Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Tech Transfer
Airline Operations Center Simulation
Project Description
The NASA Airspace Systems Program (ASP) uses a large suite of models, simulations, and laboratories to develop and assess new ATM concepts and technologies. Most of these capabilities focus on aircraft movements, evaluating the impact of airport and airspace constraints on traffic flows. Emphasis is placed on the actions and interactions of the flight deck and air traffic controllers, including tactical ATC and traffic flow management at the FAA System Command Center and traffic management units (TMUs). The role of the airline operations center (AOC) in these analyses tends to be limited and recognized primarily as a communications mechanism and not an independent actor with designated legal responsibilities and decision making authority. In a NextGen environment, the AOC will be a major participant, as it offers greater situation awareness across the entire airline network, with superior access to data, analytical capability, and communications. Our proposed AOC simulation offers several innovations to support ASP research and the aviation community: 1. Provide a stand-alone simulation for analyzing AOCs and their complex interactions with ATM. 2. Increase the realism with which NASA can evaluate new ATM concepts, technologies, and algorithms that affect airline operations, from flight planning to flight following and re-routing, and gate-to-gate aircraft movement control. 3. Provide airlines with the ability to evaluate the effects of NASA ATM research products on their operations, investment criteria, and internal decision processes. 4. Offer a simulation that can integrate with other NASA models and simulations, expanding NASA's system-wide evaluation, gate-to-gate modeling and simulation capability. 5. Uses industry-standard inputs for flight schedules, messages, and timekeeping to maximize usability by airlines and NASA.
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Anticipated Benefits
The most immediate and pressing need for the AOC simulation is fill the current gap in NASA modeling capabilities regarding airline operations. Providing a robust AOC simulation model offers NASA a significantly enhanced ability to support the development and evaluation of ATM concepts, technologies, algorithms, and architectures. The AOC Simulation will also satisfy the requirements for AOC simulation for the ASP Shadow Mode Assessment for Realistic Technologies in the National Airspace System (SMART NAS) project. This research effort was recently started under the ASP Concepts and Technology Development Project and Robust Analytics is a prime contractor developing a system architecture. Our AOC Simulation solution will meet the requirements of SMART NAS while simultaneously providing the much-needed AOC modeling capability to integrate with FACET and other models. Additional NASA aeronautics applications include: 1. The AOC Simulation can be used to support ASP trade studies and provide useful feedback to researchers on likely operator acceptance based on realistic assessments of how specific ATM and CDM concepts will affect that airline's ability to implement and benefit from the technology. 2. Conduct trade studies for other ARMD programs and projects, to determine the most promising solutions that account for operator objectives and constraints.
Robust Analytics and its partner Sabre Airline Solutions plan to commercialize the AOC Simulation by improving the ability of its airline customers to plan and operate scheduled flights. The mechanism for providing this improved capability will be through airline flight operations center planning and operational software. Many NextGen and Airspace Systems tools rely on airline AOCs to manage flights, trajectory planning, and re-routing. Our AOC Simulation provides airlines with the ability to test and evaluate the impacts of ASP and NextGen concepts on their operations, using their live data, automated decision support systems, and current and planned businesses rules. In addition to evaluating the impacts of NASA and NextGen ATM an CDM concepts, Robust Analytics and Sabre believe that there is a potential market with airlines to improve the operations of their AOCs. With real data exchange and the airline's own automated systems, the AOC Simulation could evaluate alternate business rules and decision support tools and help the airline optimize its operation and improve recovery from severe disruptions. Mature airlines possess decision support tools to perform some, but not all, of these analyses. Smaller airlines lack good decision support and would benefit significantly from the ability to deploy them. More »
Robust Analytics and its partner Sabre Airline Solutions plan to commercialize the AOC Simulation by improving the ability of its airline customers to plan and operate scheduled flights. The mechanism for providing this improved capability will be through airline flight operations center planning and operational software. Many NextGen and Airspace Systems tools rely on airline AOCs to manage flights, trajectory planning, and re-routing. Our AOC Simulation provides airlines with the ability to test and evaluate the impacts of ASP and NextGen concepts on their operations, using their live data, automated decision support systems, and current and planned businesses rules. In addition to evaluating the impacts of NASA and NextGen ATM an CDM concepts, Robust Analytics and Sabre believe that there is a potential market with airlines to improve the operations of their AOCs. With real data exchange and the airline's own automated systems, the AOC Simulation could evaluate alternate business rules and decision support tools and help the airline optimize its operation and improve recovery from severe disruptions. Mature airlines possess decision support tools to perform some, but not all, of these analyses. Smaller airlines lack good decision support and would benefit significantly from the ability to deploy them. More »
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Primary U.S. Work Locations and Key Partners
| Organizations Performing Work | Role | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| Robust Analytics | Lead Organization |
Industry
Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB)
|
Crofton, Maryland |
Langley Research Center
(LaRC)
|
Supporting Organization | NASA Center | Hampton, Virginia |
Primary U.S. Work Locations
-
Maryland
-
Virginia
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