Abstract

The busiest regions of airspace in the U.S. are congested during much of the day from traffic volume, weather, and other airspace restrictions. The projected growth in demand for airspace is expected to worsen this congestion while reducing system efficiency and safety. This dissertation focuses on providing methods to analyze en route airspace congestion during severe convective weather (i.e. thunderstorms) in an effort to provide more efficient aircraft routes in terms of: en route travel time, air traffic controller workload, aircraft collision potential, and equity between airlines and other airspace users. The en route airspace is generally that airspace that aircraft use between the top of climb and top of descent. Existing en route airspace flight planning models have several important limitations. These models do not appropriately consider the uncertainty in airspace demand associated with departure time prediction and en route travel time. Also, airspace capacity is typically assumed to be a static value with no adjustments for weather or other dynamic conditions that impact the air traffic controller. To overcome these limitations a stochastic demand, stochastic capacity, and an incremental assignment method are developed. The stochastic demand model combines the flight departure uncertainty and the en route travel time uncertainty to achieve better estimates for sector demand. This model is shown to reduce the predictive error for en route sector demand by 20\\% at a 30 minute look-ahead time period. The stochastic capacity model analyzes airspace congestion at a more macroscopic level than available in existing models. This higher level of analysis has the potential to reduce computational time and increase the number of alternative routing schemes considered. The capacity model uses stochastic geometry techniques to develop predictions of the distribution of flight separation and conflict potential. A prediction of dynamic airspace capacity is calculated based on separation and conflict potential. The stochastic demand and capacity models are integrated into a graph theoretic framework to generate alternative routing schemes. Validation of the overall integrated model is performed using the fast time airspace simulator RAMS. The original flight plans, the routing obtained from an integer programming method, and the routing obtained from the incremental method developed in this dissertation are compared. Results of this validation simulation indicate that integer programming and incremental routing methods are both able to reduce the average en route travel time per flight by 6 minutes. Other benefits include a reduction in the number of conflict resolutions and weather avoidance maneuvers issued by en route air traffic controllers. The simulation results do not indicate a significant difference in quality between the incremental and integer programming methods of routing flights around severe weather. Ph. D.

Abstract

The current airspace configuration is fragmented, defined by national airspaces according political borders that affects directly to the environment, aircraft and air navigation service costs. The future airspace of Europe is addressing new challenges to support the increase of the air traffic in a new airspace configuration. The free route airspace (FRA) is a new concept to restructure the sectors and airways that gives more flexibility to airspace users to create better and more efficient routes. In Free Route areas users may plan a route between a defined entry point and a defined exit point without reference to ATS network, always subject to air traffic control. This project aims to study the benefits of free route areas in two scenarios. One existing and a created one. The first scenario studies the advantages in the North European Free Route area which were implemented since 2015. The second scenario studies the impact of a free route airspace in a large scale. This project uses the NEST tool, from Eurocontrol, to simulate the traffic with and without FRA. Also, will be addressed future prognosis to support the long-term evaluation of the FRA concept. The structure of this project starts with a brief theory review of the Free Route Airspace concept and the first scenario evaluated. Then this project includes all the design steps and evaluation process in order to obtain the metrics evaluated. Finally, results of NEFRA and EUROFRA are presented. In general, the results of this project show that airspace users are greatly benefited from the implementation of Free Route Areas. Airlines can save money and fuel travelling shorter distance while safety is maintained. Also, environment is benefited in terms of greenhouse emissions. With the implementation of EUROFRA, approximately 5 thousand tons of CO2 can be saved per day. La configuració actual del espai aeri està fragmentada, definida pels espais aeris nacionals segons les fronteres polítiques que afecten directament el medi ambient, els avions i els costos de la navegació aèria. L’espai aeri del futur a Europa ha de fer front als nous reptes per donar suport a l’augment del trànsit aeri en una nova configuració d’espai aeri. L’espai aeri Free Route (FRA) és un nou concepte per reestructurar els sectors i les aerovies que dóna més flexibilitat als usuaris de l’espai aeri per crear rutes millors i més eficients. A l’espai aeri Free Route, els usuaris poden planificar una ruta entre un punt d’entrada definit i un punt de sortida definit sense utilitzar la xarxa ATS, sempre subjecte al control de trànsit aeri. Aquest projecte té com a objectiu estudiar els beneficis de les àrees Free Route en dos escenaris. Un existent i un creat. El primer escenari estudia els avantatges de les àrees Free Rote del nord d'Europa que porten actius desde 2015. El segon escenari estudia l'impacte d'un espai aeri Free Route a gran escala. Aquest projecte utilitza l’eina NEST, d’Eurocontrol, per simular el trànsit amb i sense FRA. A més, es tractarà el pronòstic futur per donar suport a l’avaluació a llarg termini del concepte de FRA. L’estructura d’aquest projecte s’inicia amb una breu revisió teòrica del concepte d’espai aeri Free Route i del primer escenari avaluat. A continuació, aquest projecte inclou tots els passos de disseny i el procés d’avaluació per obtenir els paràmetres avaluats. Finalment, es presenten els resultats de NEFRA i EUROFRA. En general, els resultats d'aquest projecte mostren que els usuaris de l’espai aeri es beneficien enormement de la implementació d’àrees Free Route. Les companyies aèries poden estalviar diners i combustible viatjant menys distància mentre es manté la seguretat. A més, el medi ambient es beneficia en termes reducció d'emissions d’efecte hivernacle. Amb la implantació de l’EUROFRA, es poden estalviar aproximadament 5 mil tones de CO2 al dia.

