Current Business Environment, National Airspace Systems Overview, Technical Challenge Overview and
Specifics

Kopardekar, Parimal Hemchandra

NASA Technical Reports Server

National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Parimal Kopardekar, Ph.D.
Manager, NextGen Concepts and Technology Development Project
September 16-17. 2013
July 11, 2013www.nasa.gov
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https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20140009119 2019-08-31T20:14:57+00:00Z
Outline
• Current Business Environment
• National Airspace Systems Overview
• Technical Challenge Overview and Specifics
• Summary 
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• Airline costs: Fuel - 25% and labor - 25%
• Fuel prices remain volatile
• Stiff competition in international market
• Financial survivability remains a challenge
• Horizontal and vertical integration trend continues (e.g., Delta 
purchasing refinery)
• Current focus of research and development – increasing efficiency
• Longer-term focus - reduce total cost, allow diverse use of airspace, 
increase mobility
Current Aviation Business Environment
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En Route with
Weather Avoidance
Surface 
Operation
Surface 
Operation
Dense 
Terminal
Departure
Arrival 
Gate-to-Gate Concepts and Technology
Flow and Airspace
Planning
JOINT ECONOMIC COMMISSION (2007) FINDS DELAY
BETWEEN 4.3 AND 5.3 MILLION HOURS
COST OF DELAY $41B
ADDITIONAL 740M GALLONS OF FUEL 4
(1) ATM T h l D t ti 1 I i l ti ffi i hil i i
operations.  
  ec no ogy emons ra on – : mprove arr va  opera ons e c ency w e ncreas ng 
arrival throughput using integrated aircraft-based and ground-based automation technologies.  
(2) Integrated Arrivals/Departures/Surface Operations : Simultaneously increase arrivals, 
departures, and surface operations efficiency while increasing overall throughput.  
(3) Weather Integrated Decision-Making: Reduce weather-induced delays by integrating 
probabilistic and/or deterministic weather information with aircraft, flow and airspace 
management strategies.  
(4) Separation Assurance Functional Allocation: Establish the basis for air/ground functional 
allocation for separation assurance including safe, graceful degradation of performance in 
response to off-nominal conditions.
(5) Oceanic Operations Efficiency Improvement: Increase oceanic airspace operational efficiency 
by efficient routing and rerouting based on changes in weather, and reduced separation minima 
based on ADS-B operations, and integrated air/ground procedures and technologies.  
(6) Shadow Mode Assessment using Realistic Technologies for the NAS (SMART NAS): 
Develop a real/live, virtual, and constructive environment where alternative future concepts, 
technologies, air/ground human/machine architectures can be examined in an integrated fashion 
to assess NAS-level performance and benefits.  
(7) Enabling Trajectory-based Operations: Increase efficiency of flights by enabling trajectory-
based operations rather than airspace-based operations and reducing delay-increasing tactical 
changes to trajectories.  
(8) Networked Air Traffic Management: Develop and demonstrate concepts, algorithms, 
technologies, architectures, and business models employing advanced networking capability that 
will significantly reduce duplication of data, processing, information, and allow for integrated 
decision making and the most cost-effective provision of air traffic management.   
