2,612 research outputs found

    Application of ICT as a Key Element for Airport Safety and Security Operations

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    Airport risk management is a demanding task as several different areas have to be monitored including outer edges, car parks, terminals, and other passenger facilities. Information and communication technologies (ICT) are key elements for airport operation safety and security. One of the advantages of ICT based systems is they can react better and faster in real time and perform certain tasks at airports. This paper aims to present a safety overview of ICT and multi-agent systems (MAS) usage in the implementation of various airport operations. This paper aims to present a safety overview of ICT and MAS systems usage in the implementation of various airport operations. This paper summarizes a multi-agent concept that highlights their applications at airports such as passenger transfer, baggage management, aircraft handling, and field service through a detailed and extensive literature review on related topics. Much of the information on processes within the airport, processes in air traffic, and the processes of operators, i.e. airlines, is the result of monitoring work on a software development project for individual airports that serves to manage all processes in airports. The analysis led to the conclusion that safety and security in airports can be additionally improved by greater use of ICT as well as greater use of MAS, which ultimately contributes to the optimization of the airport

    A Distributed Framework for Traffic Flow Management in the Presence of Unmanned Aircraft

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    The integration of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) into the airspace system is a key challenge facing air traffic management today. An important aspect of this challenge is how to determine and manage 4-dimensional trajectories for both manned and unmanned aircraft, and how to appropriately allocate resources among different aircraft. An integrated approach requires solving the traditional Air Traffic Flow Management (ATFM) problem to balance the capacity and demand of airport and airspace resources, but at a significantly larger scale. In doing so, aircraft connectivity constraints of commercial flights must be satisfied. In addition to these and the resource capacity constraints, geofencing constraints for unmanned aircraft that keep them within or outside a certain region of the airspace, must also be incorporated. This paper presents a distributed implementation of an integer programming approach for solving large-scale ATFM problems in the presence of unmanned aircraft. Given desired mission plans and flight-specific operating and delay costs, the proposed approach uses column generation to determine optimal trajectories in space and time, in the presence of network and flight connectivity constraints, airport and airspace capacity constraints, and geofencing constraints. Using projected demand for the year 2030 from the United States with approximately 48, 000 passenger flights and 29, 000 UAS operations (on a wide range of missions) per day, we show that our implementation can find nearly-optimal trajectories for a 24-hour period in less than 4 minutes. Furthermore, a rolling horizon implementation (with 6-8 hour time windows) results in run times of less than a minute. In addition to being the largest instances of the ATFM problem solved to date, these results represent the first effort to incorporate UAS trajectories into airspace and airport resource sharing problems.United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Small Business Innovative Grant

    Civil tiltrotor missions and applications. Phase 2: The commercial passenger market

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    The commercial passenger market for the civil tiltrotor was examined in phase 2. A market responsive commercial tiltrotor was found to be technically feasible, and a significant worldwide market potential was found to exist for such an aircraft, especially for relieving congestion in urban area-to-urban area service and for providing cost effective hub airport feeder service. Potential technical obstacles of community noise, vertiport area navigation, surveillance, and control, and the pilot/aircraft interface were determined to be surmountable. Nontechnical obstacles relating to national commitment and leadership and development of ground and air infrastructure were determined to be more difficult to resolve; an innovative public/private partnership is suggested to allow coordinated development of an initial commercial tiltrotor network to relieve congestion in the crowded US Northeast corridor by the year 2000

    Prediction of Pushback Times and Ramp Taxi Times for Departures at Charlotte Airport

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    When optimizing the takeoff sequence and schedule for departures at busy airports, it is important to accurately predict the taxi times from gate to runway because those are used to calculate the earliest possible takeoff times. Several airports like Charlotte Douglas International Airport show relatively long taxi times inside the ramp area with large variations, with respect to the travel times in the airport movement area. Also, the pushback process times have not been accurately modeled so far mainly due to the lack of accurate data. The recent deployment of the integrated arrival, departure, and surface traffic management system at Charlotte airport by NASA enables more accurate flight data in the airport surface operations to be obtained. Taking advantage of this system, actual pushback times and ramp taxi times from historical flight data at this airport are analyzed. Based on the analysis, a simple, data-driven prediction model is introduced for estimating pushback times and ramp transit times of individual departure flights. To evaluate the performance of this prediction model, several machine learning techniques are also applied to the same dataset. The prediction results show that the data-driven prediction model is as good as the machine learning algorithms when comparing various prediction performance metrics

