Attachment 1
Recovery Act Airspace Super Density Operations Human-in-the-Loop Simulation
Development
This task performs fundamental research. It specifies research tasks that fulfill research
objectives under the Airspace Super Density Operations (ASDO) research focus area within the
NextGen Airspace Project. Specifically, simulation capabilities will be developed in order to
evaluate scheduling algorithms and to conduct simulations, as well as perform data analysis of
the results. These are necessary research steps prior to the development of prototype systems
and field testing.
Task Summary
This task supports of NASA Recovery Act work sponsored by the Aeronautics Research Mission
Directorate and the Airspace Systems Program.
Research funded by this task will focus on addressing the capacity challenges facing the US
national airspace. It has been forecast that over the next 15 years, air traffic in the United States
will double, far exceeding the country’s current capability to safely fly aircraft. To handle this
growth, NASA is contributing to the development of the Next Generation Air Transportation
Management System (NextGen).
In support of these efforts, the UARC will investigate new approaches to safely increasing the
number of aircraft that can operate in the national airspace at any given time. More specifically,
air traffic management research funded by this task will focus on developing algorithms and
simulation capabilities to demonstrate more efficient approaches to scheduling aircraft arrivals.
Task Detail
This task supports the development of the Airspace Super Density Operations (ASDO) FY2010
Milestone AS3.6.03 Simulations entitled “Evaluation of Single Airport Operations using HumanCentric Operations.”
The software applications used for this simulation include
Center/TRACON Automation System (CTAS), Stochastic Terminal Area Scheduling Simulation
(STASS), Multi-Aircraft Control System (MACS) and Trajectory Route Analyzer/Constructor
(TRAC). These applications are being developed as part of the Airspace Systems Program
(ASP) at NASA Ames.
CTAS is a suite of air traffic management and air traffic control decision support tools that span
the entire national airspace system from take off to touchdown. The CTAS tools benefit air
traffic managers and air traffic controllers by reducing stress and workload, and they benefit
airspace users by reducing delays, increasing safety, allowing environmentally-friendly
operations and improving robustness in all-weather conditions. The CTAS tools most relevant to
the ASDO AS3.6.03 simulation are the Traffic Management Advisor (TMA) and the EnRoute/Descent Advisor (E/DA). These two tools provide assistance to en route and terminal air
traffic controllers managing traffic flows into congested terminal areas. CTAS is written in C,
C++ and Java.
STASS is a fast-time analysis tool used to model various terminal area scheduling algorithms
under a wide range of traffic scenarios and demand levels. STASS randomly varies aircraft
arrival times into the terminal airspace and then stochastically models the accuracy of those
flights in meeting their scheduled arrival times at the meter fixes and runway thresholds. The
results are used to investigate the trades of delay, throughput and controllability with arrival time
uncertainty, in-trail separation buffers, and delay margin or time advance along the route of
flight. STASS is written in Python.
MACS is a human-in-the-loop simulation environment that emulates state-of-the-art air traffic
controller displays for en route and terminal airspace. The en route displays replicate the Display
System Replacement (DSR) workstation and the terminal displays replicate the Standard
Terminal Automation Replacement System (STARS) or Automated Radar Terminal System
(ARTS) Color Displays (ACD). In addition to modeling the current day air traffic control
environment, MACS is designed as a platform for rapid prototyping of new decision support
tools and controller interface changes. It already incorporates a variety of advanced capabilities
for aircraft scheduling, trajectory manipulations, conflict probing and airborne sequencing and
spacing applications. MACS is written in Java.
TRAC is a graphical design, simulation, and analysis tool designed to make the process of
designing routes for simulations faster and more transparent by enabling routes to be graphically
manipulated. TRAC can also host fast-time agent-based Monte Carlo simulations using a
redesigned aircraft simulation module with advanced Flight Management System (FMS)
functionality. TRAC can therefore be used to generate traffic scenarios, and examine the
behavior of aircraft on newly designed routes subject to the interventions of air traffic controller
agents. TRAC also facilitates data comparison between fast-time simulation data, human-in-theloop simulation data from MACS, and recorded data from actual current-day operations. TRAC
is written in Java.