursion has been resolved during 

fully lost-link scenarios. Another 

major development was the checkout 

of complex geofences to enable the 

sUAS to route around obstructions 

(i.e., the Gantry) during completely 

lost-link return to launch. Actual 

BVLOS flights are planned for 

August and September. 

HDV Team Successfully 

Lifts LSTAR-2 into NASA 

Langley’s Radome 

POC: LOU GLAAB

On June 26, the Advanced Air 

Mobility project’s High Density 

Vertiplex (HDV) subproject 

successfully lifted the Lightweight 

Surveillance Target Acquisition 

Radar-2 (LSTAR-2) into the 

radome on top of Building 1244 at 

NASA’s Langley Research Center in 

Virginia. This particular radar unit 

has been on loan since April 2023 

from NASA’s Ames Research Center 

in California; it has supported 

checkout flight operations in May 

while located on the temporary 

radar checkout pad on B1230. The 

existing LSTAR radar (LSTAR-1), 

also on loan from NASA Ames, 

exhibited periodic operational 

issues as well as having large 

elevation angle errors. The swap 

out of radars will provide greatly 

improved operational capabilities 

as well as significant reduction in 

elevation errors. In addition, the 

LSTAR-1 radar will be sent to 

SRC for inspection and repair then 

returned to NASA. Connection 

of the LSTAR-2 to NASA 

Langley’s network was successfully 

accomplished along with routing 

the radar data to the Anra 

SmartSkies Control Traffic Regions 

integrated surveillance system. A 

subsequent test with NASA general 

aviation aircraft will be completed 

in July to fully characterize the 

resulting surveillance system and 

pave the way for beyond visual 

line of sight (BVLOS) operations 

The LSTAR-2 being lifted into the radome.
24 AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

planned for the August/September 

timeframe. In addition, the HDV 

subproject team started the Scalable 

Autonomous Operations (SAO) 

BVLOS human-hardware-in-theloop human factors test on June 

29. The SAO BVLOS simulation 

test, performed in the Remote 

Operations for Autonomous 

Missions Unmanned Aircraft 

Systems Operations Center will 

yield essential data regarding 

operators’ ability to manage 

autonomous vehicles through a 

series of off-nominal conditions. 

Ground control station operators 

(GCSOs) previously completed 

training in support of BVLOS 

operations and have transitioned 

to GCSO Pilots in Command 

(GCSO-PIC). Results from the 

SAO BVLOS simulation test will 

establish a baseline for one-to-one 

autonomous vehicles operations 

that can form the foundation for 

envisioned m:N>1 operations.

DIP Hosts Workshop on 

Predictive Engine for 

New York Airspace 

POC: YOON JUNG

On June 27, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration project’s 

Digital Information Platform 

(DIP) subproject team hosted a 

virtual workshop to discuss NASA’s 

predictive engine of machine 

learning airport surface model for 

New York airspace. The DIP team 

has developed a scheduler to predict 

off and on times of flights at New 

York’s three major airports. This 

was accomplished by integrating 

machine learning models that 

generate predictions of airport 

configuration, runways, and taxi 

times. These machine learning 

services are available on the DIP 

platform. In the workshop, the DIP 

team presented the architecture 

and initial validation results of 

machine learning models trained by 

historical data archived in the Fuser 

data warehouse. The DIP team also 

showed a real-time demonstration 

of the scheduler for New York’s 

airports. The goal is to enable 

airline partners to use the models in 

their operational environment and 

technology transfer of the models 

via open source. The DIP team 

plans to host subsequent monthly 

workshops to report the progress of 

New York airspace predictive engine 

efforts, as well as engage with airline 

partners and subject matter experts. 

DIP Conducts Virtual 

Information Session for 

Service Provider ACO 

POC: YOON JUNG AND SWATI SAXENA

The Air Traffic Management – 

eXploration project’s Digital 

Information Platform (DIP) 

subproject conducted a virtual 

information session on June 28. The 

virtual information session was for 

the service provider Announcement 

of Collaborative Opportunity, 

which was released June 9. This 

Announcement aims to establish 

partnership with service providers 

to collaborate with NASA and 

existing flight operator partners 

to develop and register services to 

DIP that are addressing challenging 

aviation operations and use cases. 

