National Aeronautics and Space Administration

AOSP Newsletter

Airspace Operations and Safety Program (AOSP)

JAN-MAR 2017 | Quarter 2

ATD-1 Flight Test Campaign 

Completed

3

NASA and FAA Quarterly Meeting 12

www.nasa.gov
2 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2017

AOSP IN THE NEWS

NASA’s Supercomputers 

Reveal the Incredible 

Turbulence Produced 

By a Drone

Gizmodo (1/13) reported that, to 

help improve the design and flight 

characteristics of future drones, NASA 

had its supercomputers simulate what 

that air movement actually looks 

like—it’s impossibly complex.

NASA Tests Next-generation 

Air Traffic Software in 

Washington State’s Skies

GeekWire (2/07) reported that 

landing planes at busy airports can 

be a challenging work of aerial ballet, 

and this week, NASA is testing a 

computerized choreographer to 

handle the job in the skies over 

Washington state.

Airlines Focus on Shaving 

Seconds to Gain Dollars

Aviation Week (2/17) reported that 

is the gist of a month-long Flight 

Deck Interval Management (FIM) 

flight-test program that NASA and 

partners are in the midst of completing in the airspace east of the 

Seattle-Tacoma International.

NASA and the FAA Are Testing 

Plane Tech to Cut Delays and 

Shorten Flights

Wired (US) (2/18) reports that 

this month, the FAA and NASA 

are running a series of trial flights 

aimed at making airport arrivals far 

more efficient. It’s just one part of 

NextGen, the FAA’s decades-long, $35 

billion overhaul of America’s aging, 

inefficient air traffic control system.

This New NASA Air Traffic 

Control Tech Aims for 

Flight Efficiency

Digital Trends (2/26) reports that 

NASA and the FAA are conducting 

trial flights to test new air traffic 

control technology this week around 

Grant County International Airport 

in Washington state.

NASA Program Aims to 

Eliminate Taxiway Waiting

Aviation Week (3/01) reports that 

if NASA is successful, a frustrating 

but accepted reality at busy U.S. 

airports—the inevitability of a 

“conga line” of aircraft on the taxiway 

waiting for departure—should begin 

fading into history before the turn of 

the decade.

NASA Technology 

Fights Flight Delays

Scientific American (4/01) reports 

that “in early 2017 two large 

passenger planes and a smaller 

corporate jet practiced landing, one 

right after the other, without the 

usual constant help of an air traffic 

controller. Instead they relied on 

NASA-developed technology that 

lets planes automatically “talk” to 

one another and to control towers, 

simultaneously. If these flight 

tests—which took place at an airport 

near Seattle—prove convincing, 

the technology could eventually 

make its way to the Federal Aviation 

Administration for approval. And if 

all planes one day adopt the system, 

more aircraft could land in less 

time at the country’s increasingly 

congested airports.”

Video - NASA Completes 

Flight Tests of Air Traffic Tool

Aeronews.com (3/29) reports that 

passengers may soon be spending 

less time hanging around in airport 

arrival and departure gates. This 

after NASA recently completed 

airborne tests of a flight deck 

tool that is likely to improve the 

accuracy of commercial aircraft 

arrival times. The software and 

hardware prototype, known as 

Flight Deck Interval Management 

(FIM), automatically provides pilots 

with extremely precise spacing 

information on approach into a 

busy airport, enabling more planes 

to land safely in any given time. 

The technology is intended to help 

airplanes spend less time in the air, 

save money on fuel, and reduce 

engine emissions.
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2017 3

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

ATD-1 Flight Test 

Campaign Completed 

POC: LEIGHTON QUON AND SHERILYN BROWN

On February 22, the Airspace Technology Demonstration-1 (ATD-1) 

team completed flight tests conducted in the Seattle-Grant County 

airspace. The tests were under 

contract with the Boeing Company 

and their subcontractors Honeywell 

and United Airlines (UAL). The 

flight tests required two years of 

planning, and the Concept of Operations refinement took five years to 

complete. During this time, researchers from both the Ames Research 

Center in California and Langley 

Research Center in Virginia provided 

inputs and simulations critical to 

the refinement’s development. In 

preparation for the flight trials, all 

flight reviews had to be successfully 

completed and then approved by the 

responsible board chairs. The reviews 

included the Langley Airworthiness 

and Safety Review Board (ASRB), 

ATD-1 Flight Readiness Review 

(FRR) and the previous ATD-1 

System Acceptance Review. The 

reviews were completed January 19. 

The Boeing Company hosted the 

FRR Meeting at their Seattle facility 

in support of the $11 million, twoyear Flight Critical Safety Research 

contract task award entitled “ATD-1 

Avionics Phase 2.” Fifty individuals 

attended the meeting, including 

leaders, engineers, researchers, and 

key industry stakeholders. The 

review panel consisted of FRR Chair 

and Project Representative Stella 

Harrison, NASA Avionics Lead 

Denise Scearce, NASA Flight Test 

Lead Brian Baxley, NASA Algorithm 

Lead Kurt Swieringa, Ames System 

Engineer Andrew Ging, and FAA 

representative Ian Levitt. The panel 

considered the FRR to be a success 

and felt that it met NASA’s approval 

to proceed to the flight-test stage. 

The ATD Project Manager thanked 

the team members for their contributions, and congratulated them for 

their efforts under circumstances that 

were difficult because some necessary 

information was not available to 

the team until late in the process. 

The Langley research team received 

approval from both the Langley 

Institutional Review Board and the 

Johnson Space Center Institutional 

Review Board to conduct NASA 

research during this flight test. 

Additionally, both Honeywell and 

United passed FRRs of their own. 

Approval from the NASA FRR 

review board to proceed with the 

flight test was the final step necessary 

for Langley’s ASRB to issue the 

Flight Safety Release to allow the 

flight test to commence. The first 

test flight was conducted on Friday, 

January 20. The ATD-1 flight test A tablet computer displays air traffic data during ATD-1 flight simulations.
4 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2017

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

team called a no-fly day on Monday, 

January 23, to evaluate data, 

procedures, and operations from the 

first day so they could make proper 

adjustments for successful ongoing 

flying starting Tuesday, January 24. 

The flight-test campaign consisted 

of 19 flight days and approximately 

260 flight hours of data collection 

from three airplanes. This flight 

test was the first to use the Flight 

Deck Interval Management (FIM) 

prototype as a new technology for 

air traffic management operations. 

The Airborne Spacing for Terminal 

Arrival Routes algorithm demonstrated under real-world conditions 

improvements to efficiency and 

throughput of arrival operations 

into busy airports. The algorithm 

also verified the FAA’s minimum 

operational standards for FIM.

This flight test consisted of several 

hundred people from across the 

United States who worked for the 

following entities: Honeywell (three 

engineering groups and two flight 

operation groups, UAL (one flight 

operation group), Boeing (two divisions), Jeppesen, Ames (one project 

management group), Langley (three 

branches), and five air traffic control 

facilities in the Washington area. The 

ATD-1 core flight test team from 

Langley included Baxley, Swieringa, 

Harrison, Scearce, Roy Roper, 

Nina Tappan, Sara Wilson, 

Will Johnson, Sherilyn Brown 

and Terry Abbott from the SAIC 

LITES-II contract. During the 

remainder of the fiscal year, the 

research team will analyze the data 

and present the results at multiple 

venues, including the RTCA FIM 

working group meeting. In 

conjunction with the flight tests, on 

February 9, the ATD-1 team hosted 

media from CNN, Aviation Week, 

the Associated Press, and multiple 

Seattle news stations and newspapers. 

Below are several of the news stories 

released by the media in response:

https://www.ecnmag.com/

news/2017/01/prototype-air-traffictool-ready-airborne-workout

http://www.geekwire.com/2017/

nasa-atd-1-air-traffic-washington/

http://www.king5.com/mb/tech/

science/aerospace/nasa-to-testnew-flight-management-systemin-washington/406607703

http://komonews.com/news/local/

view-from-nasas-research-lab20000-feet-above-washington

http://www.heraldnet.com/news/

nasa-is-testing-technology-to-helpairlines-fly-more-efficiently/

ATD-2 Integrated Surface 

and Airspace Simulations 

POC: SAVITA VERMA AND ERIC CHEVALLEY

During the past quarter, the Airspace 

Technology Demonstration-2 

(ATD-2) Experiment team 

successfully conducted a series of 

three simulations to inform Field 

Demo Partners about the ATD-2 

capabilities expected for the Phase 

1 Field Demo. The team had 

their partners interact with the 

fully-integrated Phase 1 system in a 

realistic, closed-loop environment. 

