Safety Enhancement Technologies for Airport Ramp Area Operations

NASA has been involved in developing advanced automation systems for improving the efficiency of air-traffic operations, reducing controller workload and enhancing the safety in the national airspace system. The recent accident at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York involving an A380 and CRJ700 highlights an important safety concern on airport surface where aircraft operate very closely. Even over the airport surface the ramp area is an area of significant safety concern. The Flight Safety Foundation estimates that 27,000 accidents occur on airport ramps worldwide each year, and 243,000 people are injured. The objective of the current research is to develop safety enhancement technologies specifically for the ramp area leveraging state of the art surveillance technologies, image processing algorithms, nonlinear state estimation algorithms, and computationally efficient collision detection algorithms. Optimal Synthesis Inc (OSI) has an extensive record in modeling and designing next generational airport surface operations. OSI's is also partnering with Prof. Jason Rife from Tufts University to seek his expertise in modeling surveillance systems. Phase I research will demonstrate collision detection using sample image processing algorithms and inter-aircraft separation computation algorithms. Phase II research will develop more sophisticated tools to specialize the technologies for specific airport geometries.

Image processing and collision detection algorithms developed under the current research are expected to contribute towards NASA's NextGen air traffic management research, especially to the Safe and Efficient Surface Operations (SESO) research focus area. In addition to the ramp area conflict detection application, the core image processing and collision detection algorithms are also expected to be applicable to other NASA research areas such as spacecraft formation flying and autonomous spacecraft rendezvous which is currently viewed as a very challenging research problem by NASA.

Ramp areas in US airports are typically controlled by airlines. Industry experts estimate the airlines' cost resulting from ramp area accidents at $4 billion to $5 billion internationally each year. The proposed safety enhancement technologies are therefore of particular interest to both airports and the airlines involved in control of ramp area operations. Safety monitoring tools developed under the current research can also be used during ramp area design phase to identify and mitigate potential hazard areas.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 3) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

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