Partners will also contribute to 

information and requirements 

gathering toward definitions of 

the Application Programming 

Interface standards, performance 

metrics, and infrastructure enabling 

adaptability and scalability. Partners 

will also participate in partner 

services evaluation where partners 

will provide feedback on platform 

features and services of other 

providers and share their user 

experience with the platform. DIP 

aims to partner with service providers 

who will register their integrated data 

or digital decision-making aviation 

services onto the DIP and may also 

consume existing NASA services on 

the platform to build more complex 

services. Approximately 70 people 

attended the two-hour session. The 

DIP team presented the details of 

the Announcement of Collaborative 

Opportunity, evaluation criteria, 

Space Act Agreement, and the 

partner onboarding process. There 

was a dedicated question-and-answer 

session. As a follow-up to this session, 

the DIP team will send personalized 

messages to the registrants and 

encourage them to submit their 

proposals. The meeting recording 

and slides will be posted on the 

DIP website and the team will also 

be monitoring any queries coming 

through the website or DIP email. 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023 25

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

UAM Hosts Workshop on 

Mid-Term UAM Operations 

at NASA Langley

POC: JASON PRINCE

On June 28–29, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration 

project’s Urban Air Mobility 

(UAM) subproject’s Operational 

Integration Assessment (OIA) 

team hosted a workshop at 

NASA’s Langley Research Center 

in Virginia. Participants included 

representatives from NASA, the 

FAA, Department of Transportation, 

National Air Traffic Controllers 

Association, AFWERX (a technology 

directorate of the Air Force Research 

Laboratory), MITRE, the Johns 

Hopkins University Applied Physics 

Laboratory, Joby Aviation, Boeing, 

and Wisk Aero. The purpose of 

the workshop was to inform the 

direction of the next OIA checkpoint, 

which will advance the complexity 

of UAM operations under joint 

simulation between NASA and 

the FAA’s William J. Hughes 

Technical Center. Key objectives 

and outcomes from the workshop 

were a confirmation of assumptions 

for Class B airspace integration 

and identifying several stakeholder 

priorities for the NASA-led research 

activity. These priorities included 

strong support from the stakeholder 

community for more simulation 

and analysis of New York airspace, 

continued development of assistive 

detect and avoid procedures in 

controlled airspace, the importance 

of studying instrument flight rules 

procedures to examine opportunities 

for UAM operations in reduced 

visibility, and the need for additional 

research into other visual flight rules 

airspace areas to align the definition 

of UAM corridors. 

ACERO Attends PSCR 

Innovation Summit 

POC: MARCUS JOHNSON

On June 28–30, researchers from 

the Advanced Capabilities for 

Emergency Response Operations 

(ACERO) project attended the 

Public Safety Communications 

Research (PSCR) Innovation 

Summit held in San Diego 

sponsored by the National Institute 

of Standards and Technology. PSCR 

is the primary federal laboratory 

conducting research, development, 

testing, and evaluation for 

public safety communications 

technologies. The efforts are 

focused on driving research 

to advance communications 

technologies in support of the 

public safety community in 

partnership with stakeholders 

across public safety, industry, 

government, and academia. The 

event brought leaders together 

to discuss the latest innovations 

in these technologies, through 

demonstrations, presentations, 

breakout sessions, and other 

collaborative engagements. ACERO 

researchers attended this event for 

the first time to better understand 

the possible connections that 

could be made between the PSCR 

community and ACERO. The 

project established contacts with 

industry representatives and other 

government agencies with requests 

for follow-on discussions. 

SWS Applies for Release 

of its ReFlow Software

POC: AARON DUTLE AND TERRY MORRIS

On June 30, the System-Wide Safety 

(SWS) project applied for the release 

of its ReFlow software. ReFlow is a 

fully automatic tool that generates 

an instrumented floating-point 

implementation of a given program 

specification. In particular, ReFlow 

takes as input a program specification 

written in the PVS code specification 

and outputs the corresponding C 

implementation, which contains 

program contracts ensuring that 

the floating-point rounding error 

accumulated during the computation 

is bounded. ReFlow detects the 

cases in which the floating-point 

control flow differs from the ideal 

real number one, and a warning is 

issued in the generated program to 

advise the user that the output may 

suffer from excessive rounding error. 

