Pilot weather advisor

The results of the work performed by ViGYAN, Inc., to demonstrate the Pilot Weather Advisor cockpit weather data system using a broadcast satellite communication system are presented. The Pilot Weather Advisor demonstrated that the technical problems involved with transmitting significant amount of weather data to an aircraft in-flight or on-the-ground via satellite are solvable with today's technology. The Pilot Weather Advisor appears to be a viable solution for providing accurate and timely weather information for general aviation aircraft

NASA aviation safety reporting system

A sample of reports relating to operations during winter weather is presented. Several reports involving problems of judgment and decisionmaking have been selected from the numerous reports representative of this area. Problems related to aeronautical charts are discussed in a number of reports. An analytic study of reports involving potential conflicts in the immediate vicinity of uncontrolled airports was performed; the results are discussed in this report. It was found that in three-fourths of 127 such conflicts, neither pilot, or only one of the pilots, was communicating position and intentions on the appropriate frequency. The importance of providing aural transfer of information, as a backup to the visual see and avoid mode of information transfer is discussed. It was also found that a large fraction of pilots involved in potential conflicts on final approach had executed straight-in approaches, rather than the recommended traffic pattern entries, prior to the conflicts. A selection of alert bulletins and responses to them by various segments of the aviation community is presented

Critical Infrastructure Protection Metrics and Tools Papers and Presentations

Contents: Dr. Hilda Blanco: Prioritizing Assets in Critical Infrastructure Systems; Christine Poptanich: Strategic Risk Analysis; Geoffrey S. French/Jin Kim: Threat-Based Approach to Risk Case Study: Strategic Homeland Infrastructure Risk Assessment (SHIRA); William L. McGill: Techniques for Adversary Threat Probability Assessment; Michael R. Powers: The Mathematics of Terrorism Risk Stefan Pickl: SOA Approach to the IT-based Protection of CIP; Richard John: Probabilistic Project Management for a Terrorist Planning a Dirty Bomb Attack on a Major US Port; LCDR Brady Downs: Maritime Security Risk Analysis Model (MSRAM); Chel Stromgren: Terrorism Risk Assessment and Management (TRAM); Steve Lieberman: Convergence of CIP and COOP in Banking and Finance; Harry Mayer: Assessing the Healthcare and Public Health Sector with Model Based Risk Analysis; Robert Powell: How Much and On What? Defending and Deterring Strategic Attackers; Ted G. Lewis: Why Do Networks Cascade

Ingress of threshold voltage-triggered hardware trojan in the modern FPGA fabric–detection methodology and mitigation

The ageing phenomenon of negative bias temperature instability (NBTI) continues to challenge the dynamic thermal management of modern FPGAs. Increased transistor density leads to thermal accumulation and propagates higher and non-uniform temperature variations across the FPGA. This aggravates the impact of NBTI on key PMOS transistor parameters such as threshold voltage and drain current. Where it ages the transistors, with a successive reduction in FPGA lifetime and reliability, it also challenges its security. The ingress of threshold voltage-triggered hardware Trojan, a stealthy and malicious electronic circuit, in the modern FPGA, is one such potential threat that could exploit NBTI and severely affect its performance. The development of an effective and efficient countermeasure against it is, therefore, highly critical. Accordingly, we present a comprehensive FPGA security scheme, comprising novel elements of hardware Trojan infection, detection, and mitigation, to protect FPGA applications against the hardware Trojan. Built around the threat model of a naval warship’s integrated self-protection system (ISPS), we propose a threshold voltage-triggered hardware Trojan that operates in a threshold voltage region of 0.45V to 0.998V, consuming ultra-low power (10.5nW), and remaining stealthy with an area overhead as low as 1.5% for a 28 nm technology node. The hardware Trojan detection sub-scheme provides a unique lightweight threshold voltage-aware sensor with a detection sensitivity of 0.251mV/nA. With fixed and dynamic ring oscillator-based sensor segments, the precise measurement of frequency and delay variations in response to shifts in the threshold voltage of a PMOS transistor is also proposed. Finally, the FPGA security scheme is reinforced with an online transistor dynamic scaling (OTDS) to mitigate the impact of hardware Trojan through run-time tolerant circuitry capable of identifying critical gates with worst-case drain current degradation

