Decision Support Tool and Simulation Testbed for Airborne Spacing and Merging in Super Dense Operations, Phase II

The key innovation in this effort is the development of a decision support tool for distributed air-ground scheduling sequencing, spacing and merging of aircraft in the terminal airspace, and the development of modeling and simulation testbed that will enable the evaluation of NAS wide impacts of technologies related to Airspace Super Dense Operations in the Terminal Airspace. The SBIR will primarily focus on developing algorithms and a simulation testbed that will enable the modeling and fast-time simulation of simultaneous sequencing, spacing merging and de-confliction in terminal airspace, reduced arrival spacing (with altitude offset/co-altitude) for very closely spaced parallel runways at OEP airports (Super Dense Airports Concepts), High density corridors (tubes) characterized by parallel tracks and delegation of separation responsibility to the flight deck via CDTI and ADS-B and Rerouting for mitigation of weather impacts to terminal area operations The tesbed will be built on top of NASA's Airspace Concept Evaluation System (ACES). While ACES does provide gate to gate simulation capability of the NAS, it currently does not include the modeling and simulation support for spacing and merging related concepts in the terminal airspace. This research effort is a direction in meeting this technology need.

This is a mature technology (TRL 7+) — the realistic path in is usually NASA's Technology Transfer Program: licensing an existing NASA patent, or a Space Act Agreement to use NASA facilities/expertise directly. NASA also runs a startup licensing program with no upfront fee for companies formed to commercialize a specific NASA technology.

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