ALBERT

Description: Air traffic service providers have to make decisions regarding changes to air traffic flow in the event of major weather disturbances and traffic congestions to maintain safety of the system. The behavior of the air traffic management system will be more predictable if consistent decisions are made under similar traffic and weather conditions. Consistency of deciding on control action depends on the weather and traffic conditions as well as accuracy in predicting these conditions. Weather parameters (defined in terms of forecast and actual weather and traffic conditions) on different days can be used to categorize days into days with little decision consistency, days with moderate decision consistency and days with high decision consistency. Four years of traffic, weather and ground delay program decisions data at major airports in the United States are used in the analysis. This paper examines performance of different data mining methods in the three regions of decision consistency. Not surprisingly, data mining methods have the best performance in the region of most decision consistency and have the poorest performance in the region of little decision consistency. In applications where data mining methods have differing performance in differing regions, it would be more useful to characterize the region specific performance instead of characterizing performance by a single parameter. Finally, the results show no significant variation in the performance of different data mining methods for this particular problem. The fact that different mining methods show no significant variation also provides further confidence in the results of data mining methods. Work in this abstract discusses initial results. This paper describes the results in terms of both forecast and actual environmental conditions and discusses how prediction errors impact decision consistency.

Description: The global airline industry continued to grow in 2014, with profits projected to expand from $12.9 billion in 2013 to $18.7 billion by the end of this year. Key factors driving this increase include continued improvement in overall economic conditions, greater air cargo volumes and stable fuel prices. However, the razor-thin profit margin of 2.5 percent is susceptible to various risks, including the possibility of higher fuel prices due to political crises around the world. In addition, new orders for Airbus and Boeing aircraft are expected to be half of the nearly 3,000 ordered in 2013.

Description: No abstract available

Description: Methods for evaluating and implementing air traffic management tools and approaches for managing and avoiding an air traffic incident before the incident occurs. A first system receives parameters for flight plan configurations (e.g., initial fuel carried, flight route, flight route segments followed, flight altitude for a given flight route segment, aircraft velocity for each flight route segment, flight route ascent rate, flight route descent route, flight departure site, flight departure time, flight arrival time, flight destination site and/or alternate flight destination site), flight plan schedule, expected weather along each flight route segment, aircraft specifics, airspace (altitude) bounds for each flight route segment, navigational aids available. The invention provides flight plan routing and direct routing or wind optimal routing, using great circle navigation and spherical Earth geometry. The invention provides for aircraft dynamics effects, such as wind effects at each altitude, altitude changes, airspeed changes and aircraft turns to provide predictions of aircraft trajectory (and, optionally, aircraft fuel use). A second system provides several aviation applications using the first system. Several classes of potential incidents are analyzed and averted, by appropriate change en route of one or more parameters in the flight plan configuration, as provided by a conflict detection and resolution module and/or traffic flow management modules. These applications include conflict detection and resolution, miles-in trail or minutes-in-trail aircraft separation, flight arrival management, flight re-routing, weather prediction and analysis and interpolation of weather variables based upon sparse measurements. The invention combines these features to provide an aircraft monitoring system and an aircraft user system that interact and negotiate changes with each other.

Description: A method for modeling error-driven adaptive control of an aircraft. Normal aircraft plant dynamics is modeled, using an original plant description in which a controller responds to a tracking error e(k) to drive the component to a normal reference value according to an asymptote curve. Where the system senses that (1) at least one aircraft plant component is experiencing an excursion and (2) the return of this component value toward its reference value is not proceeding according to the expected controller characteristics, neural network (NN) modeling of aircraft plant operation may be changed. However, if (1) is satisfied but the error component is returning toward its reference value according to expected controller characteristics, the NN will continue to model operation of the aircraft plant according to an original description.

