Surface Operation Benefits of a Collaborative Automation Concept

Abstract

The predicted growth in air travel demands capacity enhancement in the National Airspace System, and congestion at key airports has been recognized as one of the most prominent future aviation problem areas. With flights operating at limits dictated by operational requirements associated with current airport configurations, airport expansion plans involving addition of new runways and taxiways are being realized to increase the airports' capacities. However, the expansion plans necessarily increase the complexity of the airport configurations, which tends to penalize the efficiency of the system, partially offsetting the capacity-related benefits of the investments. The Surface Operation Automation Research (SOAR) concept has been proposed as a collaborative concept to provide automation for surface-traffic management and the flight deck to enhance the operational efficiency in complex airport environments, thus reversing the penalties to fully realize the capacity benefits sought by the airport expansion plans. Development and evaluation of the SOAR concept is being pursued in a 5-year program. This paper describes the results from an initial evaluation of the concept based on computer simulations of surface traffic at a single airport. Future work will include system-wide evaluation of the concept and human-in-the-loop assessment of the automation technologies.

Analysis of Environmental Impact of Eliminating Arrival Hold Short Operations for Runway Crossings at Dallas/Ft. Worth Airport

“…Cheng et al developed and evaluated a future surface automation concept called the Surface Operations Automation Research (SOAR), where aircraft 4-D trajectories (i.e., positions and time) are controlled by both a ground-based surface traffic management system and an aircraft-based advanced taxi control system. 6,7 One of the objectives of this concept is to tightly control crossing operations of both departures and arrivals via efficient surface traffic planning and precise control of taxi operations to meet 4-D taxi clearances. Another element of the operational concept, currently being pursued by Georgia Institute of Technology, is to eliminate, or reduce, hold short operations for arrival aircraft through the intricate coordination of departure and arrival events.…”

Evaluation of Mixed-Mode Data-Link Communications for NextGen 4DT and Equivalent Visual Surface Operations

“…The surface mode of the HUD depicts 4DT guidance that utilizes dynamic algorithms to generate speed-or time-based taxi clearances to calculate the most efficient movement of all surface traffic and enable precise surface coordination [24] [25]. Current instantiations of HUD-displayed 4DT guidance symbology use speed and time commands to the flight crews throughout the taxi route to regulate the required timing precision of surface traffic movements.…”

Data-link and surface map traffic intent displays for NextGen 4DT and equivalent visual surface operations

“…4DT utilizes dynamic algorithms to generate speed-or time-based taxi clearances to calculate the most efficient movement of all surface traffic and enable precise surface coordination [24] [25. Current instantiations of HUD-displayed 4DT guidance symbology use speed and time commands (upper left and right hand information in Figure 7) to the flight-crews throughout the taxi route to regulate the required timing precision of surface traffic movements.…”