ReFlow uses PRECiSA (LAR-19739-

1), which has been approved under 

NASA’s Open Source Agreement, in 

order to compute the error bounds 

used in the program contracts. 
26 AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023

RECOGNITION

UAM Team Simulation Team 

to Receive NASA Group 

Achievement Award 

POC: WILLIAM CHAN

On April 3, the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration 

project’s Urban Air Mobility (UAM) 

subproject’s Strategic Conflict 

Management Simulation team was 

notified they will receive a NASA 

Group Achievement Award. This is 

one of the most prestigious awards 

a group can receive and is presented 

to selected groups who have 

distinguished themselves by making 

outstanding contributions to NASA’s 

mission. The award will be presented 

to Kevin Witzberger, UAM 

subproject manager, on behalf of the 

team at the annual NASA Honor 

Awards Ceremony on May 17. 

SWS Participates at the 

29th IWC on Requirement 

Engineering 

POC: ANASTASIA MAVRIDOU AND 

TOM PRESSBURGER

On April 17–20, System-Wide 

Safety (SWS) researchers attended 

and presented two papers at the 29th 

International Working Conference 

(IWC) on Requirement Engineering: 

Foundation for Software Quality in 

Barcelona, Spain. The two papers 

described work being performed to 

support automated, formal analysis 

requirements for autonomous 

systems. The paper titled “Authoring, 

Analyzing, and Monitoring 

Requirements for a Lift-PlusCruise Aircraft” authored by Tom 

Pressburger, Andreas Katis, Aaron 

Dutle, and Anastasia Mavridou 

described how to develop state 

machine requirements and check 

for realizability using SWS’s Formal 

Requirements Elicitation Tool. The 

second paper, titled “Exploring 

Requirements for Software that 

Learns: A Research Preview” and 

authored by Marie Farrell, Anastasia 

Mavridou, and Johann Schumann, 

identified unique characteristics 

of software requirements that 

are specific to machine-learning 

enabled components. The paper 

provides a foundation for developing 

a taxonomy of requirements 

for software that learns. 

NASA Participates at the 2023 

ICNS Conference 

POC: PAUL HOYT NELSON

Paul Hoyt Nelson, ARMD’s senior 

cybersecurity advisor and aviation 

security liaison to the SystemWide Safety project, provided 

a plenary panel talk during the 

2023 Integrated Communications 

Navigation and Surveillance 

(ICNS) Conference in Virginia 

held April 18. The panel titled “The 

Role of Information Centricity in 

the Future of ATM,” was chaired 

by Stéphane Mondoloni, chief 

engineer for National Airspace 

System vision and research at 

MITRE, and Parimal Kopardekar, 

director of the NASA Aeronautics 

Research Institute. Nelson’s 

talk addressed future digital 

identity, cybersecurity and safety, 

and non-human (automation) 

mediated security operations. 

ATM-X Leads Awarded ESGR 

Patriot Award 

POC: WILLIAM CHAN

On April 19, William Chan, 

project manager of the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration (ATMX) project, and James Chartres, lead 

systems engineer for ATM-X, were 

awarded the Employer Support of 

the Guard and Reserve (ESGR) 

Patriot Award by John Fisher. 

ATM-X risk manager Joshua Moody 

(U.S. Navy Reserve) nominated 

both awardees for their efforts in 

support of his duties. The Patriot 

Award reflects the efforts made to 

support citizens through a wide 

From left: William Chan, Joshua Moody, James 

Chartres, and John Fisher.
AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023 27

RECOGNITION

range of measures including flexible 

schedules, time off prior to and after 

deployment, caring for families, and 

granting leaves of absence if needed. 

ATM-X’s Shivanjli Sharma 

Moderates Panel at Mobility 

Tech Salon 

POC: SHIVANJLI SHARMA

On April 20, Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration 

deputy project manager Shivanjli 

Sharma moderated the “Digital 

Infrastructure Needs for Ground 

and Air Autonomy” panel at 

Mobility Tech Salon in California. 

