The proposed SBIR will complete work that is highly beneficial to NASA, work that can directly benefit NASA's IADS research, ATD-2 project, SARDA research, and SMART NAS goals. The method for estimating departure times and runways at secondary airports could be used at airports near DFW to support NASA's IADS research. It could also be used as part of the ATD-2 project, wherever NASA chooses to focus that research. The modeling of ramp operations and flight operator behaviors can be used to improve fast-time simulation capabilities that are used to study ATD-2 and other IADS concepts and by NASA's SARDA research. Furthermore, these models can be included in NASA's SMART NAS model repository, to benefit any SMART NAS users that require high fidelity models of these aspects of NAS operations.
The primary potential application for this work outside of NASA is with the FAA. The method for providing departure status information from secondary airports could be deployed NAS-wide. Every large airport is surrounded by smaller airports that increasingly are placing demand on shared departure resources. Whatever IADS technologies the FAA deploys beyond IDAC, they will benefit from having the information provided by this concept. Like NASA, the FAA must study and evaluate IADS technologies. The models of ramp operations and flight operator participation in airport collaborative surface/departure concepts will enable higher-fidelity simulation studies, reducing concept risk and providing more accurate benefits estimates. Other research organizations conducting IADS research will also benefit from these modes, which we intend to offer under an Open Source license in Phase 2. The models of flight operator behavior could lead to commercial products to aid flight operators in interacting with surface CDM systems.
More »