Proof-of-Concept of a Networked Validation Environment for Distributed Air/Ground NextGen Concepts

Abstract

The National Airspace System (NAS) must be improved to increase capacity, reduce flight delays, and minimize environmental impacts of air travel. NASA has been tasked with aiding the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in NAS modernization. Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) is an enabling technology that is fundamental to realization of the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen). Despite the 2020 FAA mandate requiring ADS-B Out equipage, airspace users are lacking incentives to equip with the requisite ADS-B avionics. A need exists to validate in flight tests advanced concepts of operation (ConOps) that rely on ADS-B and other data links without requiring costly equipage. A potential solution is presented in this paper. It is possible to emulate future data link capabilities using the existing in-flight Internet and reduced-cost test equipment. To establish proof-of-concept, a high-fidelity traffic operations simulation was modified to include a module that simulated Internet transmission of ADS-B messages. An advanced NASA ConOp, Flight Deck Interval Management (FIM), was used to evaluate technical feasibility. A preliminary assessment of the effects of latency and dropout rate on FIM was performed. Flight hardware that would be used by proposed test environment was connected to the simulation so that data transfer from aircraft systems to test equipment could be verified. The results indicate that the FIM ConOp, and therefore, many other advanced ConOps with equal or lesser response characteristics and data requirements, can be evaluated in flight using the proposed concept.

Design and Development of a Rapid Research Design and Development Platform for In Situ Testing of Tools and Concepts for Trajectory-Based Operations

“…One proposed method, known as the Networked Air Traffic Infrastructure Validation Environment, proposes to emulate these data links by using software simulations of the communication links and in-flight Internet as the communication backbone. [11,12] Furthermore, the NASA Shadow Mode Assessment using Realistic Technologies for the National Airspace System (SMART-NAS) Test Bed promises to "fill important gaps in the air traffic community's simulation and testing needs for allowing more efficient acceleration and acceptance of NextGen and far-term concepts and technologies." [13] The SMART-NAS Test Bed uses distributed communication to connect various data sources (e.g., SWIM, Weather Providers) with various ATM laboratories (containing ANSP simulators and Flight Deck simulators) and flight assets to validate concepts using multiple operational domains and investigate concepts related to revolutionary operations.…”