The first of these tests took place on 

January 19 at FutureFlight Central 

(FFC) and the Airspace Operations 

Laboratory (AOL) at NASA’s Ames 

Research Center in California. 

There, the ATD-2 Experiment 

Team successfully performed a third 

baseline Human-In-The-Loop 

(HITL) test, integrating the airspace 

surface traffic simulator’s MultiAircraft Control System (MACS) 

with the Air Traffic Generator 

(ATG). This simulation environment 

supported the integration of several 

ATD-2 components, including the 

Surface Trajectory-Based Operation 

(STBO) system, its user interfaces 

and its connection with Time-Based 

Flow Management (TBFM). The 

test focused on evaluating the tactical 

departure scheduler and Call for 

Release procedure between the 

Charlotte Douglas International 

Airport (CLT) and Washington 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2017 

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

5

Center. The scenario simulated 

580 flights that included both arrivals 

and departures and overhead traffic. 

Researchers tested the operation at 

full levels of traffic and included 

turnaround flights in the South Flow 

configuration. This HITL test also 

included the 360-degree simulation 

of the airline ramp operations, along 

with the smaller-scale virtual Air 

Traffic Control Tower (ATCT). 

Future follow-on test scenarios 

will feature different runway 

configurations, and continue to test 

the integration of surface metering 

and tactical departure scheduling. 

The second of these tests occurred 

the week of February 13. The 

primary objective of the HITL 

shakedown simulation was to 

conduct supplemental tests of the 

integration of the STBO subsystem 

and the TBFM-Integrated Arrival 

Departure Capability subsystem. 

The secondary objective was to 

refine ATD-2 procedures for surface 

departure metering and the Call 

for Release process between CLT 

Air Traffic Control Tower (ATCT) 

and Washington Center. The 

simulation environment required 

considerable effort integrating the 

AOL Terminal Radar Approach 

Control (TRACON) and en route 

airspace-simulation capabilities 

with the FFC ATCT and Airline 

Ramp Tower simulation capabilities. 

Traffic scenarios involving nearly 

600 flights included CLT arrival and 

departure banks, as well as overhead 

traffic to Washington Center. At the 

FFC, researchers used the primary 

360-degree tower cab to simulate 

airline ramp operations while 

using a secondary virtual tower to 

simulate the ATCT. At the AOL, 

the TRACON and en route sectorcontroller displays used the MACS 

stations, while the Washington 

Center Traffic Management Unit 

station ran TBFM. The TBFM 

Integrated Departure Scheduling 

Tool for Washington Center was also 

used for four airports: Richmond, 

Dulles, Raleigh and Baltimore. 

The HITL simulation involved 

19 former air traffic controllers and 

managers from various FAA facilities, 

including CLT ATCT, American 

Airlines (AAL) Ramp Tower and 

Washington Center. The former 

CLT and AAL Tower controllers 

managed surface traffic in the HITL 

simulation using the Ramp Tower 

Console, Ramp Manager Tower 

Console and the STBO user-interface 

to schedule departures into the 

Washington Center overhead stream. 

There was one Washington Center 

Traffic Management Coordinator 

position; the rest of the participants 

staffed the en route and TRACON 

sector-controller positions. Fourteen 

pseudo-pilots managed flights using 

MACS and the Airspace Traffic 

Generator system. This HITL 

shakedown was in preparation for 

data collection scheduled for 

March 7 through 9, where FAA 

and air carrier participants will 

evaluate the ATD-2 system and 

expected operational procedures for 

the Phase 1 Field Demonstration. 

The third simulation took place 

March 7 through 9. The primary 

objective of this HITL was to inform 

field demonstration partners about 

the ATD-2 capabilities expected 

for the Phase 1 Field Demo by 

enabling them to interact with the 

fully-integrated Phase 1 system in a 

realistic, closed-loop environment. 

The simulation environment 

included four distinct operational 

facilities: an airport ramp traffic 

control tower, ATCT, a Terminal 

RADAR Approach Control 

(TRACON) and Air Route Traffic 

Control Center. Faithful emulation 

of these facilities required integration 

of the AOL terminal and en route 

airspace simulation capabilities with 

the FFC airport surface simulation 

The ATD-2 Team posing for a group photograph 

after successfully completing the March simulation.
6 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2017

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

capabilities. This simulation built 

on the capabilities introduced 

in the previous tests. The HITL 

simulation involved participants 

from all of the ATD-2 Field 

Demonstration operational facilities, 

which included the National Air 

Traffic Controller Association, 

Charlotte ATCT/TRACON, 

AAL Ramp Tower, Washington 

Center and Atlanta Center. 

Participants in the HITL evaluated 

the expected ATD-2 procedures 

for surface departure metering 

implemented in the ramp 

management tools, and the “call for 

release” process between Charlotte 

ATCT and Washington Center. 

They also evaluated procedures 

associated with information sharing 

between the Charlotte ATCT and 

AAL Ramp Tower. Participants 

received training on the morning 

of March 7, followed by eight data 

runs where researchers collected 

quantitative and qualitative data. 

Debriefings at the end of each day 

provided more in-depth discussions 

to refine the ATD-2 system for 

the field demonstration. American 

Airlines Operations Research 

personnel and representatives from 

the FAA’s NextGen, Surface and 

Operational Requirements and 

Validation Offices were present to 

evaluate the ATD-2 system and 

contribute to discussions. The 

NASA ATD-2 team and Field 

Demo partners gained valuable 

insight on how the ATD-2 system 

will operate during the field 

demonstration. Results from the 

HITL simulation will feed into 

the final set of capabilities for the 

Phase 1 Field Demonstration, 

and will be reviewed at the 

Evaluation Requirements Freeze 

1 meeting scheduled March 29. 

ATD-2 Demonstration to 

Collaborative Decision 

Making (CDM) Flow 

Evaluation Team (FET)

POC: AL CAPPS

On January 5, Airspace Operations 

and Safety Program researchers 

provided a demonstration 

of the Airspace Technology 

Demonstration-2 (ATD-2) system 

to the Collaborative DecisionMaking (CDM) Flow Evaluation 

Team (FET) at NASA’s ATD-2 

laboratory located at the Charlotte 

Douglas International Airport. 

The team is a joint government 

and industry initiative aimed 

at improving air traffic flow 

management through increased 

information exchange among 

aviation community stakeholders. 

The FET is a CDM sub-team that 

strives to increase system efficiency 

by reducing route coordination 

time and enhancing system 

planning through the creation 

of common situational awareness 

of potential route alternatives, 

procedures and coordination 

processes. The FET requested that 

a regular quarterly meeting be held 

in conjunction with the ATD-2 lab 

visit. The ATD-2 team presented a 

system overview and described the 

goals, benefits, and tools developed 

across the various user groups, 

from Air Traffic Control Tower 

personnel to ramp managers and 

controllers. A description of the 

data exchange, integration activities, 

surface modeling, scheduling and 

metering also were provided. The 

FET expressed interest in the 

results of the field demonstrations. 

ATD-2 Briefing to FAA’s 

NextGen Advisory 

Committee Subcommittee 

POC: JANE THIPPHAVONG

On January 12, Airspace Operations 

and Safety Program researchers 

provided an ATD-2 update to the 

FAA’s NextGen Advisory Committee 

Subcommittee (NACSC) at 

their monthly meeting held in 

Washington, DC. The NextGen 

Advisory Committee (NAC) 

provides a venue where the FAA 

can solicit a consensus-based set 

of recommendations on issues 

that are critical to the successful 

implementation of NextGen. The 

NAC is also a forum to obtain 

a commitment of resources and 

synchronized planning between 

government and industry partners. 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2017 

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

7

The NACSC supports the NAC, 

and is composed of FAA and 

aviation industry representatives 

with broad knowledge and expertise 

related to the implementation of 

NextGen. The NACSC meeting 

included remarks from FAA 

Deputy Administrator (Acting) 

Victoria Wassmer and other regular 

participants. The ATD-2 briefing 

detailed past accomplishments, 

featured the concept animation 

video and highlighted ATD-2 

partnerships and stakeholder 

engagement activities. Under 

ATD-2, NASA is collaborating 

with the FAA and industry to 

conduct a field demonstration 

of surface departure metering, in 

response to a recommendation 

from the NAC. Several NACSC 

members expressed their support 

for ATD-2 and an interest in results 

from the field demonstration. 