Description: Method and system for evaluating and implementing air traffic management tools and approaches for managing and avoiding an air traffic incident before the incident occurs. The invention provides flight plan routing and direct routing or wind optimal routing, using great circle navigation and spherical Earth geometry. The invention provides for aircraft dynamics effects, such as wind effects at each altitude, altitude changes, airspeed changes and aircraft turns to provide predictions of aircraft trajectory (and, optionally, aircraft fuel use). A second system provides several aviation applications using the first system. These applications include conflict detection and resolution, miles-in trail or minutes-in-trail aircraft separation, flight arrival management, flight re-routing, weather prediction and analysis and interpolation of weather variables based upon sparse measurements.

Description: Accident Precursor Analysis (APA) serves as the bridge between existing risk modeling activities, which are often based on historical or generic failure statistics, and system anomalies, which provide crucial information about the failure mechanisms that are actually operative in the system and which may differ in frequency or type from those in the various models. These discrepancies between the models (perceived risk) and the system (actual risk) provide the leading indication of an underappreciated risk. This paper presents an APA process developed specifically for NASA Earth-to-Orbit space systems. The purpose of the process is to identify and characterize potential sources of system risk as evidenced by anomalous events which, although not necessarily presenting an immediate safety impact, may indicate that an unknown or insufficiently understood risk-significant condition exists in the system. Such anomalous events are considered accident precursors because they signal the potential for severe consequences that may occur in the future, due to causes that are discernible from their occurrence today. Their early identification allows them to be integrated into the overall system risk model used to intbrm decisions relating to safety.

Description: A system for multi-modal cockpit interface during surface operation of an aircraft comprises a head tracking device, a processing element, and a full-color head worn display. The processing element is configured to receive head position information from the head tracking device, to receive current location information of the aircraft, and to render a virtual airport scene corresponding to the head position information and the current aircraft location. The full-color head worn display is configured to receive the virtual airport scene from the processing element and to display the virtual airport scene. The current location information may be received from one of a global positioning system or an inertial navigation system.

Description: Introduction: NextGen technologies promise to provide considerable benefits in terms of enhancing operations and improving safety. However, there needs to be a thorough human factors evaluation of the way these systems will change the way in which pilot and controllers share information. The likely impact of these new technologies on pilot/controller coordinated decision making is considered in this paper using the "operational, informational and evaluative disconnect" framework. Method: Five participant focus groups were held. Participants were four experts in human factors, between x and x research students and a technical expert. The participant focus group evaluated five key NextGen technologies to identify issues that made different disconnects more or less likely. Results: Issues that were identified were: Decision Making will not necessarily improve because pilots and controllers possess the same information; Having a common information source does not mean pilots and controllers are looking at the same information; High levels of automation may lead to disconnects between the technology and pilots/controllers; Common information sources may become the definitive source for information; Overconfidence in the automation may lead to situations where appropriate breakdowns are not initiated. Discussion: The issues that were identified lead to recommendations that need to be considered in the development of NextGen technologies. The current state of development of these technologies provides a good opportunity to utilize recommendations at an early stage so that NextGen technologies do not lead to difficulties in resolving breakdowns in coordinated decision making.

Description: Accident Precursor Analysis (APA) serves as the bridge between existing risk modeling activities, which are often based on historical or generic failure statistics, and system anomalies, which provide crucial information about the failure mechanisms that are actually operative in the system. APA docs more than simply track experience: it systematically evaluates experience, looking for under-appreciated risks that may warrant changes to design or operational practice. This paper presents the pilot application of the NASA APA process to Space Shuttle Orbiter systems. In this effort, the working sessions conducted at Johnson Space Center (JSC) piloted the APA process developed by Information Systems Laboratories (ISL) over the last two years under the auspices of NASA's Office of Safety & Mission Assurance, with the assistance of the Safety & Mission Assurance (S&MA) Shuttle & Exploration Analysis Branch. This process is built around facilitated working sessions involving diverse system experts. One important aspect of this particular APA process is its focus on understanding the physical mechanism responsible for an operational anomaly, followed by evaluation of the risk significance of the observed anomaly as well as consideration of generalizations of the underlying mechanism to other contexts. Model completeness will probably always be an issue, but this process tries to leverage operating experience to the extent possible in order to address completeness issues before a catastrophe occurs.