Some of the topics discussed 

included digital infrastructure, 

different technologies needed for 

group and air, and interfaces and 

information requirements for surface 

transportation and air. This panel 

also included Dean Donovan of 

Diamond Stream, Todd Petersen of 

Ellis and Associates, and attendees 

representing a wide range of groups 

involved in mobility technology 

that includes electric vertical 

takeoff and landing companies. 

xTM Achieves Best Paper at 

AIAA Aviation Forum 2022 

POC: PAUL LEE

On April 21, the paper “Identifying 

Common Coordination 

Procedures across Extensible 

Traffic Management (xTM) to 

Integrate xTM Operations into 

the National Airspace System” by 

Paul Lee and his team was selected 

by the AIAA Aviation Aircraft 

Operations Technical Committee 

as the best paper within the 

technical committee for Aviation 

Forum 2022. There will be an 

awards ceremony where authors 

will be given certificates. This 

paper was the final output of an 

xTM subproject milestone to 

study interactions between xTM 

and the Air Transportation System. 

This award shows the community 

recognition of NASA’s xTM work. 

SWS Presents Results on GPS 

Hazards at Low Altitude at 

IEEE/ION Symposium 

POC: KYLE ELLIS

On April 24-27, Julian Gutierrez 

and Andrew Moore, two 

researchers supported by the 

System-Wide Safety (SWS) project, 

presented novel results central 

to navigation at low altitudes 

at the Institute of Electrical and 

Electronics Engineers (IEEE)/

Institute of Navigation (ION) 

Position Location and Navigation 

Symposium (PLANS) 2023 in 

California. In collaboration with 

the Lonestar Unmanned Aircraft 

Systems Center, an FAA test site, 

“Accuracy Assessment of Two GPS 

Fidelity Prediction Services in 

Urban Terrain” compared several 

days of actual GPS receiver readings 

Shivanjli Sharma moderates the “Digital Infrastructure Needs for Ground and Air Autonomy panel.”
28 AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023

RECOGNITION

collected in the urban canyons 

of Corpus Christi, Texas with 

state-of-the-art navigation fidelity 

predictions. The physics of satellite 

signal interaction with rich 3D 

terrain data was computed by two 

independent prediction services 

and validated with thousands of 

ground-truth measurements. The 

paper was nominated for the highly 

prestigious Walter R. Fried Award 

for best paper at the symposium. 

A second paper, “Predicting GPS 

Fidelity in Heavily Forested Areas,” 

quantified GPS degradation by 

foliage – a ubiquitous hazard at 

low altitudes – at several sites 

for the first time. PLANS is a 

biennial technical conference 

that occurs in the spring of odd 

numbered years. Its mission is to 

provide an international forum 

to share the latest advances 

in navigation technology. 

SWS Work Reported at the 

HCSS Symposium 

POC: ALWYN GOODLOE AND MALLORY GRAYDON

On May 8–12, System-Wide Safety 

(SWS) project researchers Mallory 

Graydon, Alwyn Goodloe, and C. 

Michael Holloway participated in 

three co-located meetings. On 

May 8-10, Goodloe attended the 

High Confidence Software and 

Systems Symposium (HCSS) in 

Maryland, where he also moderated 

a session. This was the 23rd of an 

annual security-focused formal 

methods meeting started in 2001 by 

Brad Martin (then National Security 

Agency, now Defense Advanced 

Research Projects Agency). The 

program for this year included a talk 

by Jen Davis of Collins Aerospace 

titled “A Framework for Assuring 

Increasingly Autonomous Systems in 

Human-Machine Teams” reporting 

on work performed under a recently 

completed SWS-funded NASA 

Research Announcement with the 

same name. Also on the program 

was a talk by Darren Cofer, also 

of Collins Aerospace, titled “Next 

Steps for Trustworthy Machine 

Learning.” Later that week, there 

were two additional co-located 

meetings. Holloway moderated a 

panel discussion at the Software 

Certification Consortium. Graydon 

supported both. On May 11, 

she participated at the Trusted 

Computing Center of Excellence 

Summit on a panel discussion on 

software and assurance moderated 

by Ray Richards, former project 

manager for Automated Rapid 

Certification of Software. She 

then presented a talk titled “Safety 

Expertise Matters More Than You 

Might Think” at the Software 

Certification Consortium meeting. 