(9) AutoMax: Through the greatest use of autonomy, accommodate future demand, vehicle 
mix/airspace uses, and different operating business models to enable highest possible 
realization of economic value from the airspace operations at the lowest possible total cost of 
Technical Challenges
Goal: Enable NextGen and reduce the total cost of air transportation operations
Thrust: Aircraft and ground-based technologies to simultaneously increase throughput/capacity 
and aircraft efficiency
Cross-Cutting Challenge: All densities and all weather conditions  
NASA ASP Discriminator: 
Develop air/ground concepts 
and technologies for 
developing precision 
schedule and delivery for 
gate-to-gate air traffic 
management operations for 
NextGen and beyond  
Current Barriers: Limitation 
of cognitive workload to 
develop optimal solutions on 
multiple dimensions 
(efficiency, throughput)
ASP Strategy: 
Deliver/transfer products to 
enable changes in NAS –
integrated and bite-sized
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Technology Challenge: Simultaneously 
increase arrivals, departures, and 
surface operations efficiency while 
increasing overall throughput
Need: Efficient operations under low 
densities are possible, but 
simultaneously increasing throughput 
and operations efficiency for  individual 
aircraft is  challenging, due to cognitive 
workload limits
NASA Technologies: 
• Surface management automation
• Precision departure release planner 
• Efficient descent approach
• Terminal scheduler
• Controller managed spacing
• Flight deck interval management 
Simultaneously increase throughput and individual aircraft efficiency
TC 2: Integrated Arrival/Departure/Surface Operations
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TC 3: Weather Integrated Decision Making
Technology Challenge: Reduce 
weather-induced delays by integrating 
probabilistic and/or deterministic weather 
information with aircraft, flow and 
airspace management strategies
Need: ~25% aircraft get delayed and 
~75% are due to weather. ~65% of delays 
are potentially avoidable
NASA Technologies: 
• San Francisco Stratus
• Dynamic Weather Routes (dispatcher)
• Traffic Aware Strategic Aircrew 
Request (Flight crew)
• Digital traffic management initiatives
• Learning automation for TFM
Weather contributes to 75% delays and costs $10B 
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TC 4: Separation Assurance Functional Allocation
Technology Challenge: Establish 
the basis for air/ground functional 
allocation for separation assurance 
including safe, graceful degradation 
of performance in response to off-
nominal conditions.
Need: Need 100% detection and 
resolution
NASA Technologies:
• Autonomous flight rules –
Aircraft based separation 
assurance
• Ground-based separation 
assurance
• Functional allocation 
Close to 100% detection and resolution performance is required 
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TC 5: Oceanic Operations Efficiency Improvement
Technology Challenge: Increase 
oceanic airspace operational 
efficiency by efficient routing and 
rerouting based on changes in 
weather, and reduced separation 
minima based on ADS-B operations, 
and integrated air/ground procedures 
and technologies
Need: Tighter integration for TBO
NASA Technologies:
• Strategic flow management 
• Dynamic weather routing 
• Traffic Aware Strategic Aircrew 
Request 
• ADS-B based aircraft separation 
(paired trajectory management) 
• Tailored arrivals/departures 
Number of technologies to promote TBO in oceanic airspace 
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End-to-end TBO examination for future needs new capabilities 
TC 6: Shadow Mode Assessment Using Realistic Technologies for the NAS 
(SMART NAS)
TC7: Enabling Trajectory-based Operations
Technology Challenge: 
• Develop a real/live, virtual, and 
constructive environment where 
alternative future concepts, technologies, 
air/ground human/machine architectures 
can be examined in an integrated fashion 
to assess NAS-level performance and 
benefits
• Increase efficiency of flights by enabling 
trajectory-based operations rather than 
airspace-based operations and reducing 
delay-increasing tactical changes to 
trajectories  
Need: Capability to conduct integrated 
evaluations, using plug-and-play, real 
data/constraints, live/virtual/constructive 
architecture
NASA Technologies:
• SMART NAS
• Technologies for Oceanic Operations
• TBO storyboard, gaps, analysis, and end-to-end 
technology integration 
Airportand
airspace
structures
Weatherdata:
currentand
predic ons
Trafficand
OAGdata
Shadow‐modeNASprocessing:super
computer,clustercompu ng,andcloud
networking
Exis ngfast/real‐ me
models(aircra ,ground,
airlineopera ons,
communica on,
naviga on,surveillance,
andenvironmental)for
variousATMfunc ons
Performancemetrics:delays,efficiency,
capacity,throughput,predictability,safety,fuel
consump on,environmentalimpact,etc.
