Airspace Operations Lab @ NASA Ames

This paper reviews three Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) based high fidelity air traffic control human-in-the-loop (HITL) simulations, with a focus on the expected requirement of enhanced automated trajectory assessment and modification tools to support future air traffic flow management (ATFM) planning positions. The simulations were conducted at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Ames Research Center’s Airspace Operations Laboratory (AOL) in 2009 and 2010. The test airspace for all three simulations assumed the mid-term NextGen En-Route high altitude environment utilizing high altitude sectors from the Kansas City and Memphis Air Route Traffic Control Centers.

Trajectory assessment, modification and coordination decision support tools were developed at the AOL in order to perform future ATFM tasks. Overall tool usage results and user acceptability ratings were collected across three areas of NextGen operations to evaluate the tools. In addition to the usefulness and usability feedback, feasibility issues, benefits, and future requirements were also addressed. Overall, the tool sets were rated very useful and usable, and many elements of the tools received high scores and were used frequently and successfully. Tool utilization results in all three HITLs showed both user and system benefits including better airspace throughput, reduced controller workload, and highly effective communication protocols in both full Data Comm and mixed-equipage environments.