    ANALYSIS OF THE SINGLE FUEL CONCEPT WITHIN THE EUCOM AREA OF RESPONSIBILITY

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    Currently, U.S. Navy ships, with the exception of CVNs and submarines, utilize F-76 as their main fuel source and utilize JP-5 for aviation and support equipment. When planning for replenishment at sea, ships must plan to receive both F-76 and JP-5. Ships must also utilize separate storage and testing of the two fuels. The replenishment ships, which refuel the warships, are constrained by how much of each fuel type they can store. Being able to utilize a single fuel could simplify replenishment schedules. This research effort analyzes fuel supply and distribution capabilities during Phase II operations in the European theater when operating under the single fuel concept. This effort builds on two prior works: an unclassified study focused on the logistics benefit provided by the single fuel concept in the Pacific and a classified study (sanitized for this thesis) that explored the current logistics capability and capability gaps surrounding petroleum, oil and lubricant (POL) distribution. This work determines the potential impacts of switching to a single type of fuel (JP-5) and examines what kinds of policy changes and/or asset procurements may be needed to close those gaps. This study uses the NPS-developed Fuel Usage Study Extended Demonstration (FUSED) model to evaluate our capabilities to move fuel in theater using currently available assets operating under a single fuel concept (JP-5) and compares it with the performance with two fuels: JP-5 and F-76.Lieutenant Commander, United States NavyApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

    Transportation noise pollution - Control and abatement

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    Control and abatement of transportation noise pollutio

    Aeronautical engineering: A special bibliography with indexes, supplement 82, April 1977

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    This bibliography lists 311 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in March 1977

    Air Launch: Examining Performance Potential of Various Configurations and Growth Options

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    The Advanced Concepts Office at NASA's George C. Marshall Space Flight Center conducted a high-level analysis of various air launch vehicle configurations, objectively determining maximum launch vehicle payload while considering carrier aircraft capabilities and given dimensional constraints. With the renewed interest in aerial launch of low-earth orbit payloads, referenced by programs such as Stratolaunch and Spaceship2, there exists a need to qualify the boundaries of the trade space, identify performance envelopes, and understand advantages and limiting factors of designing for maximum payload capability. Using the NASA/DARPA Horizontal Launch Study (HLS) Point Design 2 (PD-2) as a pointof- departure configuration, two independent design actions were undertaken. Both designs utilized a Boeing 747-400F as the carrier aircraft, LOX/RP-1 first stage and LOX/LH2 second stage. Each design was sized to meet dimensional and mass constraints while optimizing propellant loads and stage delta V splits. All concepts, when fully loaded, exceeded the allowable Gross Takeoff Weight (GTOW) of the aircraft platform. This excess mass was evaluated as propellant/fuel offload available for a potential in-flight propellant loading scenario. Results indicate many advantages such as payload delivery of approximately 47,000 lbm and significant mission flexibility including variable launch site inclination and launch window. However, in-flight cryogenic fluid transfer and carrier aircraft platform integration are substantial technical hurdles to the realization of such a system configuration

    Airline Network Choice and Configuration

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    As an increasing number of countries liberalize their skies, some airlines, notably carriers in the Middle East, have been able to extend their hub-and-spoke networks beyond domestic borders. This allows them to serve international destinations without going through traditional gateway hubs, so that they can compete with airline alliances relying on the traditional dual-gateway, or the so-called “dog-bone” networks. This paper proposes a stochastic model to investigate the competition between airlines running traditional dog-bone and hub-and-spoke networks in a liberalizing inter-continental market. The proposed model considers the interactions among three types of stakeholders, namely a regulator that aims to maximize the expected social welfare by designating the locations of new gateways; airlines that maximize profits by optimizing the service offerings and airfares; passengers that minimize their own travel disutility. Such a model is applied to analyze the Europe - China aviation market, so that the comparative advantages of different networks can be examined and quantified. The modeling results provide evidence-based recommendations on airline competition and airport development, and infrastructure investment needs in markets being liberlized
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