Advanced Air Transportation Technologies Research Articles

Integrated Air/Ground System: Trajectory-Oriented Air Traffic Operations, Data Link Communication, and Airborne Separation Assistance

Trajectory-oriented, time-based air traffic operations, data link communication, and airborne separation assistance systems (ASAS) can play an important role in the transformation of the airspace system. This article reviews several years of research conducted primarily at NASA Ames Research Center. The research promotes an integrated air/ground system combining trajectory-orientation, data link communication, and airborne separation assistance as complementary components of a modernized airspace system, rather than viewing them as competing approaches to modernization. The integrated air/ground system promises capacity, efficiency, and security benefits through trajectory-oriented air traffic management and control. It uses data link to communicate aircraft states and trajectories between pilots and controllers, and it utilizes airborne separation assistance to improve throughput at traffic bottlenecks. This paper highlights benefits of this approach and provides recommendations and guidelines for controller tool and data link implementation as well as a near term concept of ASAS integration. Funding for this work was provided by the Advanced Air Transportation Technologies (AATT) project and the NextNAS project of NASA’s Airspace Systems Program.

Free flight is in the future: large-scale controller pilot data link communications emulation testbed

NASA's Glenn Research Center (GRC) is responsible for the Advanced Communications for Air Traffic Management (AC/ATM) Project, a sub-element task of the Advanced Air Transportation Technologies (AATT) Project of the NASA Airspace Systems Program. The AC/ATM Project is developing new communications technologies and tools that will enable Free Flight, an operating mode in which pilots will have the freedom to select their path and speed in real-time. The goal of the AC/ATM Project is to enable a communications infrastructure providing the capacity, efficiency, and flexibility necessary to realize benefits arising from the future mature Free Flight environment. A key infrastructure element is the Aeronautical Telecommunications Network (ATN) that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is in the process of fielding.

Effects of helicopter and aircraft interior noise and vibration on passengers’ comfort sensation and subjective well-being

Apparently passengers’ sensation of comfort and subjective well-being are key concepts in the research on user acceptance of helicopter and aircraft systems. The design and development of advanced air transportation technologies require a fundamental, theory-based understanding of these concepts. From the passengers point of view, helicopter and aircraft interior noise and vibration are primary physical factors underlying the perception of comfort and well-being. In various judgmental contexts the influence of exposure to combined interior noise and vibration in helicopters and aircrafts will be analyzed by means of combined psychoacoustical, socioacoustical, and psychological research methods: Field experiments in a flight simulator and during real flight situations as well as laboratory experiments using a sound and vibration reproduction system will be carried out in order to examine the interactive effects of noise and vibration. The aim is to develop a passenger comfort or well-being index for helicopter and aircraft interior environments. The index will be based on the integration of physical predictors for the flight situation and psychological predictors for the passengers’ sensation of comfort and well-being.