The proposed SBIR will complete work that is highly beneficial to NASA - work that can directly benefit NASA's research into integration of on-demand mobility vehicles and UAS into the NAS, as well as its space vehicle operations. While NASA has been a leader in these areas of research, our effort will provide validated, centralized documentation of multiple stakeholders' planning needs, as well as the NICoPS capability that can be used to evaluate different vehicle mission concepts in the context of NAS planning operations. This can drive new vehicle and airspace concepts. At the end of Phase III, the NICoPS will be available for use by NASA personnel responsible for planning missions by various vehicles.
Beyond NASA, the primary potential applications for this work are with the FAA, vehicle operators, and the research communities associated with various vehicles. As new types of vehicles, such as on-demand mobility vehicles, become feasible, the capability will be available for those operators as well. At the end of Phase II, the NICoPS concept and prototype will be mature enough for transition to the FAA for further concept and system development. The NICoPS will provide a mechanism by which various vehicle operations can be evaluated and negotiated in the context of NAS operations, significantly reducing the amount of work that must be performed manually. Simultaneously, researchers associated with new vehicle types can use the NICoPS concept and prototype to support their efforts to design their vehicles for integration into NAS operations. At the end of Phase III, a prototype NICoPS SWIM service will be developed and available to demonstrate the capability to the commercial market.
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