Environmental impact analysis with the airspace concept evaluation system

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Ames Research Center has developed the Airspace Concept Evaluation System (ACES), which is a fast-time simulation tool for evaluating Air Traffic Management (ATM) systems. This paper describes linking a capability to ACES which can analyze the environmental impact of proposed future ATM systems. This provides the ability to quickly evaluate metrics associated with environmental impacts of aviation for inclusion in multi-dimensional cost-benefit analysis of concepts for evolution of the National Airspace System (NAS) over the next several decades. The methodology used here may be summarized as follows: 1) Standard Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) noise and emissions-inventory models, the Noise Impact Routing System (NIRS) and the Emissions and Dispersion Modeling System (EDMS), respectively, are linked to ACES simulation outputs; 2) appropriate modifications are made to ACES outputs to incorporate all information needed by the environmental models (e.g., specific airframe and engine data); 3) noise and emissions calculations are performed for all traffic and airports in the study area for each of several scenarios, as simulated by ACES; and 4) impacts of future scenarios are compared to the current NAS baseline scenario. This paper also provides the results of initial end-to-end, proof-of-concept runs of the integrated ACES and environmental-modeling capability. These preliminary results demonstrate that if no growth is likely to be impeded by significant environmental impacts that could negatively affect communities throughout the nation

AIAA's A. ircraft Techno.logy,.Inter.a.t. ion, and Operations (ATIO) 2002 Technical AIAA 2002-5871

This paper describes the requirements for integrating a noise modeling capability into air transportation system simulations. In order to address community concerns, noise impact should be analyzed with appropriate models in simulation environments. Coupling a noise modeling capability with these simulators will lead to better understanding of what impact certain flight operations may have on local communities. Described within this paper are the general data requirements that a noise modeling tool must receive from a simulator. At a minimum, the simulator must provide data to the noise model that may be categorized under environmental conditions, flight path information including aircraft and engine performance, and grid set-up in order to analyze noise impact. An application of these requirements to the integration of a noise model with an air traffic control tower simulator is presented. Complexities in obtaining and adapting these data types from the simulator are examined. It is anticipated that the details of these requirements may be used to facilitate the integration of a noise modeling capability into other air transportation system simulation environments