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	+ Home Search Aviation Systems		Traffic Flow Management (TFM) Highlights - Fiscal Year 2013 Fiscal year 2013 accomplishments for the Traffic Flow Management (TFM) research area included a field trial of a TFM initiative advisory tool, greater involvement with the environmental aviation community, on-going and unique collaborations with the FAA, significant progress with the development of a system to improve aviation safety in Alaska, new modeling and analysis from our NASA Research Announcement (NRA) partners, and publications documenting numerous studies addressing national and regional flow management. The beginning of the fiscal year saw the completion of a 6-month field trial of the San Francisco International Airport (SFO) Ground Delay Program (GDP) parameter selection model. The trial, conducted at the FAA's Air Traffic Control System Command Center (ATCSCC) in Vint Hill, VA, evaluated a model for calculating key parameters used when planning stratus-related GDPs at SFO. Results indicated that the model was able to reduce the avoidable delay by an average of 900 minutes, or nearly $90,000, per GDP event. Current efforts are focused on identifying additional airports and weather phenomena for which comparable GDP planning models could be tested. The TFM team participated in a number of environmental aviation forums to share results of recent research. In October 2012, NASA Ames Research Center's Senior Scientist for Air Transportation Systems Dr. Banavar Sridhar attended the 19th Advisory Board Meeting of the Partnership for Air Transportation Noise and Emission Reduction (PARTNER) in Arlington, VA. The PARTNER program, funded by NASA, the FAA, the Department of Defense, the Environmental Protection Agency, and Transport Canada, met to review its sponsored research, with invited presentations on complimentary research external to the program. Dr. Sridhar presented a well-received talk on the “Integration of Linear Dynamic Emission and Climate Models with Air Traffic Simulations,” describing examples of good aviation operational policies even in the presence of modeling uncertainties. The Aviation Systems Division's TFM team continued to actively engage with the FAA to evaluate and propose potential TFM solutions, including an effort with the Collaborative Airspace Constraint Resolution (CACR) Phase II and Traffic Management Initiatives (TMI) Impact Modeling team, part of the TFM Deployment team. The CACR/TMI team met at NASA Ames Research Center in March 2013 and discussed available modeling and what-if analysis capabilities for the ReRoute Impact Assessment (RRIA) function. NASA demonstrated the Future Air traffic management Concepts Evaluation System (FACET) software and a multiple metering capability (which is available in a limited capacity to the FAA but which was of great interest for further evaluation) as well as flight delays and sector load impact using the reroute TMI implementation. Currently, the FAA is working with NASA to understand NASA research within the Traffic Flow Management System. The NASA metering algorithm is being considered for integration into the Miles-in-Trail (MIT) with pass-back restrictions functionality, which could be deployed as soon as the fall of 2014. In July 2013, the FAA's TFM Deployment Team meeting invited Dr. Kapil Sheth to present recent Aviation Systems Division research on MIT modeling, at their meeting in Atlantic City, NJ. In particular, the TFM team was interested in more accurate modeling of MIT restrictions and a novel capability to model MIT passbacks to upstream Centers. An ATCSCC Specialist affirmed that NASA was on the right track with the modeling, and the FAA offered to provide access to additional specialists to help make the model operationally viable. The FAA has also begun to specify realistic scenarios for testing the MIT passback advisories. The Air Traffic Control Quarterly journal published the results of a yearlong study examining the potential impact of controlling Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport arrivals using a new control strategy called the “Traffic Management Advisor (TMA) Flow Program.” This new capability reduces the demand for a capacity-limited airport by assigning pre-departure delays to flights bound for the airport. With the help of traffic flow managers at the FAA's ATCSCC, operationally viable scenarios were developed that were subsequently tested through NASA's fast-time simulations, and researchers examined the distribution of delays and emissions for flights included and exempt from this new capability. Among the key findings from this study was that as the flow rate of the TMA Flow Program was increased from 54 to 80 aircraft per hour, the fuel burn and emissions associated with airborne holding increased by over 100%. Although this increase in fuel burn and emissions, in general, represents a small percent of the total fuel burn and emissions associated with the entire flight’s trajectory, it does illustrate the importance of considering the delays as well as the emissions associated with future TFM control strategies. In June 2013, research partner Saab-Sensis briefed their NRA year 3 progress on relating optimal solutions to current-day traffic flow management controls. Saab-Sensis developed a method for simulating various controls (like GDPs, miles-in-trail restrictions, and reroutes) and analyzing which flights and airspace resources are most impacted. Using this information, they developed methods for translating optimal controls of individual flights into TMIs. Eventually, this system might be used to develop a decision support tool for planning ATM initiatives in a more unified way. This work is scheduled to be completed later in calendar year 2014. TAIGA running on an iPad Work continued on the Traffic and Atmospheric Information for General Aviation (TAIGA), an iPad-based tool for GA pilots that will integrate and display weather, ATM, and terrain data with updated aircraft position using built-in GPS technology within the mobile device. TAIGA is targeted to assist Alaskan GA pilots when flying under challenging Alaskan airspace conditions, including unusual, severe weather, poor surveillance, and the complex airspace around the city of Anchorage. In late February 2013, a NASA Ames senior management visit to Juneau, Alaska to meet with Alaskan legislators generated interest from the Associated Press (AP) on the increased visibility of TAIGA generated by the NASA visit. In the AP interview, the TAIGA concept as a whole was discussed along with potential delivery dates for a prototype product. The visit helped solidify Alaska's interest in the project. Currently, NASA is working on a prototype for flight testing that includes a satellite communications device to receive previously inaccessible data during flight. Eight technical papers on TFM were published in FY13, including presentations at the US-Europe ATM Research and Development Seminar (June 2013), the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (December 2012), and the AIAA Aviation 2013, AIAA Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) and Modeling and Simulation Technologies (MST) conferences in August 2013.
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