Abstract

The main objective of this project is to design an automation control system for a new arrival procedure at Palma de Mallorca airport, which is the Point Merge System (PMS). This new system, suggested by Cercle d’Economia de Mallorca, allows performing Continuous Descent Approach (CDA), reducing fuel consumption, CO2 and acoustic emissions, while safety levels are enhanced and arrival capacity is increased. Additionally, the fact of introducing the automation control would remove the air traffic controllers presence, only needing one person to monitor the system. The PMS concept was developed by Eurocontrol and is based on the merging of two arrival flows in one single entry point, which is afterwards linked to the airport runway. Nowadays, these flows are managed by controllers who give the “direct-to” instruction to pilots to fly towards the merge point, whereas in this project this will be done by the system. In order to achieve the aim of the project, the Network Strategic Tool (NEST) from Eurocontrol has been used, which allows traffic simulations, together with Matlab, in which the NEST files have been read and different time computations have been performed to determine when the aircraft gets the “direct-to” and in this way ensure safety. The obtained results are for two diferent scenarios. On one hand, real traffic data from summer 2018 has been considered, which are used to know the current behavior of the system. On the other hand, with the webpage Demand Data Repository (DDR) of Eurocontrol a traffic forecast for summer 2024 has been generated, which is used to estimate the behaviour and capacity of the system in a future with more traffic. With the results analysis, it is possible to check that nowadays most aircraft would be authorized with a direct entry to the merge point, without waiting. For the 2024 case, most aircraft would have to stay inside the system with a waiting time due to the increase of flights. Lastly, in both scenarios route length increases, while it is possible to perform CDA thanks to the predictability obtained with the system. L’objectiu principal d’aquest projecte és dissenyar un sistema de control automàtic per un nou procediment d’arribades a l’aeroport de Palma de Mallorca, el Point Merge System (PMS). Aquest nou sistema, proposat pel Cercle d’Economia de Mallorca, permet realitzar Continuous Descent Approach (CDA), reduint el consum de fuel, les emissions de CO2 i l’impacte acústic, mentre que es milloren els nivells de seguretat i s’augmenta la capacitat de trànsit d’arribada. A més a més, el fet d’introduir el control automàtic eliminaria la presència dels controladors, necessitant únicament una persona que supervisés el sistema. El concepte de PMS va ser desenvolupat per Eurocontrol i es basa en la fusió de dos fluxos d’arribada en un únic punt d’entrada, que després s’enllaça amb la pista de l’aeroport. Actualment aquests fluxos són gestionats pels controladors que donen la instrucció “direct-to” als pilots perquè es puguin dirigir cap al punt final, mentre que en aquest projecte ho farà el propi sistema. Per aconseguir l’objectiu del projecte s’ha utilitzat el programa Network Strategic Tool (NEST) d’Eurocontrol, que permet fer simulacions de trànsit aeri, juntament amb Matlab, amb el qual s’han llegit els arxius del NEST i s’han realitzat diferents càlculs de temps per determinar quan l’avió obté el “direct-to” i així garantir la seguretat. Els resultats obtinguts són per dos escenaris diferents. Per una banda, s’han considerat dades de trànsit real de l’estiu de 2018, amb les quals sabem el comportament del sistema a dia d’avui. Per altra banda, a través de la pàgina web Demand Data Repository (DDR) d’Eurocontrol s’ha generat una previsió de trànsit per l’estiu de 2024, amb la qual s’estima el comportament i la capacitat del sistema en un futur amb més trànsit. Amb l’anàlisi dels resultats, es comprova que actualment la majoria d’avions serien autoritzats amb una entrada directa al punt final, sense necessitat d’esperar. En el cas de l’any 2024, la majoria d’avions hauria d’estar dins del sistema amb un temps d’espera degut a l’augment dels vols. Per últim, en els dos escenaris la distància recorreguda augmenta, mentre que es pot fer una aproximació CDA gràcies a la predictibilitat obtinguda amb el sistem

