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Completed TRL 4 (started at 3, targeting 4)
To accelerate the acceptance of new concepts developed under NextGen, the Shadow Mode Assessment using Realistic Technologies for the National Airspace System (SMART-NAS) testbed, which enables integrated examinations of NextGen or beyond-NextGen concepts under distributed environment, becomes critical to the Air Traffic Management (ATM) community. To support human-in-the-loop (HITL) testing for NAS-wide simulation using SMART-NAS testbed, this proposal addresses the feasibility of constructing an ATM-centric speech-enabled agent as a plug-and-play service of the SMART-NAS testbed. This service addresses the gap of HITL testing that is currently limited to small regions of airspace and few airports with a small number of controllers and pseudo-pilots. Leveraged from our prior development on noise-robust speech recognition system for the Navy and virtual agents for NASA to support HITL simulations, an infrastructure of ATM-centric speech-enabled agent will be developed. A feasibility demonstration of the speech agent as a service component of the SMART-NAS testbed will be provided by the end of the Phase I research. Phase II work will utilize the infrastructure built in Phase I to expand the speech-enabled agent to a full-scale prototype that supports HITL testing for NAS-wide simulation using the SMART-NAS testbed.
The plug-and-play ATM-centric speech-enabled agent is conceived as a service component of the SMART-NAS testbed to support HITL testing for NextGen feasibility assessment studies within NASA. The ATM-centric speech-enabled agent can support HITL experiments in numerous NASA facilities, including at Ames Research Center the ATC Lab, the FutureFlight Central (FFC), the Crew Vehicle Systems Research Facility (CVSRF), and the Airspace Operations Lab (AOL). It is also applicable to the HITL activities at the Air Traffic Operations Lab (ATOL) at Langley Research Center.
The proposed ATM-centric speech-enabled agent can be adapted for other simulation facilities within the FAA. In addition, the ATM speech agent will also benefit air traffic control training facilities, including the FAA Academy at the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center in Oklahoma City, OK, and DoD training facilities such as the Naval Air Technical Training Center (NATTC) in Pensacola, FL. In addition, the technology can be implemented in individualized training systems for pilots and air traffic controllers.
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