Opportunities in Aerospace for airspace management and aerospace manufacturing as more aircraft for new operations and automation are developed and introduced into the national airspace. This presentation is meant to inspire student aspirations and entrance into the aerospace industry

Kopardekar, Parimal

English

NASA Technical Reports Server

Key Opportunities in 
Aeronautics 
Enterprise 
Parimal Kopardekar, Ph.D. (PK)
Director, NASA Aeronautics Research Institute  
Parimal.H.Kopardekar@nasa.gov
UC Berkeley
February 19, 2020
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20200001095 2020-03-28T19:03:38+00:00Z
Opportunities
• Future Aircraft
• Environmental footprint
• Aircraft development cycle
• Aircraft production rate
• Supply chain 
• Airspace Operations
• Efficiency
• Disruptions 
• Safety 
• Human and Autonomy
• Preparing for Future Operations 
• Summary 
2
Future 
Aircraft
3
More Electrified Aircraft for 
Reduced Emissions 
Challenge: Battery for Aviation Needs 
4
Reduce aircraft development cycle time
• Every modern aircraft was: 
• Delayed
• Over budget
• Heavier initially 
• Design complexity:
• A380-800 has about 100,000 wires, 
470 km, 5700 kg of weight, and 
additional 30% weight for harness to 
hold wiring 
5
Current Situation
($800+B backlog)
• Boeing and Airbus have 
backorders (~5000+, with 
~55/month rate)
• Boeing delivered 806 
aircraft and Airbus 800 in 
2018
• Airbus 863 (2019, 7% up)
• In 2016, Boeing had 5715 
undelivered orders and 
Airbus had 6874
Increase aircraft production 
rate
Challenges
• Casings and forging
• Composites
• Auxiliary Power Units
• Printed Circuit Boards
• Actuators
• Software
• High volume manufacturing 
and assembly methods
• Many others 
Set up supply chain and MRO for emerging 
eVTOLs
MRO: Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul 
eVTOLs: Electric Vertical Take-off and Landing Vehicles 
Need sustainable supplier, manufacturer, and 
MRO network
Car companies are 
entering aero industry
Need to understand the 
production certificate, and 
aviation grade 
manufacturing needs
Airspace 
Operations 
9
Increase 
efficiency of 
current 
airspace 
operations 
Use data to learn 
about inefficiencies 
10
Better automation 
to reduce impact of 
disruptions  
• 25% aircraft get delayed, 
~70% are due to weather
• Major disruptions cause 
significant impact: volcanic 
ash, typhoons, etc. 
• Deciphering avoidable and 
unavoidable delays (e.g., 
SFO marine stratus) and 
use better probabilistic 
models 
11
Learn from 
Current Aviation 
Safety Data 
• Aviation Safety 
Recording System 
(ASRS)
• Operational 
errors and 
deviations 
12
Divergence of humans 
and technology 
Regulations based on fatigue 
limit stage length of aircraft or 
increase cost by carrying 
additional crews 
13
Training humans, 
increase automation, 
create some other 
hybrid paradigm
Reduce time to 
become aviation 
professional
? ?
Time for increased autonomy?
14
Prepare for future 
airspace operations
Current system is technologically behind and won’t scale 
15
New Entrants need quicker 
and sustained airspace access
Airspace system needs to 
be ready when the 
vehicles are ready 
16
S M A L L  U N M A N N E D  A I R C R A F T  S Y S T E M S  ( U A S )
17
UAS Traffic Management Architecture
18*Connections & communications are internet-based & built on industry standards & protocols
Global Impact
Scaled operations without burdening 
current air traffic system
Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic 
Management (UTM)
• Service-oriented architecture
• Cooperative
• Digital
• Intent-sharing
• Third-party services
• Managed by exception
19
Technical Capability Levels (TCL)
Risk-based development and test approach along four distinct TCL 
TCL 3TCL 2TCL1 TCL 4
• Outcomes:
Validation of 
cloud-based 
service-
oriented 
architecture
Outcomes:
Information sharing 
between operators, 
and established 
federated 3rd party 
service model to 
enable BVLOS
Outcomes:
Technologies for 
detect and avoid, 
comm. and nav., 
and data exchange 
between multiple 
suppliers in 
presence of 
manned aviation
Outcomes:
Operational concept, 
vehicle technologies, 
and data exchanges 
for operations near 
large structures and 
in highly populated 
areas
Transformation – Urban Air Mobility
Increasingly autonomous – focused on access, safety and scalability  
21
Current National airspace system 
U R B A N  A I R  M O B I L I T Y :  S M A L L  D R O N E S  T O  
L A R G E R  P A S S E N G E R  C A R R Y I N G  V T O L S
22
Space Traffic Management
High Altitude UTM (upper E) 
Conventional Manned Aviation (Class A, B, 
C, D, E)
Urban Air Mobility 
Low-altitude small UAS
• Cooperative
• Intent-sharing
• Digital: data exchanges among 
operators
• Standardized application protocol 
interfaces
• Air/ground integrated 
• Service-oriented architecture
• Role for third parties
U T M - L I K E - AT M  A I R S PA C E  O P E R AT I O N S  E N V I R O N M E N T
Access, Efficiency, Safety, Scalability, Security, Equity, and many other goals 
23
Current ATM
Transition to UTM-inspired Airspace Traffic Management 
All services are provided by FAA
Human address off-nominal situations to ensure 
safety  
Little interaction among users and third parties
• Human is information integrator
• Every data for every vehicle moves through 
FAA systems
• Management by clearances
UTM-inspired-ATM
Services are provided FAA and third-parties
Automation for off-nominal situations to ensure 
scalability and safety 
Users collaborate for efficiency, preferences for 
flights into constraints resources
• Automation is information integrator
• New paradigm: Digital, connected ecosystems, 
outside applications
• Movement towards management by exceptions 
Research: Architecture, data exchanges, roles/responsibilities, performance requirements for aircraft 
and airspace system technologies, automation for contingency management and disruption handling, 
machine learning environment and algorithms for improvements, safety assurance, certification, 
acceptance approaches
24
Many opportunities for research 
and development
25
Public Service Annoucements
• Internships
• Intern.nasa.gov
• Search “Short-term Drone for Search and Rescue”
• Urban Air Mobility Working Groups
• https://nari.arc.nasa.gov/aam
26
embracing innovation in aviation while respecting its safety tradition
Parimal.H.Kopardekar@nasa.gov
27


Key Opportunities in Aeronautics Enterprise

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