SWS Researchers Participate 

in HFE TAG Meeting 

POC: JON HOLBROOK

On May 9-12, representing the 

System-Wide Safety (SWS) project, 

Jon Holbrook and Cynthia Null 

participated in the Department of 

Defense Human Factors Engineering 

The physics of satellite signal interaction with rich 3D terrain data was computed by two independent

 prediction services and validated with thousands of ground-truth measurements.
AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023 29

RECOGNITION

(HFE) Technical Advisory Group 

(TAG) in Virginia. Holbrook gave 

an invited plenary address on the 

topic “Designing with Human 

Resilience in Mind.” In addition, 

Holbrook organized a plenary 

panel including Kathy Abbott, the 

FAA’s chief scientific and technical 

advisor for Flight Deck Human 

Factors, and Cynthia Null, the 

NASA Engineering and Safety 

Center’s (NESC) technical fellow for 

Human Factors. In addition to the 

plenary panel, Holbrook provided 

a technical briefing on the work 

of the Human Contributions to 

Safety initiative titled “Leveraging 

Human Performance Data 

to Change the Narrative that 

People are the Safety Problem.”

The major goal of the HFE TAG 

is to provide a mechanism for 

the timely exchange of technical 

information in the development 

and application of human factors 

by enhancing the coordination 

among U.S. government agencies 

involved in human factors research, 

technology development, and 

application. The meeting was 

attended by more than 200 technical 

representatives from the Department 

of Defense, Department of 

Homeland Security, Veterans 

Administration, the FAA, and NASA.

SWS External Partner Wins 

Best Student Paper Award 

POC: LILJANA SPIRKOVSKA

Graduate students Salil Purandare 

and Urjoshi Sinha from Iowa 

State University and Md Nafee Al 

Islam from the University of Notre 

Dame, along with their advisors 

Myra Cohen and Jane ClelandHuang, won best student paper at 

this year’s Symposium on Software 

Engineering for Adaptive and 

Self-Managing Systems (SEAMS) 

2023 held in May. Their research, 

funded through a grant from the 

System-Wide Safety (SWS) project’s 

Technical Challenge 2: In-Time 

Safety Nets for Emerging Operations, 

focuses on understanding the 

impact of configurations on 

drone flight behavior. The paper 

presents Controller Instabilitypreventing Configuration Aware 

Drone Adaptation – a technique 

to dynamically detect unstable 

behavior in small drones and 

provide an adaptive mechanism 

allowing missions to recover 

from misconfigurations. In their 

experiments, they demonstrated 

several types of adaptations 

that can be applied to either 

complete the mission or stabilize 

and land it when that is not 

possible. SEAMS is a CORE-A 

ranked conference on applying 

software engineering processes 

to self-adaptive and autonomous 

systems that adapt and change 

to their changing environment, 

and is a collated event with the 

yearly International Conference 

on Software Engineering Systems. 

SWS Participates at the 

Annual NFM Symposium 2023 

POC: AARON DUTLE

On May 16–18, the NASA Formal 

Methods (NFM) Symposium 

2023 was held in Texas at the 

University of Houston, Clear Lake. 

System-Wide Safety (SWS) project 

researchers Ivan Perez and Aaron 

Duttle each chaired a session at 

the symposium. Duttle was on the 

steering committee, and served 

on the program committee along 

with Alwyn Goodloe, Anastasia 

Mavridou, Natasha Neogi, Corina 

Pasareanu, Ivan Perez Dominguez, 

Left to right: Kathy Abbott (FAA), Jon Holbrook (NASA SWS), and Cynthia Null (NASA NESC) as they 

participated in the HFE TAG plenary panel discussion.
30 AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023

RECOGNITION

and Laura Titolo. Andreas Katis 

presented a paper that was prepared 

jointly with colleagues from the 

European Organization for Nuclear 

Research (CERN), “From Natural 

Language Requirements to the 

Verification of Programmable Logic 

Controllers: Integrating FRET 

into PLCverif.” NFM 2024 will 

be hosted in May 2024 at NASA’s 

Ames Research Center in California. 