ATD-3 Team Hold 

“Air-Ground Integration” 

Operational Meetings with 

Potential Stakeholders

POC: DAVID WING AND KAPIL SHETH

The Airspace Technology 

Demonstration-3 (ATD-3) 

Team held several meetings with 

potential stakeholders in January 

to solicit potential partnerships for 

NASA’s upcoming “Air-Ground 

Integration” operational trials, to 

be conducted by fiscal year 2020, 

in which these technologies would 

be linked and leveraged for their 

respective strengths in an integrated 

operational demonstration. The 

first of these meetings occurred 

January 10, at United Airlines (UAL) 

World Headquarters in Chicago. 

Participants discussed a potential 

partnership between UAL and 

NASA. David Wing and Stephanie 

Harrison from NASA Langley 

Research Center – accompanied by 

Mike Madson and Kapil Sheth from 

NASA Ames Research Center – met 

with senior UAL officials including 

the Director of Communication, 

Navigation and Surveillance 

Programs and Cockpit Technology; 

the Senior Manager for Flight 

Operations Programs; the Chief 

Technical Pilot for Surveillance; and 

the Director of Network Operations 

Center and Flight Dispatch. 

Officials with UAL requested the 

meeting because of their interest 

in NASA technologies for airborne 

Traffic Aware Strategic Aircrew 

Requests (TASAR) and ground-based 

Dynamic Weather Routes (DWR). 

NASA presented demonstrations of 

the TASAR and DWR technologies, 

and hosted discussions on integration 

requirements and partnership 

expectations. Officials with UAL 

reaffirmed their interest in the 

partnership, assessed the business 

factors necessary to proceed, and 

committed to respond to NASA 

within the next couple of months. 

The next meeting, held on 

January 20, took place at the 

FedEx Global Operations Center 

(GOC) in Memphis, TN. Wing, 

Harrison, Madson and Sheth 

met with senior FedEx officials, 

including the Managing Director 

for Flight Technical and Regulatory 

Compliance, the Manager of GOC 

Air Traffic Coordination, the 

Manager of Aircraft Engineering, 

the Senior Manager of Air Traffic 

Operations, and two senior 

captains. FedEx has closely followed 

NASA’s developments on airborne 

TASAR and ground-based DWR 

technologies, and affirmed their 

interest as a potential partner for 

NASA’s upcoming “Air-Ground 

Integration” operational trials. 

The NASA team presented 

demonstrations of the TASAR 

and DWR technologies, and 

discussed integration requirements 

and partnership expectations. 

FedEx has several aircraft with the 

required broadband connectivity, 

and has significant interest in data 

communications. NASA intends to 

release a Request for Information 

to the airline community regarding 

the planned Air-Ground Integration 

operational trials, and FedEx 

anticipates submitting a response. 

On January 25, Boeing Research 

and Technology (R&T) also met 

with NASA in Seattle to discuss 

potential partnership opportunites. 
8 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2017

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

These NASA representatives also 

met with the Boeing R&T personnel 

responsible for planning the next 

round of ecoDemonstrator flights 

scheduled for 2018 and 2020. 

Boeing anticipates submitting 

a response to NASA’s request 

for information, and expressed 

significant interest in including 

NASA’s TASAR technology in these 

flights as part of NASA’s upcoming 

“Air-Ground Integration” operational 

trials. The groups discussed cockpit 

integration requirements for 

TASAR and potential operational 

scenarios to digitally request 

and approve NextGen Data 

Communications emulation of 

airborne-generated route-change 

solutions to Air Traffic Control. 

NASA and Alaska Airlines met on 

January 26 to discuss a strategic 

partnership to explore expanding 

their current Space Act Agreement 

to include “Air-Ground Integration.” 

The expansion would include 

installing NASA’s ground-based 

route-optimization technology – 

National Airspace System Constraint 

Evaluation and Notification 

Tool– in Alaska’s Dispatch Center, 

while adding the Traffic Aware 

Planner to additional aircraft, and 

then testing the integrated air and 

ground technologies together. 

In attendance from Alaska were 

the Director of Operations, the 

Director of Dispatch, and the 

Chief Technical Pilot, along with 

several line dispatchers and Flight 

Operations personnel. Attendees 

discussed partnership objectives and 

parameters, including expectations 

for NASA and Alaska Airlines 

contributions. Alaska Airlines 

management was enthusiastic about 

the potential expansion and the 

opportunity to respond to NASA’s 

pending Request for Information. 

These outreach meetings identified 

at least one suitable airline-aircraft 

operator partner for conducting 

operational trials of Air-Ground 

Integration in support of ATD-3. 

ATD-2 Software Release with 

Significant New Capabilities

POC: MICHELLE ESHOW

On January 20, the Airspace 

Technology Demonstration-2 

(ATD-2) Software Development 

Team delivered version 2.1 of the 

Integrated Arrival, Departure, and 

Surface (IADS) system. ATD-2 

has followed an agile requirements 

definition and software development 

process. Field demo partners were 

exposed to the IADS system in 

live-data shadow mode evaluation 

sessions, and provided the research 

team with the opportunity 

for feedback regarding system 

requirements. The IADS v2.1 release 

implements a large percentage of 

the requirements identified during 

five shadow sessions conducted from 

July through November 2016. 

The software team completed 434 

issues (i.e., Jira tickets) since the 

last major IADS version release 

in mid-October. Development 

included these key areas: 

1. Refinement of a data fuser 

system to handle the vast array 

of input data feeds; 

2. New user interface components 

to support air traffic control 

tower (ATCT) and ramp tower 

collaboration; 

3. Significant maturation of the 

tactical scheduling and metering 

functions; 

4. Re-engineering of the Ramp 

Traffic Console user interface for 

better support; 

5. Re-design of ATCT controller 

interface for usability; 

6. Enhancements to the departurescheduling interface between 

IADS and the FAA’s TBFM 

system; and 

7. Adaptation enhancements to 

reflect operations at Charlotte 

Douglas International Airport 

(CLT). 

The upcoming shadow evaluation 

sessions at the ATD-2 lab at CLT 

will highlight the IADS v2.1 release. 

During these sessions, NASA 

researchers will review the latest 

capabilities with field demo partners 

and use their feedback to further 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2017 9

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

refine the IADS system to prepare 

for upcoming tests and the ATD-2 

Phase 1 field demonstration. 

Technical Interchange 

Meeting for the Management 

by Trajectory NRA

POC: BRYAN BARMORE

A technical interchange meeting 

between researchers took place at 

NASA’s Langley Research Center 

in Virginia on January 24. The 

meeting included researchers from 

NASA’s Trajectory-Based Operations 

(TBO) subproject team and Mosaic 

ATM, Inc., the prime contractor 

on the ongoing Management by 

Trajectory (MBT) NASA Research 

Announcement (NRA) contract. 

The MBT NRA team is tasked 

with defining an MBT concept of 

operations, studying the impact 

of possible changes in roles and 

responsibilities between the various 

agents in the air traffic system, and 

identifying the concept’s potential 

impact on system safety in a way 

that brings the National Airspace 

System closer to a full TBO 

environment. Langley researchers 

participated in technical discussions 

with the contractor team about 

the draft concept of operations, 

scenarios and use cases applicable 

to an MBT air traffic environment. 

These discussions accompanied 

NRA team preparations to 

collect input from subject matter 

experts. NASA’s Shadow Mode 

Assessment Using Realistic 

Technologies for the National 

Airspace System Test-bed for Safe 

TBO Project supports this NRA. 

ATD-2 Engagement with 

the Surface Collaborative 

Decision Making Team 

POC: RICH COPPENBARGER

On January 25, NASA participated 

in the joint government-industry 

Surface Collaborative Decision 

Making Team (SCT) Meeting, 

held in Washington, DC. The 

team meets quarterly and consists 

of representatives from major 

U.S. passenger and cargo airlines, 

general aviation, the FAA and the 

National Air Traffic Controller 

Association. The team provides 

broad stakeholder input regarding 

requirements, policy, and procedures 

related to surface traffic-flow 

automation and data exchange. 

The morning sessions included an 

update on the status and deployment 

plans for the Terminal Flight Data 

Manager Program, and a briefing 

by the MITRE Corporation on the 

effects of early scheduling departures 

into time-based traffic flows. The 

rest of the day was devoted to 

technical interchange on Airspace 

Technology Demonstration-2 

(ATD-2). ATD-2 researchers 

presented an update on recent 

progress made towards the Phase 1 

field demonstration at Charlotte 

Douglas International Airport. 