Abstract

decade ago, the SESAR programme was launched. SESAR aims to restructure of the European Air Traffic Management (ATM) through new infrastructure, systems and procedures inside a lesgislative European framework which will cover the future air traffic demand. One of the concepts borned with SESAR is the Dynamic Sectorization, where any necessary segregation is temporary, based on real-time usage within a specific period. The project focuses in the ACC of Barcelona West Airspace, which its maximum traffic demand is produced in summer, and the capacity is limited in the peak hours, causing the application of regulations, hence delay, almost in a daily basis in some of its sectors. This project covers an assessment based on the viability, benefits and inconveniences of two new possible configurations proposed by Enaire, the Air Navigation Service Provider in Spain, which are based in the FUA concept. For that, real air traffic samples are used from the months of July and August of 2015, and the configuration are simulated with EUROCONTROL NEST tool. The first configuration studies the possibility to rise the vertical limit between two sectors (Levante Upper, Levante Lower) from FL325 (3250 ft.) to FL345 (3450 ft.). The second configuration studies the possibility to incorporate temporary segregations between three sectors (Ponent 1 Upper, Ponent 1 Lower, Ponent 2) through the creation of two subsectors between them with the goal of joining them with the existing ones based on the traffic. Results show that in the first configuration the global conditions of capacity and saturation would be of the same order of magnitude, but having some benefits. The second configuration does not show any improvement with neither of the solutions provided, due to the capacity problem is focused in the airspace zone where the adaptable sectors have been created.

Abstract

JIFX 16-3 Joint Interagency Field Experimentation; 9-13 May 2016; Camp Roberts, CA; United States Currently, there is no established infrastructure to enable and safely manage the widespread use of low-altitude airspace and UAS flight operations. Given this, and understanding that the FAA faces a mandate to modernize the present air traffic management system through computer automation and significantly reduce the number of air traffic controllers by FY 2020, the FAA maintains that a comprehensive, yet fully automated UAS traffic management (UTM) system for low-altitude airspace is needed. The concept of UTM is to begin by leveraging concepts from the system of roads, lanes, stop signs, rules and lights that govern vehicles on the ground today. Building on its legacy of work in air traffic management (ATM), NASA is working with industry to develop prototype technologies for a UAS Traffic Management (UTM) system that would evolve airspace integration procedures for enabling safe, efficient low-altitude flight operations that autonomously manage UAS operating in an approved low-altitude airspace environment. UTM is a cloud-based system that will autonomously manage all traffic at low altitudes to include UASs being operated beyond visual line of sight of an operator. UTM would thus enable safe and efficient flight operations by providing fully integrated traffic management services such as airspace design, corridors, dynamic geofencing, severe weather and wind avoidance, congestion management, terrain avoidance, route planning re-routing, separation management, sequencing spacing, and contingency management. UTM removes the need for human operators to continuously monitor aircraft operating in approved areas. NASA envisions concepts for two types of UTM systems. The first would be a small portable system, which could be moved between geographical areas in support of operations such as precision agriculture and public safety. The second would be a Persistent system, which would support low-altitude operations in an approved area by providing continuous automated coverage. Both would require persistent communication, navigation, and surveillance (CNS) coverage to track, ensure, and monitor conformance. UTM is creating an airspace management tool that allows the ATM system to accommodate the number of UAS that will operate in the low altitude airspace. The analogy is just because we have a car, whether its autonomous or someone is driving, does not diminish the need for a road or road signs or rules of the road. WBS 154692.02.10.01.01 NPS Sponsorship Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.