DIP Expands ML/AI Industry 

Connections

POC: SHIVANJLI SHARMA

On May 18, Swati Saxena, Jeremy 

Coupe, and William Chan 

participated in a panel at the 

2023 Artificial Intelligence and 

Big Data Expo in California. The 

NASA panel members discussed 

the application of machine 

learning to improving airline 

operations during the panel 

titled “Real World Application 

of Artificial Intelligence/Machine 

Learning (AI/ML) for Managing 

Airspace Operations.” A goal for 

the Digital Information Platform 

(DIP) team was to expand NASA’s 

connections within this community 

to accelerate the development and 

deployment of DIP’s ML/AI-based 

technologies. The approximately 

100-person audience heard how 

NASA is working with the FAA 

and airlines to provide sustainable 

aviation benefits today by saving 

fuel upon departure out of the 

Dallas-Fort Worth area. The 

panelists discussed NASA’s rich 

history of air traffic management 

research, DIP technology, and 

lessons learned in fielding NASA 

technology for operational use. 

SWS Contributes to Federal AI 

Research and Development 

Plan 

POC: NIKUNJ OZA

The latest National Artificial 

Intelligence (AI) Research and 

Development (R&D) Strategic Plan 

was released on May 23. The plan 

was coauthored by NASA Discovery 

and Systems Health Data Sciences 

Group lead and System-Wide Safety 

(SWS) researcher Nikunj Oza. Oza 

led the sub-team that wrote Strategy 

1: “Make long-term investments 

in fundamental and responsible AI 

research,” and was also a member of 

the sub team that wrote Strategy 5: 

“Develop shared public datasets and 

environments for AI training and 

testing.” The document is an update 

to the 2019 Federal AI R&D Plan 

and lays out a strategic plan for 

federally funded AI R&D. The 

latest Strategic Plan can be viewed 

here: https://www.whitehouse.

gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/

National-Artificial-IntelligenceResearch-and-DevelopmentStrategic-Plan-2023-Update.pdf. 

SWS Participates at 

International Symposium on 

Aviation Psychology

POC: JON HOLBROOK AND CHAD STEPHENS

Researchers funded by the 

System-Wide Safety (SWS) 

project presented eight papers 

at the International Symposium 

From left: Jeremy Coupe, Swati Saxena, and William Chan. on Aviation Psychology (ISAP) 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023 31

RECOGNITION

held May 31-June 3 in Rochester. 

The conference is a venue for 

research on human performance 

within aviation systems and 

for design solutions tailored to 

human aptitudes and constraints. 

This forum enables attendees 

to share and discuss basic and 

applied research that speaks to 

issues of human performance in 

sociotechnical aviation systems. 

ISAP provides excellent visibility 

for research within a highly 

targeted community of relevant 

stakeholders. The eight papers were: 

1) Extracting Lessons of Resilience 

using Machine Mining of the ASRS 

Database by Barshi, Matthews, and 

Feldman; 2) Psychophysiological 

Research Methods to Assess Airline 

Flight Crew Resilient Performance 

in High-Fidelity Flight Simulation 

Scenarios by Stephens, Fettrow, 

Prinzel, Holbrook, Ballard, 

and Kiggins; 3) Examining 

the Relationship between SelfReported Workload and Resilient 

Performance in Airline Flight 

Crews by Stewart, Ballard, Stephens, 

Prinzel, Holbrook, Fettrow, and 

Kiggins; 4) Resilient Strategies in 

Commercial Aviation by Stewart 

and Matthews; 5) Learning About 

Routine Successful Pilot Techniques 

Using a Cued Retrospective ThinkAloud Task by Holbrook, Stephens, 

Prinzel, Bastami, and Kiggins; 6) 

What Can We Learn from Resilient 

Pilot Behaviors? The Case of Energy 

Management while Flying a STAR 

by Mumaw, Billman, and Baron; 

7) Survey Development and Initial 

Data: Flight Context and Pilot 

Techniques in Everyday Flights 

by Billman, Hobbs, Cusano, and 

Szladovics; and 8) Formal and 

informal learning in aviation: Might 

understanding their relationships 

benefit each? by Billman, Baron, 

and Mumaw. The conference 

was attended by 120+ technical 

representatives from government, 

academia, and industry in the 

area of aviation human factors. 