ATD-2 topics also included the 

status of the cost-benefits analysis 

and a preliminary study of the 

accuracy of airline gate departure 

intent data at Charlotte as a 

function of look-ahead time and 

airline category. Such analysis is 

critical for establishing expectations 

for the performance of ATD-2 

departure scheduling functions 

in Phase 1. Interactions during 

the meeting provided valuable 

input on ATD-2 data collection 

plans for measuring benefits and 

for refining the investigation of 

departure intent accuracy. The 

team expressed their appreciation 

for NASA’s overviews and technical 

discussions, and reaffirmed their 

desire for continued engagement 

on ATD-2 going forward. 

Meeting participants at the Surface Collaborative 

Decision Making Team Meeting.
10 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2017

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

Visit to Los Angeles Air 

Traffic Control Tower 

POC: GARY LOHR

On January 31, Gary Lohr from 

NASA’s Langley Research Center 

in Virginia visited the air traffic 

control tower at the Los Angeles 

International Airport (LAX) to 

discuss automation tools that 

support the traffic flow management 

(TFM) process. Effective TFM 

is particularly important to 

LAX—the fourth busiest airport 

in the nation—because the 

airport’s surface operations are 

characterized by limited area and 

unbalanced traffic loading. The 

primary tool used for TFM at major 

air traffic facilities is time-based 

flow management (TBFM); a 

sub-component of TBFM is the 

Integrated Departure Arrival 

Capability (IDAC) that organizes 

arriving and departing traffic. 

This organization is particularly 

challenging at LAX because of 

the high percentage of departures 

that are subject to constrained 

departure release times based on 

airspace capacity considerations at 

the destination airport. The IDAC 

requires highly constrained staging 

of aircraft and insertion into the 

flow of departure traffic for the 

appropriate runway. Information 

gained from this visit will be used 

in concept development at NASA 

to ensure compatibility with 

existing and envisioned capabilities 

in the national airspace system. 

Tour of Ames Aeronautics 

Facilities for the FAA 

Unmanned Aircraft 

Safety Team (UAST)

POC: TOM PREVOT

On February 1, NASA’s Ames 

Research Center in California 

hosted tours of some of its unique 

aeronautics facilities to members 

of the FAA’s Unmanned Aircraft 

Safety Team (UAST). The FAA 

requested the visit, which began 

with an overview of Ames and its 

aeronautics research presented by 

Deputy Director of Aeronautics, 

William Van Dalsem. The group 

then toured the Airspace Operations 

Laboratory, FutureFlight Central, the 

National Full-Scale Aerodynamics 

Complex and the small Unmanned 

Aerial System Autonomy Research 

Complex. In addition to the FAA, 

attendee organizations included 

AT&T, DJI, Inc., CNN, Amazon, 

the News Media Coalition, Pierce 

Aerospace, Cape Productions, 

Resilient Solutions and the 

Technology Exploration Group. 

Attendees also participated in the 

UAST’s second team meeting held 

in Mountain View on February 2. 

ATD-2 Project Successfully 

Completes FAA Enterprises 

Infrastructure Services 

Assessment

POC: SHAWN ENGELLAND

NASA, together with the FAA 

Communications, Information 

and Network Programs (CINP) 

Team, presented an Enterprises 

Infrastructure Services (EIS) 

Assessment on the Airspace 

Technology Demonstration-2 

(ATD-2) Field Demonstration 

Prototype System to an FAA 

Architecture Review Board (ARB) 

in Washington, DC, on February 8. 

The EIS Assessment focused on the 

interfaces between FAA and NASA 

information systems necessary for 

the ATD-2 field demonstration. 

The ATD-2 project will conduct a 

field demonstration of its integrated 

surface metering and airspace 

departure scheduling technologies 

at the FAA’s Charlotte Douglas 

International Airport Air Traffic 

Control Tower, Washington En Route 

Center and Atlanta En Route Center, 

Members of the FAA Unmanned Aircraft Safety Team in 2018. The ARB—composed of 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2017 11

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

FAA representatives from the System 

Wide Information Management 

(SWIM) Program Office, Enterprises 

Engineering, Mission Support and 

Telecommunication Office and 

Security Offices—reviewed ATD-2 

plans for installing equipment in 

the FAA facilities, SWIM interfaces, 

and the ATD-2 Integrated Arrival, 

Departure and Surface (IADS) 

management system interface with 

the FAA’s operational TBFM. 

FAA NextGen and NASA ATD-2 

representatives presented the 

ATD-2 overview, which included 

the ATD-2 concept animation 

video. The CINP Team described 

details of the interfaces; enterprise 

services; and telecommunication, 

security, and SWIM requirements 

needed to support the ATD-2 

field demonstration. The meeting 

was very successful, as ARB 

members expressed appreciation 

for the ATD-2 presentation and 

indicated that they gained a clearer 

understanding about the interagency 

field demonstration collaboration. 

The ARB typically conducts 

such reviews to assess enterprise 

infrastructure impacts of formal FAA 

acquisition programs. This review 

of the ATD-2 field demonstration 

prototype is considered as a 

model for upcoming reviews of 

future, high-impact NASA and 

FAA prototyping activities. 

NASA-FAA Technical 

Interchange Meeting for DRAW

POC: CHESTER GONG AND STEPHANIE HARRISON

On February 8 and 9, the Airspace 

Technology Demonstration-3 

(ATD-3) project held a technical 

interchange meeting (TIM) for 

the Dynamic Routes for Arrivals 

in Weather (DRAW) technology 

at FAA Headquarters. More than 

20 representatives from NASA, 

FAA, and the MITRE Corporation 

attended, as well as a representative 

from the National Air Traffic 

Controllers Association. At the 

meeting, NASA was represented 

by Stephanie Harrison from the 

Langley Research Center in Virginia, 

as well as Kapil Sheth and Chester 

Gong from the Ames Research 

Center in California. The meeting 

prompted an engaging discussion 

that successfully accomplished the 

objectives of the TIM, which were 

to first, provide detailed answers to 

FAA questions regarding DRAW 

technology and a Concept of 

Operations (ConOps); second, 

to receive feedback to help NASA 

revise the draft DRAW ConOps 

document; and finally, to present 

and receive feedback on the 

experiment plan for the first DRAW 

controllers-in-the-loop simulation, 

scheduled for May 2017. 

ATD-2 Shadow Mode 

Evaluations #6 and #7

POC: SHIVANJLI SHARMA AND BECKY HOOEY

Shadow Mode Evaluations 

continued this past quarter. 

From January 24 through 26, 

the sixth Shadow Evaluation was 

held in the Charlotte Douglas 

International Airport Airspace 

Technology Demonstration-2 

(ATD-2) lab. During the evaluation, 

traffic managers from the CLT 

air traffic control tower, AAL 

ramp controllers, CLT airport 

operations representatives, the 

FAA, the National Air Traffic 

Controller Association and NASA 

personnel met for discussions and 

demonstrations of the ATD-2 

system with live data. Each day of 

the shadow evaluation included an 

overview and demonstration of new 

software capabilities to enable data 

exchange and integration between 

tower and ramp controllers for 

enhanced situational awareness. 

The presentation of these features 

allowed users to discuss efficient ways 

of collaboration and information 

sharing, which further refined the 

requirements for the ATD-2 team. 

A prototype of a real-time reporting 

tool was also demonstrated to the 

users to solicit detailed feedback 

about the benefit-related measures of 

performance. In addition, presenters 

introduced tactical surface metering 

concepts with a demonstration 
12 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2017

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

of the proposed functionality. 

The seventh Shadow Evaluation 

occurred February 21 through 23, 

and was again held in Charlotte 

at both the ATD-2 Lab and 

the American Airlines Training. 

The evaluation yielded similar 

results from the previous shadow 

evaluations, and allowed both the 

air traffic management and pilot 

communities to provide significant 

feedback regarding methods of 

ATD-2 implementation from a 

pilot perspective. The evaluations 

also defined requirements for 

pilot training materials for 

the field demonstration. 

Releasing “The Kraken” - 

TIM with Naval Aeromedical 

Research Unit - Dayton 

POC: KYLE ELLIS

On February 8 and 9, NASA 

researchers Kyle Ellis, Ron Daiker 

and Gautam Shah from the Langley 

Research Center in Virginia traveled 

to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in 

Dayton, OH, to meet with the Naval 

Medical Research Unit (NAMRU) 

for a technical interchange meeting. 

