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Study Objectives: NASA Ames Research Center's Advanced Air Transportation Technologies (AATT) Project, in cooperation with the FAA, is studying automation for aiding surface traffic management at major airport facilities. The Surface Management System (SMS) is an enhanced decision support tool that will help controllers and airlines manage aircraft surface traffic at busy airports, thus improving safety, capacity, efficiency and flexibility. By December 2003, NASA's goal is to transfer SMS to the FAA for deployment in the Free Flight Phase 2 program, the second phase of the FAA's program to modernize the National Air Space through the introduction of new technologies and procedures. FutureFlight Central provided a virtual airport test bed for two successive simulations of the initial SMS prototype. The first SMS simulation objectives included an initial operational assessment of the user interface and the evaluation of the use of SMS for runway balancing. The second SMS simulation's goal was twofold: to test the combined functionalities of SMS and Traffic Management Advisor (TMA) and to further evaluate the SMS concept and performance. TMA, currently in use at the Fort Worth Center, is one of the Center-TRACON Automation System (CTAS) tools. It assists TRACON and Center traffic management coordinators (TMCs) in arrival flow management planning. SMS helps tower controllers and TMCs manage departures. The successful linking of SMS's departure management and TMA's arrival management may improve the overall efficiency of the airport. + Back to Top Customer Comments: "FutureFlight Central allows the eventual users to experience SMS in a realistic environment. It's not until controllers try using a DST [decision support tool] that they can provide the feedback needed to design a usable and useful product. "We learned a tremendous amount, for example, about how controllers assign departures to runways, sequence departures, and select taxi routes, and how SMS can better help tower controllers perform their tasks." -- Stephen Atkins, NASA Project Lead for SMS
+ Back to Top Summary: FutureFlight's simulation of the east side of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport served as the test bed for the simulation study. Five active tower controllers from Dallas/Fort Worth airport (DFW) including a TMC and supervisor participated in the simulation, controlling simulated aircraft from the east tower. Two other tower controllers from Memphis and Norfolk, Virginia airports, as well as representatives from several air carriers (FedEx, UPS, Northwest Airlines, United Airlines, and American Airlines) observed portions of the simulation and provided additional feedback. FutureFlight Central's simulation software delivered real-time aircraft updates to the SMS using the High Level Architecture (HLA) interface. Updates included aircraft ID, aircraft type, latitude, longitude, altitude, climb rate, on-ground/airborne status, heading, ground speed, and simulation time. Interoperability between SMS and TMA was successfully demonstrated. That is, cooperative management of arrivals and departures, by using TMA and SMS information together, maximized the use of runways, taxiways, and gates, and thus minimized delays. Local and ground controllers using SMS also provided valuable feedback that will be incorporated into the final version, scheduled for field site testing in the fall of 2003. + Back to Top |
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Curator: NASA Official: Last Updated: September 13, 2017 + Contact Us + About This Site |
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