Surface Operation Automation Research (SOAR)

Domain: Surface
Principle Investigator: Optimal Synthesis

Faced with ever increasing air traffic projections, NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration have been developing advanced technologies and operational concepts to increase traffic-handling capacity in the National Airspace System. Airport congestion constitutes a key traffic capacity problem. Efforts to increase airport capacity approach the problem on two fronts: the first obvious solution is to increase the number of runways (i.e., more usable space), and the second approach is to develop new technologies to achieve reduction in aircraft separation (i.e., higher density). The first approach based on increasing usable runways also imposes new technical problems. Modifying an existing airport layout increases surface traffic complexity with a higher level of aircraft and surface vehicle traffic, resulting in diminishing returns in efficiency improvement from airport expansion investments.

The proposed Surface Operation Automation Research (SOAR) seeks to develop an advanced concept for improving the achievable capacity at major airports. The concept includes advanced ground-control automation and flight-deck automation, tightly integrated in a Centralized Decision-Making, Distributed Control (CDDC) paradigm. It builds on advanced Communication, Navigation, and Surveillance (CNS) technologies to achieve a seamless integration of these two major components.

The ground-control automation system will provide the Centralized Decision-Making functionality. It will base its decision on the surveillance data, flight plans and Airline Operational Control (AOC) requirements, to generate time-based taxi routes for optimum traffic efficiency. Advanced data-link may be required for issuing the complex taxi clearances for the flights to taxi according to the desired time-controlled taxi routes, and advanced surveillance will be valuable for monitoring the vehicles' compliance. Optimal Synthesis Inc. (OSI) will build on its experience from its previous development of the Ground-Operation Situation Awareness and Flow Efficiency (GO-SAFE) system to achieve the ground-control automation system concept.

The flight-deck automation systems in the aircraft participating in the surface operation will collectively provide the Distributed Control of the overall traffic system in a collaborative manner. Advanced automation technologies will provide auto-taxi capabilities or automation aids to the pilots for performing precision taxi to achieve the time-controlled taxi routes issued as clearances by ground control. New operation procedures will need to be defined for carrying out data-linked clearances, and for automatic loading of the clearances into the flight decks' flight management systems (FMS). OSI will build on its experience with advanced control methods for precise control of time-constrained taxi to develop a Flight-deck Automation for Reliable Ground Operation (FARGO) system concept as the basis for flight-deck automation.

The integrated system with the highly coordinated automation systems on the flight decks and in the ground control environment will push the envelope of surface traffic performance to maximize capacity without compromising safety.

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