NASA has established an Interagency 

Agreement with NAMRU to 

conduct research in the Navy’s 

Disorientation Research Device 

named “The Kraken.” The Kraken is 

a one-of-a-kind, high-fidelity flight 

research simulator capable of fullmotion and sustained g-loading that 

more accurately replicates the forces 

a pilot feels during flight relative 

to conventional motion training 

simulators. This partnership enables 

NASA to conduct aviation safety 

research beyond the operational 

envelope of typical training 

simulators in a safe, repeatable 

manner, while maintaining a 

necessary level of realism. In addition 

to technical discussions related 

to test planning and simulator 

capabilities, the meeting also focused 

on NASA and NAMRU roles and 

responsibilities, schedules, and task 

coordination needed to prepare 

for operational research testing in 

early fiscal year 2018. The focus 

of this research is to develop and 

evaluate technologies for aircraft state 

awareness to reduce loss-of-control 

incidents in commercial aviation 

operations. This research is being 

conducted by the Technologies 

for Airplane State Awareness subproject, within the ATD Project. 

Video of the Kraken:

https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=m-QRfUWWKlo

NASA and FAA 

Quarterly Meeting 

POC: LEIGHTON QUON

From February 28 through March 1, 

the FAA and NASA conducted their 

joint quarterly review of current and 

potential future collaborations at 

NASA’s Ames Research Center in 

California. These reviews provide a 

valuable two-way exchange of plans, 

constraints, ideas and possibilities 

that affect the two agencies. Current 

collaborations discussed included the 

Airspace Technology Demonstration 

(ATD)-1, -2 and -3 subprojects, the 

Integrated Demand Management 

subproject under Shadow-Mode 

Assessment Using Realistic Technologies for the National Airspace 

System and the FAA-NASA Research 

Transition Team for Unmanned 

Aircraft System Traffic Management. 

Participants attending a Shadow Evaluation Session
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2017 13

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

Potential future collaborations 

include NASA’s emerging plans for 

a new Trajectory-Based Operations 

research project. Specific discussions 

about ATD-3 focused on the current 

ground-based and cockpit-based 

rerouting technologies, along with 

the concept of integrating these two 

technologies. Discussions featured 

Multi-Flight Common Route and 

Dynamic Routes for Arrivals in 

Weather as ground-based technology, 

and the Traffic Aware Strategic 

Aircrew Requests as cockpit-based 

technology. The ground-based 

technologies are slated for integration 

into FAA operational infrastructure, 

while NASA is working with flight 

operators and industry to implement the integrated technologies. 

Integrated Demand 

Management (IDM) CTOP 

Development HITL 

POC: NANCY SMITH AND CONNIE BRASIL

NASA researchers Nancy Smith 

and Connie Brasil from the Ames 

Research Center in California, 

working with the Integrated Demand 

Management (IDM) team, recently 

completed the first in a series of 

FY17 Human-In-The-Loop (HITL) 

simulations that will extend the 

IDM concept to address convective 

weather operations. This three-day 

“mini” HITL, held February 28 

through March 2, emphasized the 

strategic subset of IDM operations 

that uses the NextGen Collaborative 

Trajectory Options Program 

(CTOP) toolset. This toolset 

develops and initiates a traffic flow 

plan that matches demand to the 

expected downstream capacity. 

New convective weather traffic 

scenarios were presented to retired 

air traffic management subject 

matter experts (SMEs), who 

discussed their implications for 

IDM operations and suggested 

changes for this year’s development 

activities. The SMEs also evaluated 

new capabilities added to the 

simulation environment’s CTOP 

emulation. The CTOP emulation 

replicated the operational system’s 

ability to assign departure times 

and routes selected from operatorsubmitted sets of multiple trajectory 

options per flight. Additionally, 

the emulation has a capacityallocation advisory capability 

for managing load distribution 

across multiple constraints 

The SMEs also demonstrated 

prototype decision-support 

tools for multi-sector traffic flow 

planning to share more capabilities 

that could improve information 

access and decision-making, 

monitoring, and revision during 

IDM plan development. 

Another three-day mini HITL in 

April will focus on the tactical, 

Time Based Flow Management 

subset of IDM operations. Findings 

from both of these activities will 

help plan an initial end-to-end 

simulation of IDM operations 

during convective weather in the 

June through July 2017 timeframe. 

Human-in-the-Loop 

Shakedown of MultiFlight Common Routes 

POC: KAPIL SHETH

A Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) 

evaluation of the Multi-Flight 

Common Routes (MFCR) tool 

took place at the Air Traffic Control 

Laboratory at NASA’s Ames 

Research Center in California, 

March 6 through 8. The evaluation 

was a “shakedown” rehearsal in 

preparation for a formal evaluation 

by FAA traffic flow managers, 

scheduled for March 28 through 

30. MFCR is a NASA-developed 

concept and associated decision 

support tool designed to assist air 

traffic flow managers in efficiently 

and continuously updating 

weather avoidance routes in case of 

convective weather system changes. 

MFCR groups together multiple 

flights to reduce the number of 

advisories that the traffic flow 

manager needs to evaluate, and 

merge these flights on a common 

route segment to provide an orderly 

flow of rerouted traffic. Four recently 

retired FAA traffic flow managers 
14 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2017

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

provided feedback on the MFCR 

tool and its concept of use. Specific 

topics of evaluation included 

the operational acceptability of 

MFCR reroute advisories, the 

usability of MFCR’s graphical user 

interface, and the overall viability 

of MFCR’s concept of use. Data 

was collected across 120 evaluation 

points. Overall, the SMEs provided 

positive feedback, indicating that 

MFCR identified many time-saving 

rerouting opportunities that would 

be difficult to manually identify 

during air traffic operations 

in bad weather conditions. 

Alaska Airlines Meetings 

on TASAR Technical 

Implementation and Testing 

POC: DAVID WING

A Traffic Aware Strategic Aircrew 

Requests (TASAR) technical 

implementation meeting took 

place January 25 at Alaska Airlines’ 

Maintenance and Engineering 

facility in Seattle. TASAR enables 

pilots to optimize their flight 

trajectory while airborne, saving 

flight time and fuel by using the 

NASA-developed Traffic Aware 

Planner (TAP) software application 

on their Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) 

system. Alaska Airlines partnered 

with NASA to operationally test TAP 

in revenue service on three aircraft, 

the first of which was delivered on 

January 23. Representatives from 

NASA, Engility Corporation, Alaska 

Flight Ops and Engineering, UTC 

Aerospace Systems, and Gogo 

attended the meeting, and reviewed 

preparations for a mid-February 

“Stage 0” ground test of TAP’s 

connectivity to onboard avionics. 

Additionally, attendees planned 

logistics and procedures for software 

testing, packaging and loading, and 

established a timeline leading up to 

a mid-May “Stage 1” initial testing 

of TAP in flight, which was initially 

a background process. The full TAP 

system will enter “Stage 2” testing 

by select Alaska Airlines pilots in the 

third quarter of Fiscal Year 2017. 

An Alaska Airlines aircraft initiated 

integration testing of the TAP 

software onboard with an overnight 

test on March 7 at Seattle-Tacoma 

International Airport. The objective 

of this “Stage 0 Ground Test” was to 

use data received from the United 

Technologies Aerospace Systems 

Aircraft Interface Device to test 

avionics data subscriptions and 

parameter decoding, and feed aircraft 

data parameters to TAP in flight. 

The aircraft performed two ground 

tests: a pilot-static simulation test 

where the aircraft simulates highaltitude flight in the hangar, and a 

high-speed taxi test on the runway. 

The tests successfully verified 

subscriptions and correct decoding 

for many of the required parameters. 

Researchers plan to conduct further 

testing after additional analysis of 

the parameters. Engility Corporation 

Research and Development lead 

David Roscoe supported the testing 

on-site. Applications to the FAA 

for certification and operational 

approval of EFB and TAP software 

installation will be submitted this 

spring. Researchers and Alaska 

Airlines anticipate operational testing 

of TAP will begin this summer. 

Langley Collaborates with 

American Airlines for 

Improved Aviation Safety 

POC: GAUTAM SHAH

NASA researchers Gautam H. Shah 

and Kevin Cunningham from the 

Langley Research Center in Virginia 

hosted two groups of American 

Airlines (AAL) fleet managers and 

senior check airmen on March 

8 and 9. As part of an ongoing 

collaboration between Langley and 

AAL, Langley provided technical 

briefings and a flight simulator 

demonstration of technologies to 

enhance critical stall recognition 

and recovery simulation fidelity. 

The representatives from AAL also 

observed demonstrations of the 

Integration Flight Deck, among 

other briefings and demonstrations 

of in attention management 

technologies and display concepts 

by Technologies for Airplane State 

Awareness (TASA) researchers.

Research conducted at Langley 

within the TASA subproject has 

enabled improvements in the flight 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2017 15

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

dynamics models of transport 

airplane simulations, so that full stall 

training may be performed during 

airline pilot training. The FAA has 

required airline training programs 

to add full stall training by 2019. 