Human‐in‐the‐loop
simula oncapabili es/
facili es
Inputs
Outputs
ATMconceptsand
technologiesrelatednew
models
Live,Virtual,and
Construc ve
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Networked ATM to reduce duplication and increase productivity
Technology Challenge: Develop and 
demonstrate concepts, algorithms, 
technologies, architectures, and 
business models employing advanced 
networking capability that will 
significantly reduce duplication of data, 
processing, information, and allow for 
integrated decision making and the 
most cost-effective provision of air 
traffic management. 
Need: Avoid duplication, reduce 
certification costs, increase productivity, 
allow third-party applications
NASA Technologies (under 
planning)
• Chicago snow problem
• Push back time uncertainty
• Trajectory management
• More being identified 
TC 8: Networked ATM
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Emulated ADS‐B IN 
for all traffic
Entered Clearances for 
NASA Airborne 
Technology
Electronic Flight Bag or Laptop
Emulated ADS‐B 
OUT
Flight Crew
Emulated ADS‐B IN 
for all traffic
Each Aircraft 
Ground 
System 
NASA ATC 
Automation
Technology
Entered 
Clearances
Traffic 
Surveillance 
Data 
Management
• Emulated ADS‐B message 
broadcast/reception
Existing Aircraft 
Systems
• NASA Airborne ATM 
Technology
• Crew input interface
Two‐Way Airborne 
Internet Data Link
NATIVE Infrastructure
Advanced Test Technologies
Surveillance Simulation
Automation to support ATM operations and to increase productivity
Technology Challenge: Through the 
greatest use of autonomy, 
accommodate future demand, vehicle 
mix/airspace uses, and different 
operating business models to enable 
highest possible realization of 
economic value from the airspace 
operations at the lowest possible total 
cost of operations.  
Need: Increase service provider and 
user productivity 
– 25% fuel and 25% labor cost
– About $6B to operate NAS
NASA Technologies (under 
planning)
• Entire airspace operations
• Research plan in progress 
– Overall design
– Technology infusion roadmap (e.g., Single 
Pilot Operations) 
Op
Transport 
Related
13.9%
Fuel
25.4%
Other
7.1%
Labor
24.7%
Ad & 
Promotion
0.7%
Maintenance 
Materials
1.7%
Rents & 
Ownership
11.1%
Utils & Office 
Supplies
0.6%
Food & 
Beverage
1.6%
Insurance
0.5%
Passenger 
Commissions
1.2%
Professional 
Services
8.3%
Landing Fees
2.2% Communication
1.0%
Operating Costs by Objective Grouping
TC 9: AutoMax
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Summary
• Current products – En Route Descent Advisor, ATD-1, Precision 
Departure Release Capability, Dynamic Weather Routing are 
making impact
• ATM R&D beyond NextGen continues to be an urgent national 
need for economic growth and viable aviation 
• Opportunities for collaboration - AutoMax, SMART NAS, and UTM
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Shadow Mode Assessment using Realistic 
Technologies for NAS (SMART NAS)
• Motivation
– General agreement that National Airspace Systems needs to transform 
and pace of transformation is rather slow
– NAS is a complex system with many sub-components with high safety 
requirements 
• Results in incremental and evolutionary changes that are validated
– Such incremental upgrade approach is rather slow and does not 
consider integrated operations efficiently – could take many decades to 
get to “true” next generation  
Objective
• Develop quicker approach to validate next generation concepts, 
technologies and their integration to enable transformation of the 
NAS
• Reduce the time to validate concepts, technologies and their 
interactions and integration 
• Provide plug-and-play capability to compare alternative approaches 
• Provide real-time assessment of technologies as compared with 
current operations
Approach
• Develop a shadow-mode capability that will run the NAS operations 
in parallel, 24-7 and real-time, with actual data inputs as the NAS 
but using advanced concepts, technologies, and procedures
• Offer plug-and-play capability to examine alternating concepts and 
technologies
• Examine robustness, reliability, stability of concepts, algorithms, and 
technologies as compared with NAS
• Allow real-time (but model driven) or human-in-the-loop involvement 
for selected parts 
Automation Maximus (AutoMax)
• Goal: Identify and develop the maximum possible justifiable use of automation to 
address the needs of future air transportation and airspace operations (2035+). 