DIP Participates in Panel 

Discussions at ATIEC 

POC: JEREMY COUPE

Jeremy Coupe, subproject researcher 

for the Air Traffic Management 

– eXploration project’s Digital 

Information Platform (DIP) 

subproject, participated in two 

panel discussions at the Air 

Transportation Information 

Exchange conference (ATIEC)

hosted at George Mason University 

in Virginia on June 1-2. ATIEC 

is cohosted by the FAA and 

Eurocontrol and provides a 

forum to discuss and exchange 

concepts and practices related 

to major global changes in 

information management focusing 

on information in operation, 

information services, information 

exchanges, and information 

security. The theme of the 2023 

conference was “Deciding with 

Data Leveraging information to 

Dorrit Billman (top left), Chad Stephens (top right), and Jon Holbrook (lower) all presented NASA’s 

SWS project research in human performance within aviation systems to the ISAP conference audience.
32 AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023

RECOGNITION

make better data-driven choices.” 

Attendees at the conference 

included representatives from 

airlines, third-party service 

providers, air navigation service 

providers, and research/government 

organizations. The first panel 

discussion focused on System Wide 

Information Management (SWIM) 

and was titled “SWIMposium: 

Consuming SWIM Services 

from a Customer Perspective.” 

Coupe participated on this panel 

which also included participants 

from Lufthansa Systems, Flight 

Aware, and the FAA’s Traffic Flow 

Management System team. The 

panel members discussed use 

cases for consuming SWIM 

services and lessons learned from 

a consumer perspective that could 

be transferred to organizations 

working to consume SWIM data. 

The second panel discussion was a 

fireside chat between Coupe and 

Trung Pham, FAA’s chief scientific 

and technical advisor for artificial 

intelligence and machine learning 

(AI/ML). The two discussed AI/

ML pertaining to aviation and 

participants shared thoughts 

on unique challenges that are 

introduced using AI/ML compared 

to other traditional methods. 

UAM Participates in Intelligent 

Infrastructure Conference 

POC: KEN FREEMAN

On June 6–7, Kenneth Freeman, 

subproject manager for the Air 

Traffic Management – eXploration 

project’s Urban Air Mobility 

(UAM) Airspace Management 

subproject, participated as a panelist 

at the Intelligent Infrastructure 

Conference held in Austin. Freeman 

discussed data exchange issues and 

requirements for UAM environments. 

The Intelligent Infrastructure 

Conference brings together 

government and technologists to 

build the efficient, future-proof 

platform for public digital services. 

SWS Participates at 

International Flight Safety 

Foundation Safety Forum 2023

POC: JON HOLBROOK AND IMMANUEL BARSHI

The Flight Safety Foundation Safety 

Forum 2023 took place June 7-9 at 

EUROCONTROL Headquarters 

in Brussels, Belgium. The Forum 

and subsequent Learning from All 

Operations working group meeting 

provided internationally attended 

forums for discussing current 

practices, thinking, and research 

on the knowledge, skills, and 

experience needed to enable safer 

aviation operations. The meetings 

represented opportunities to raise 

awareness of NASA’s System-Wide 

Safety (SWS) research, as well as 

to share and discuss ideas with an 

international audience of aviation 

safety practitioners. Immanuel 

Barshi and Jon Holbrook, both 

funded under the SWS project, 

each presented at the Safety Forum. 

Barshi presented “A Holistic 

Approach to Procedures” and 

Holbrook presented “Strategies 

for Improving Safety Learning.” 

Tzvetomir Blajev, the Flight Safety 

Foundation’s director for Europe, 

noted the audience loved their 

briefings and helped to advance 

the discussions at the meetings. 

The Forum was attended by more 

than 250 front-line aviation 

safety professionals, trainers, and 

managers representing industry and 

government from around the planet. 

AOSP Projects Participate at 

AIAA Aviation 2023 Forum 

POC: TRISH GLAAB, SHIVANJLI SHARMA,

KYLE ELLIS, AND PORTIA BANERJEE

AOSP was well represented at 

the AIAA Aviation 2023 Forum 

Upper left: Jon Holbrook of NASA, Hassan 

Shahidi, president and chief executive officer of 

Flight Safety Foundation, and Immanuel Barshi 

of NASA. Holbrook (upper right) and Barshi 

(bottom) discuss applications of their research to 

sustaining and leveraging the knowledge, skills, and 

experience supporting safe aviation operations.
AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023 33

RECOGNITION

and Exposition Conference in 

San Diego held June 12-16. The 

Advanced Air Mobility project’s 

Automated Flight and Contingency 

Management team presented 

several research papers and served 

on panel sessions. Mike Feary 

presented “Evaluation of Novel 

Electric Vertical Takeoff and 

Landing Aircraft Automation 

Concepts.” Thomas Lambaerts 

presented “Command and 

Control Concepts for a Lift Plus 

Cruise Electric Vertical Takeoff 

and Landing Vehicle.” Casey 

Smith presented “Helicopter 

Pilot Assessments of the Airborne 

Collision Avoidance System Xr 

with Automated Maneuvering.” 