Langley and AAL personnel plan 

additional visits to each other’s 

facilities during the coming months. 

UTM Technology 

Transfer to the FAA 

POC: TOM PREVOT

NASA sent the first installment of 

Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic 

Management (UTM) technology 

transfers to the FAA on March 14. 

This technology transfer is a result 

of the Joint Management Plan 

co-approved by NASA and FAA. 

The technology transfer includes 

descriptions and results of the 

Technology Capability Levels 1 and 

2 testing from the UTM subproject. 

The FAA will use this information 

for its UTM development activities. 

NASA and DLR Collaboration 

Discussion 

POC: JOSEPH TOTAH

A meeting between NASA and 

German Aerospace Center 

(DLR) took place March 14 at 

NASA’s Ames Research Center in 

California. The DLR delegation 

included Juergen Drescher, head 

of the DLR Liaison Office in 

Washington, DC, and Florian 

Adolf, from DLR Institute of 

Flight Systems, Braunschweig, 

Germany. The meeting’s goal was 

to identify potential new areas of 

collaboration that would leverage 

DLR’s unmanned freight operations 

research and NASA’s research in 

areas such as adaptive control, 

real-time path planning, computer 

vision and software verification 

and validation. To facilitate the 

discussions, DLR presented research 

on “unmanned freight operations,” 

and NASA presented research 

in the areas of real-time safety 

modeling, software verification 

and validation, intelligent adaptive 

control, Unmanned Aircraft System 

autonomy and autonomous surface 

operations. During the coming 

weeks, DLR and NASA will refine 

the terms of their collaboration, 

and present the outcome to the 

Airspace Operations and Safety 

Program for future consideration. 

FAA-NASA Telecon Explores 

Potential Collaboration 

on Aviation Ontologies

POC: DR. RICH KELLER

A joint teleconference between 

NASA and the FAA took place 

March 14. The two agencies 

discussed their respective activities 

in ontologies and aviation data 

management. Attendees included 

NASA’s Rich Keller and Michelle 

Eshow, and the FAA’s Natesh 

Manikoth, Deborah Cowell, 

Diana Takata, Richard Cagan, 

Candace Buchanan and Shalini 

Jerath. The FAA discussed a 

system that supports regulatory 

compliance for aviation safety 

by using an ontology to facilitate 

document browsing and search. 

NASA discussed its Air Traffic 

Management (ATM) ontology, 

which is designed to support ATM 

data integration, query and search. 

FAA Chief Data Officer Natesh 

Manikoth expressed his interest in 

publishing these ontologies through 

open-sourcing to stimulate global 

collaboration and partnership 

with industry, standards bodies, 

academia and other Air Navigation 

Service Providers, especially 

EUROCONTROL. The FAA and 

NASA also discussed possible joint 

projects that would leverage existing 

efforts and engage industry and 

government in more collaborative 

partnerships to evolve ontologies. 

Flight Test Plans Supporting 

UTM’s National Campaign

POC: TOM PREVOT

On March 3, task orders were 

awarded to the six National Test Sites 

for conducting National Campaign 

testing of the Technology Capability 

Level 2 (TCL2) Unmanned Aircraft 

System Traffic Management (UTM) 

system. Each test site submitted 

a proposal for multiple Beyond 

Visual Line of Site (BVLOS) flights 

for several use cases. Following 
16 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2017

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

the awards, test sites held kickoff 

meetings while waiting for more 

detailed test plans. Preliminary flight 

test plans from the National Test 

Sites were received March 21, and 

the final flight test plans detailing 

intended testing of Unmanned 

Aircraft Systems at the TCL2 were 

received March 31. Each test site 

will fly multiple UAS in BVLOS 

operations for several use cases. The 

flight tests will be at sites in Nevada, 

Alaska, North Dakota, New York, 

Virginia and Texas. From May 22 to 

June 9, each test site will connect to 

NASA’s UAS Traffic Management 

platform during the testing. 

Augmented Flight 

Deck Countermeasures 

Experiment-3.0 Completed 

POC: SHERILYN BROWN

The Augmented Flight Deck 

Countermeasures Experiment 3.0 

(AFDC-3.0) began operations on 

March 21. During a four-week 

period, 12 pilots conducted the 

experiment in the Research Flight 

Deck simulator at NASA’s Langley 

Research Center in Virginia. 

Each of the 12 pilots was subjected 

to a one-day experiment schedule. 

Each day, the pilots completed a 

series of unusual attitude recovery 

scenarios. In these scenarios, the 

displays were blanked while the 

environment was simulated to 

produce instrument meteorological 

conditions, removing visual cues 

and measuring the idea of leaving or 

pulling synthetic vision during an 

unusual attitude. The experiment 

also used a prerecorded playback 

of vehicle entry into one of several 

unusual attitude conditions. Once 

each condition fully developed 

the displays returned, followed 

by an aural tone, resulting in the 

pilot’s cue to recover. Some runs 

showed the subject’s synthetic vision 

throughout the run. In others, the 

subject initially saw synthetic vision 

before the visual disappeared and 

the primary flight display reverted 

to a traditional blue-over-brown 

horizon for recovery. After the 

vehicle recovered, the visual 

returned to synthetic vision. 

Baseline runs showed only blue-overbrown to the subject. Researchers 

used the eye-tracking tool Smart 

Eye, MAPPS data-recording station, 

and the Motion Perception Toolbox 

for data collection. The AFDC-3.0 

experiment concluded runs on April 

12 after successfully collecting data 

for 12 crews flying 288 scenarios 

in and around the Memphis 

International Airport visual database. 

ATD-2 IADS System 

Deployed to CLT Tower/

TRACON “Back Room”

POC: SHIVANJLI SHARMA

On March 23, the Airspace Technology Demonstration-2 (ATD-2) team 

completed deployment of the ATD-2 

Integrated Arrival, Departure and 

Surface (IADS) prototype system to 

a “back-room” area in the air traffic 

control tower/Terminal RADAR 

Approach Control (TRACON) at 

Charlotte Douglas International 

Airport (CLT). This ATD-2 IADS 

system deployment, the first to 

a field demo partner operational 

facility, is the culmination of many 

months of work by the ATD-2 

team to prepare the system for use 

by field demo partners. The ATD-2 

team collaborated with FAA and 

CLT partners to establish network 

connectivity by NASA equipment 

elsewhere at the airport with the 

CLT tower/TRACON complex. The 

interagency collaboration included 

cost-sharing contributions from the 

FAA’s Terminal Flight Data Manager 

Program for portions of the CLT 

tower/TRACON installation. This 

back-room installation will support 

live-data shadow testing and training 

with FAA personnel at the CLT 

tower/TRACON as they prepare to 

operationally use the IADS system 

when the ATD-2 Field Demonstration commences in September. 

ATD-2 Familiarization for 

FAA Stakeholder Groups 

POC: SHAWN ENGELLAND AND ANDREW GING

Familiarization briefings were held 

this quarter with FAA Stakeholders 

supporting Airspace Technology 

Demonstration-2 (ATD-2). The 

first occurred on February 2, when 

NASA provided a demonstration of 

the ATD-2 system to the National 
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2017 17

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

Time-Based Flow Management 

(TBFM) Operations Team CoLeads, representatives from the FAA’s 

Future Standards and Procedures 

Group (AJV-85) and the Mission 

Support Group to the Air Traffic 

Organization. The National TBFM 

Operations Team and AJV-85, 

which sponsors the TBFM team, is 

responsible for all aspects of TBFM 

system operations, including software implementation, and testing, 

creating operating procedures, 

and providing training for the 

operational facilities. Participants 

included the AJV-85 Group and 

Team Manager, and the National 

Air Traffic Controller Association 

National Representative for TBFM. 

On March 23, the NASA team 

demonstrated the ATD-2 system 

to FAA Headquarters representatives from the NextGen Portfolio 

Management and Technology 

Development Office (ANG-C), 

and AJV-85. Participants included 

the ANG-C Director, ANG-C5 

Manager and AJV-85 Group and 

Team Managers. The ATD-2 

demonstrations were hosted at 

NASA’s lab at the Charlotte Douglas 

International Airport and used live 

data. The ATD-2 system overviews 

included a description of the goals, 

benefits, and tools developed for use 

across the various user groups, from 

air traffic control tower personnel 

to ramp managers and controllers. 

ATD-2 subject matter experts 

from Human Solutions, Inc., also 

supported the visit, and provided 

key insights on how the ATD-2 

system will be used operationally. 