• Background
– Service provider and user costs are very high 
– Future airspace uses are diverse (hyper/super sonic, commercial space 
launches, airships, flying wind turbines, UAVs, fixed and rotary wing) 
– Need to accommodate mixed equipage and diverse business models (p2p, hub-
and-spoke, on-demand, air taxi, personal vehicles, etc)
– Increased mobility, scalability, predictability needed at affordable costs
• Parallels from Space and Exploration
– Needs for automation, autonomy, autonomous operations, autonomicity stem 
from long lags in communications (e.g, Mars), rapid decision (e.g., launch abort), 
scalability (e.g., multiple successive launches simultaneously), etc.  
– Opportunistic implementation of automation, rather than a big whole-sale change 
• Challenges
– Technology development for larger-scale air traffic management 
– V&V of autonomous systems and technology providing autonomicity
– Role of humans (adaptive automation, how much)
– Harmonized transition from current NAS to AutoMax future
• Potential partnerships: Industry, Academia, other Government organizations
AutoMax
• Approach
– Identify future trends, demand profiles, different uses of airspace, and technology 
paths 
– Create a roadmap that will enable technology and roles/responsibilities change 
from current operations to future
– Develop concepts and technologies – conduct research needed to support the 
technology development
– Use SMART NAS to examine alternative automation architectures 
– Examples for AutoMax products: TCAS replacement, Strategic Flow Management, 
Strategic Weather integration, Flight Dispatching, Oceanic Operations, Integrated 
Arrival/Departure/Surface Operations, Single Pilot Operations/Remote Pilot 
Operations for commercial carriers, and Trajectory based operation, Vehicle 
autonomy for different classes of vehicles, and maximum automation for the entire 
ATM
– Autonomicity for ATM system: Self-configuration (e.g. Microsoft windows Normal 
mode to safe mode), Self-optimization (capacity focused), Self-protection 
(detection anomalies and degraded signals), and Self-healing (recovery) 
– Develop requirements for sensors, redundancies, communications, technologies 
for ATM functions – Define architecture for AutoMax that is supported by benefits 
and costs
• Inter-mega cities and intra mega cities – Covers all kinds of airspace uses
• Progress
– First Workshop: ATM experts to understand the needs and future trends
– Second Workshop: Autonomy experts from ARC, DFRC, JPL, JSC, LaRC, KSC, 
and MSFC
– Research planning: A team is formed and by December 2013 first research plan is 
expected to be completed 
Unmanned Aerial System Traffic Management (UTM)
Goal: Enable significant UAS traffic at low altitudes for goods and services 
delivery
Background
• History of Air Traffic Management: 1956 crash over Grand Canyon
• Several efforts of integrating civilian UAS into National Airspace System 
underway
• None of they are addressing civilian low altitude applications for goods and 
services delivery 
Main functions
– Congestion management, conflict and collision detection/prediction and 
avoidance, obstacle avoidance, wind/weather/wake detection/prediction, 
noise, mix of traffic helicopter, model a/c, and eventually personal 
aircraft
Next Steps (NASA seedling proposal)
• First step is to develop initial concept design, functional requirements, and 
systems requirements to enable significant low altitude operations
• Airspace design, communication/navigation/surveillance, and infrastructure  
requirements 
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Cloud based applications
• Cloud based trajectory management 
– Aircraft based and ground based trajectories, no one system has 
complete information 
• Cloud based aircraft operations
– Cost, certification and competition pressures
– Need a different architecture
• Cloud based fleet management 
– Most aircraft now have internet, interconnected system would allow to 
manage the fleet and all assets based on changing conditions and 
priorities for flights 
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