Operational problems experienced by single pilots in instrument meteorological conditions

The development and implementation of a search strategy to extract pertinent reports from the Aviation Safety Reporting System-2 (ASRS-2) database are described. For any particular occurence to be pertinent to the study, it must have satisfied the following conditions: the aircraft must be of the type usually flown by a single pilot; operation on an IFR flight plan in instrument meteorological conditions; pilot experienced an operational problem. The occurances consist of reports by the pilot about his own performance, by the pilot about the system performance, or by an air traffic controller about a pilot's performance

Privatization of Air Traffic Control Services in the United States: A Comparison of Past Government Privatization Efforts in the United States and Other Countries

The privatization of air traffic control (ATC) is one possible way to reduce the cost, increase the efficiency, and speed the innovation of ATC in the United States. However, studies from other countries in which ATC services have been privatized show mixed results in these areas and have often involved imposing some kind of fee-for-service pricing system. Furthermore, analyses of privatization efforts in other areas of government demonstrate that such efforts have been controversial and have not always resulted in lower service delivery costs. Therefore, a possible alternative would be to focus on reorganizing the FAA and consolidating services such as approach controls and en route centers

Debris/ice/TPS assessment and photographic analysis of shuttle mission STS-48

A Debris/Ice/TPS assessment and photographic analysis was conducted for Space Shuttle Mission STS-48. Debris inspection of the flight elements and launch pad were performed before and after launch. Ice/frost conditions on the External Tank were assessed by the use of computer programs, nomographs, and infrared scanner data during cryogenic loading of the vehicle followed by on-pad visual inspection. High speed photography was analyzed after launch to identify ice/debris sources and evaluate potential vehicle damage and/or in-flight anomalies. The debris/ice/TPS conditions and photographic analysis of Mission STS-48 are documented, along with their overall effect on the Space Shuttle Program

Space Traffic Management Concepts Leveraging Existing Frameworks

Leveraging existing U.S. regulatory frameworks, as well as international organizations, will dramatically shorten the time needed to develop an effective Space Traffic Management concept. Both the Department of Defense and the Department of Transportation have been working with the U.S. Congress to define and develop a Space Traffic Management concept that will allow the Office of Commercial Space Launch to begin a new mission that will help to ensure the safety and resilience of the space domain. Outside observers can easily see forward progress toward this, still, undeveloped concept. This paper explores potential final U.S. Space Traffic Management concepts that would be consistent with on-going U.S. Government work using existing frameworks and regulatory templates. Further, this paper explores far-term expansion of the U.S. Space Traffic Management concept in the international arena by extrapolating existing concepts and using existing organizations. This paper argues that the international, “top-down”, approach hinders the process of developing a usable global Space Traffic Management concept and, by taking a leadership role, the U.S. can develop a useful concept for U.S. entities that can be expanded to an international audience more easily and in a manner much more palatable to non-U.S. entities. This paper further explores the benefits to the commercial, civil, and military sectors by using the “bottom-up” approach and discusses recent international venues in which this concept was used to explore space domain resilience

Challenges of Implementing Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast in the Nextgen Air Traffic Management System

The Federal Aviation Administration is in the process of replacing the current Air Traffic Management (ATM) system with a new system known as NextGen. Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) is the aircraft surveillance protocol currently being introduced as a part of the NextGen system deployment. The evolution of ADS-B spans more than two decades, with development focused primarily on increasing the capacity of the Air Traffic Control (ATC) system and reducing operational costs. Security of the ADS-B communications network has not been a high priority, and the inherent lack of security measures in the ADS-B protocol has come under increasing scrutiny as the NextGen ADS-B implementation deadline draws near. The research conducted in this thesis summarizes the ADS-B security vulnerabilities that have been under recent study. Thereafter, we survey both the theoretical and practical efforts which have been conducted concerning these issues, and review possible security solutions. We create a classification of the ADS-B security solutions considered and provide a ranking of the potential solutions. Finally, we discuss the most compatible approaches available, given the constraints of the current ADS-B communications system and protocol