The visits provided NASA with the 

opportunity to have valuable technical interchange discussions with 

AJV-85; in particular, to understand 

the FAA’s TBFM plans and inform 

the FAA on how the ATD-2 

system integrates with TBFM. 

ATD-2 Phase 1 Evaluation 

Requirements Freeze (FRZ1) 

POC: SHIVANJLI SHARMA

On March 29, the Airspace Technology Demonstration-2 (ATD-2) Team 

conducted an Evaluation Requirements Freeze 1 (FRZ1) meeting with 

40 field demo partners and other 

stakeholders to gain concurrence on 

capabilities included in the Phase 1 

Field Demo in September 2017. 

The FRZ1 meeting took place 

at the Old Terminal Building at 

Charlotte Douglas International 

Airport (CLT), where NASA’s 

ATD-2 laboratory is located. FAA 

participants included representatives 

from Washington and Atlanta 

Center, CLT air traffic control tower 

and Terminal RADAR Approach 

Control, and a trio of FAA headquarters organizations. Participants 

also included representatives from 

air carriers operating at the CLT 

field demo site, ramp controllers and 

managers, pilot unions, CLT airport 

operations and the National Air 

Traffic Controller Association. Field 

demo partners observed a detailed 

review of the ATD-2 Phase 1 Field 

Demo plans, including the concept 

of use, expected operational training 

and procedures, details on benefits 

assessment, software release plan 

and site maintenance protocol. Field 

demo partners concurred with the 

ATD-2 Phase 1 Field Demo plans, 

and the joint decision will appear in 

a future FRZ1 decision document. 

The FRZ1 meeting marked 

the end of the ATD-2 system 

requirements development for 

Phase I, and the engineering team 

will assess the readiness of the 

ATD-2 system for the operational 

Visitor briefings at NASA’s CLT Lab
18 AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2017

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

personnel’s shadow evaluation 

during the Engineering Shadow 

Evaluations for the Phase 1 Demo. 

Visit by Commanding 

Officer of Naval Medical 

Research Unit-Dayton 

POC: SHERILYN BROWN

On March 30, Captain Rees 

“Chip” Lee, Commanding Officer 

of the Naval Medical Research 

Unit – Dayton (NAMRU-D), 

visited NASA’s Langley Research 

Center in Virginia. Lee discussed his 

agency’s current research partnership 

with NASA and plans for future 

collaboration. Langley provided Lee 

with briefings regarding the Center’s 

capabilities and overall Technologies 

for Airplane State Awareness (TASA) 

research. Lee also met with Langley 

researchers supporting TASA, toured 

the 14-by-22 wind tunnel and other 

simulation facilities and received 

demonstrations of display and 

crew state monitoring technologies 

developed under TASA. Langley has 

established an Interagency Agreement with NAMRU-D to conduct 

research in the Navy’s Disorientation Research Device, a unique 

high-fidelity flight simulator also 

known as “the Kraken”. The research 

focuses on improving aircraft state 

awareness to reduce loss-of-control 

incidents in commercial aviation 

operations, and is conducted 

under the TASA subproject. 

Field demo partners and ATD-2 Team members at the ATD-2 Phase I Evaluation Requirements Freeze 

Meeting
AOSP NEWSLETTER // JAN-MAR 2017 19

RECOGNITION

Keynote Speaker at UAVNZ 

UAV Industry Conference: 

Drones for Business Success

POC: PARIMAL KOPARDEKAR

NASA’s Parimal Kopardekar, 

NASA’s Senior Technologist for 

Air Transportation Systems at the 

Ames Research Center in California, 

was invited to give a keynote address 

at the Unmanned Aircraft Vehicles 

(UAV) New Zealand Conference 

in Auckland, New Zealand on 

February 13 and 14. The purpose 

of the conference was to share 

knowledge about New Zealand’s 

UAV ecosystem. Approximately 

300 international participants 

attended the conference, which 

featured speakers representing the 

United Nations, the Auckland 

University of Technology, the 

air navigation service provider 

Airways New Zealand, the New 

Zealand Civil Aviation Authority 

(CAA), the Singapore Nanyang 

Technological University, Facebook 

and the New Zealand Ministry 

of Transportation. The UAV 

community in New Zealand 

expressed interest in initiating 

NASA’s Unmanned Aircraft 

System Traffic Managementtype construct, including 

using the NASA/FAA/Industry 

collaboration model applied to 

universities, the international UAV 

industry, Airways New Zealand 

and the New Zealand CAA. 

Kurt Swieringa Named 

Young Engineer of the Year 

POC: SHERILYN BROWN

On February 26, Kurt Swieringa 

from NASA’s Langley Research 

Center in Virginia accepted the 

AIAA Peninsula Engineers Council’s 

“Doug Ensor Young Engineer of 

the Year Award” for 2017. The 

event took place at the Hampton 

Roads Convention Center. Langley 

Director Dave Bowles gave the 

keynote speech at the banquet. 

Steve Velotas, Vince Schultz 

and Will Johnson from 

Langley also attended. 

TAP Highlighted as 2016 

Software of the Year in 

Publicly Released NASA 

Software Catalog 

POC: SHERILYN BROWN

NASA’s Traffic Aware Planner (TAP) 

software, an aircraft route efficiency 

tool developed at the Langley 

Research Center in Virginia, was 

highlighted in the 2017-2018 

NASA Software Catalog. Langley 

was one of two agency winners 

of the 2016 NASA Software of 

the Year award. The other winner 

was Pegasus 5, a revolutionary 

computational fluid-dynamics tool 

developed at NASA’s Ames Research 

Center in California. These two 

award recipients also were cited on 

AVweb.com in its March 2, 2017, 

post (http://www.avweb.com/

avwebflash/news/NASA-ReleasesMassive-Collection-of-Software-forFree-Public-Use-228584-1.html). 

The TAP software, sponsored by 

the Airspace Technology 

Demonstration Project, was 

designed and developed by 

NASA and Engility Corporation. 

Preparations are underway 

to test the TAP software in 

revenue service aboard three 

Alaska Airlines jets in 2017. 

Senate Commerce 

Briefing on UAS Traffic 

Management (UTM) 

POC: KENNY MCCOMBS

On March 7, John Cavolowsky, 

NASA’s Director of Airspace 

Operations and Safety Program, 

briefed the staff of the Senate 

Commerce Committee at the 

Russell Senate Office Building 

in Washington, DC. The Senate 

Commerce Staff requested the 

briefing to provide an update 

regarding the recent developments 

of Unmanned Aircraft System 

Traffic Management research. 

Paul Fontaine and Sherri Magyarits 

from the FAA’s NextGen Division, 

and Sabrina Saunders-Hodge from 

the FAA UAS Integration Office, 

were also a present at the briefing. 
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RECOGNITION

Blue Sky Meeting at 

Institute of Human Machine 

Cognition (IHMC)

POC: YOON JUNG

Yoon Jung represented the Airspace 

Operations and Safety Program at a 

meeting at the Institute of Human 

Machine Cognition (IHMC) in 

Pensacola, FL, on March 7 and 8. 

The theme of the meeting 

was “Autonomous Towing for 

Future Transportation Systems.” 

Attendees, many of whom were 

experts in autonomy and robotics, 

represented NASA’s Ames Research 

Center in California, NASA’s 

Johnson Space Center in Houston, 

the Air Force Research Laboratory, 

USRA, Boeing, American Airlines, 

Charlotte Douglas International 

Airport, Mosaic ATM, PARC, 

Robotics Research and IHMC. 

Mike Bryant, America Airlines 

director of tower operations at 

CLT, and Jack Christine, Deputy 

Aviation Director for CLT, discussed 

the complexity in airport surface 

operations and the infrastructure 

requirements for autonomous 

towing. They also presented 

other options for autonomous 

operations on the airport surface, 

operational architectures to enable 

human control and supervision 

of autonomous operations, and 

the possible roles of humans 

and machines. During a postbreakout session, Jung discussed 

Ames’ modeling and simulation 

capabilities to simulate and test 

autonomous towing or baggage 

transportation systems in order to 

validate concepts and technologies. 

These capabilities included 

the Shadow Mode Assessment 

Using Realistic Technologies for 

the National Airspace System 

testbed, Moffett Federal Air Field 

and FutureFlight Central. 