Feary also participated on 

the “Stepping Stones Towards 

Increasingly Autonomous Flight” 

panel featuring members of NASA, 

the FAA, and industry. This 

panel discussed challenges and 

opportunities in the move toward 

highly automated or autonomous 

future aircraft and airspace. Casey 

Smith, Advanced Air Mobility 

researcher and panelist, presented 

“Integration of Automation Systems 

Flight Testing,” where NASA 

panelists described the research 

technologies and supporting 

middleware systems developed to 

enable advanced aircraft autonomy 

testing in collaboration with 

Sikorsky in fiscal year 2023. 

Shivanjli Sharma, deputy project 

manager for the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration 

(ATM-X) project, spoke on Forum 

360: “Advanced Air Mobility 

Cadence of Operations” as the 

moderator and participated in 

the “NASA Sustainable Flight 

National Partnership project 

Managers” panel. There were 

also multiple papers presented by 

ATM-X researchers, and ATMX’s Pathfinding for Airspace with 

Autonomous Vehicles (PAAV) 

subproject participated in the 

Multi-Modal Integration Steering 

Committee meeting and the Air 

Transportation Systems Technical 

Challenge meeting. Vishwanath 

Bulusu, PAAV researcher, presented 

a paper titled “Analysis of VFR 

Traffic Uncertainty and its Impact 

on Uncrewed Aircraft Operational 

Capacity at Regional Airports.” 

SWS Participates at FAA Data 

Challenge Forum 

POC: MISTY DAVIES

On June 21-22, the FAA hosted 

its inaugural Data Challenge at 

MITRE. The Data Challenge 

is a student competition in 

which undergraduate students 

are challenged to use artificial 

intelligence and machine learning 

to address aviation-related 

problems and opportunities. As a 

result, the participating students 

were provided an opportunity to 

present their work. System-Wide 

Safety’s project manager Misty 

Davies, served on the steering 

committee and helped to judge 

the competition at the forum. 

Students used published NASA 

data and research in their solutions 

including data from the Aviation 

Safety Reporting System, Sherlock 

Data Warehouse, and ATMOnto. 

Upper left: the System-Wide Safety (SWS) Team at AIAA Aviation 2023 Forum. Upper right: SWS researcher 

Matteo Corbetta. Bottom Right: Ahmad Ali Pohya, German Aerospace Center. Bottom Left: SWS researcher 

Portia Banerjee.
34 AOSP NEWSLETTER // APR-JUN 2023

RECOGNITION

For more information, visit: https://

faadatachallenge.nianet.org/.

PAAV and SWS Contribute to 

Publication of RTCA DO-400 

POC: TOD LEWIS

Tod Lewis and Paul Volk, 

supporting the Air Traffic 

Management – eXploration 

project’s Pathfinding for Airspace 

with Autonomous Vehicles (PAAV) 

subproject, and Steven Young, 

supporting the System-Wide Safety 

(SWS) project, provided significant 

contributions to the development 

of RTCA DO-400, “Guidance 

Material: Standardized Lost C2 

Link Procedures for Uncrewed 

Aircraft Systems” published 

on June 22. The document 

contains guidance, gaps, and 

recommendations for the FAA and 

applicable stakeholders to use in 

the development of standardized 

Lost C2 Link (LC2L) procedures 

for large uncrewed aircraft in 

all phases of flight. It provides 

recommended actions for: 1) the 

uncrewed aircraft flying on an 

Instrument Flight Rules flight plan; 

2) air traffic control; and 3) the 

remote pilot while the uncrewed 

aircraft is in a LC2L state. 
National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Headquarters

300 E. Street, SW

Washington, DC 20024

www.nasa.gov/aeroresearch

www.nasa.gov