ATD-1 Flight Test Presentation 

to RTCA SC186 Working Group 

POC: KURT SWIERINGA

On March 14, NASA’s Kurt 

Swieringa—with support from 

Brian Baxley, Sara Wilson, Terry 

Abbott and Roy Roper—presented 

a briefing to the RTCA SC186 

Working Group 4 on the Airspace 

Technology Demonstration-1 

(ATD-1) flight test. Special 

Committee 186, Automatic 

Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast 

(ADS-B), is developing operational 

requirements and minimum 

performance standards for 

airborne and ground-based ADS-B 

applications. The ATD-1 briefing 

presented the flight test objectives, 

a description of the flight test, a 

high-level description of initial 

observations, and an outline of 

the plans for future analysis. The 

RTCA members who attended 

the flight test praised the ATD-1 

flight test team, stating that it 

was impressive to see Flight Deck 

Interval Management (FIM) in 

operation. The ATD-1 flight test 

team included NASA partners 

from Boeing, Honeywell, United 

Airlines and FAA air traffic control 

facilities. Additionally, FAA 

representatives mentioned their 

plans to leverage the prototype 

created for the ATD-1 flight test 

for future advanced FIM testing. 

Aviation Safety Assurance 

Committee 2nd Meeting 

POC: KEE PALOPO 

The National Academies’ Aviation 

Safety Assurance Committee, 

sponsored by NASA’s Aeronautics 

Research Mission Directorate, 

conducted their second-ever 

meeting, in Washington, DC, on 

March 15 and 16. The committee 

focused on recommending research 

activities during the next 10 to 

30 years to support development 

of an “in-time” safety assurance 

system. The committee—which 

consisted of panelists and presenters 

from public, private and academic 

communities—discussed the longterm impact on four topic areas: the 

future of air traffic management, 

new entrants, issues associated with 

human operators, and the future 

of data analytics. The 16-member 

committee represented these 

organizations: NASA, FAA, Air 

Force Research Laboratory, the 

MITRE Corporation, the Flight 

Safety Foundation, Charles Stark 

Draper Laboratory, National 

Business Aviation Association, 

the International Air Transport 

Association, Rockwell Collins, 
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RECOGNITION

Elwell and Associates, Fazio Group 

International, Aireon, the University 

of Colorado at Boulder, the 

Ohio State University, Vanderbilt 

University, Massachusetts Institute 

of Technology and the University of 

Virginia. Presenters and participants 

represented some of these 

communities and other 

public, private and academic 

institutions. At the committee’s 

request, NASA Airspace Operations 

and Safety Program researcher 

Kee Palopo presented a briefing on 

how the Shadow Mode Assessment 

Using Realistic Technologies for 

the National Airspace System 

testbed would be used in support 

of research related to Real-Time 

System Wide Safety Assurance. 

FAA UAS Symposium 

– Reston, VA 

POC: KEE PALOPO 

From March 27 through 29, 

John Cavolowsky, NASA’s Airspace 

Operations and Safety Program 

director, attended and participated 

as a panel member at the 2nd 

Annual FAA Unmanned Aircraft 

Systems (UAS) Symposium. 

The event was co-hosted by 

the FAA and the Association 

for Unmanned Vehicle Systems 

International in Reston, VA. 

The Symposium focused on the 

potential for UAS and methods 

to achieve its full integration into 

the National Airspace System 

(NAS). Attendees heard directly 

from senior FAA officials about 

the UAS regulatory environment, 

and had an opportunity to talk 

face-to-face with FAA experts about 

the operational challenges facing 

UAS pilots today. Cavolowsky 

participated in one of the workshop 

sessions covering topics such as 

options for operating in the NAS, 

the future of airspace authorization 

and how to address challenges 

around traffic management, 

infrastructure and security. 

State of California’s 

“Aerospace and 

Aviation Days” 

POC: JOSEPH RIOS

The State of California’s “Aerospace 

and Aviation Days” event, held 

on March 28 at the state capitol 

in Sacramento, presented NASA’s 

Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) 

Traffic Management (UTM) 

concept and project. Joseph Rios, 

Technical Lead for NASA’s UTM 

effort, sat on a panel to describe 

the joint effort between NASA 

and the FAA to enable access 

to the low-altitude airspace for 

small UAS. Attendees included 

California assembly members and 

industry group representatives. 

Human Factors REDAC 

Meeting Held at ARC

POC: TOM PREVOT

On March 28 and 29, the Human 

Factors Subcommittee of the 

FAA Research, Engineering and 

Development Advisory Committee 

(REDAC) met at NASA’s Ames 

Research Center in California. 

In addition to hearing about 

the status of the FAA’s humanfactors work, the subcommittee 

presented demonstrations of 

NASA’s work on Unmanned 

Aircraft System (UAS) Traffic 

Management (UTM), UAS Detect 

and Avoid, and Real-Time Safety 

Monitoring. The subcommittee 

also heard a presentation on 

the Aviation Safety Reporting 

System’s UAS findings. Tom 

Prevot, NASA’s Safe Autonomous 

Systems Operations project 

manager at Ames, and Richard 

Barhydt, NASA’s Transformative 

Aeronautics Concepts Program 

deputy director, are both members 

of the subcommittee, which is 

chaired by Air Force Research 

Laboratory’s Jack Blackhurst. 

System-Wide Safety RTT, 

Human Factors Sub-Team 

Workshop Held at ARC

POC: JESSICA NOWINSKI

On March 30, the Human Factors 

Subteam of the System Wide 

Safety Research Transition Team 

conducted a follow on meeting 

to their initial workshop held in 

October of 2016. The agenda 

focused on opportunities for 

collaboration to support air traffic 

management human factors needs. 

The agenda also addressed more 
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RECOGNITION

detailed planning for collaborative 

engagements. FAA Chief Scientist 

and Technical Advisor for Human 

Factors Kathy Abbott and NASA’s 

Jessica Nowinski from the Ames 

Research Center in California were 

the co-organizers of the workshop. 

Provisional Patent 

Application Filing for 

Crew State Monitoring

POC: SHERILYN BROWN

Crew state sensing remains critical 

for maintaining and improving 

safety while addressing the 

technological barrier of humanmachine integration in the new 

paradigm of shared control and 

responsibilities between human 

operators and intelligent machines. 

However, human status is highly 

variable and difficult to predict. 

Unless measured in real time, 

variations in behavior, skill, medical 

status and cognitive state impede 

the efficient assignment of roles 

and the safe allocation of critical 

functional tasks. Co-inventors 

Angela Harrivel, Chad Stephens, 

Kellie Kennedy and Alan Pope from 

NASA’s Langley Research Center 

in Virginia have conceptualized a 

system that can monitor the status 

of the human operator by measuring 

multiple variables in real time. Once 

the system monitors the operator, 

it communicates that information 

to an intelligent machine to 

improve safety and efficiency. 

Such a system would enable novel 

technical approaches to humanmachine teaming optimization and 

increasingly autonomous system 

development. Furthermore, this 

technology would allow inclusion 

of the real-time state of the human 

operator in system-wide prognostics 

and machine-assisted skill training. 

A provisional patent application 

entitled “Multivariate Monitoring 

for Human Operator and Machine 

Teaming” has been filed as of March 

2017 (Case Number LAR-19051).

David Wing selected as 2016 

ARMD AA Award Winner 

for Strategic Partnership 

POC: SHERILYN BROWN

David Wing of NASA’s Langley 

Research Center in Virginia has 

won the Strategic Partnership 

Award as part of the Aeronautics 

Research Mission Directorate 

Associate Administrator Awards 

for 2016. This award is given for 

exemplary performance by an 

individual to establish or strengthen 

strategic partnerships with nonNASA entities. Specifically, these 

partnerhips leverage emerging 

capabilities within the United States 

and abroad to significantly impact 

and advance the achievement 

of aeronautics research and 

development goals, generate robust 

and timely transfer of knowledge, 

and strengthen trust and credibility 

with U.S. and foreign partners. As 

the Technical Lead for the Traffic 

Aware Strategic Aircrew Requests 

(TASAR) research activities within 

Airspace Operations and Safety 

Program, Wing developed and 

executed a research and evaluation 

plan that focused on interactions 

and partnerships with industry, 

academia, and other government 

agencies. Through his perseverance 

and energy, he executed three Space 

Act Agreements with two airlines 

and an avionics manufacturer, 

as well as two NASA Research 

Announcements with industry and 

academia teams to enhance and 

evaluate the TASAR technology in 

simulation and relevant in flight 

operational environments. His 

partnership approach also resulted 

in multiple organizations securing 

evaluation license agreements on 

the patented TASAR concept. 

Jaiwon Shin, NASA’s associate 

administrator for aeronautics, 

will present the award to Wing 

during his next visit to Langely. 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Headquarters

300 E. Street, SW

Washington, DC 20024

www.nasa.gov/aeroresearch

www.nasa.gov