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Aviation today is a complex, interconnected system in which airspace
resources must be managed from a global perspective, maximizing capacity
while guaranteeing safety and efficiency. Ensuring that air traffic moves
safely, quickly, and efficiently requires that the Air Traffic Management
(ATM) system of the future operates in a far more complex, more highly
integrated environment than ever before. Because it is not possible to
take a 24x7 system offline for several days for experimentation, changes
to the ATM system must undergo a rigorous development process before operating
in the field. Hence the conundrum: how to prove that enhancements are
actually improvements, if they are not allowed to operate in the real
system until proven.
To deal with this problem, The MITRE
Corporation's Center for Advanced Aviation System Development (CAASD)
ATM Laboratory houses an extensive set of capabilities in its support
of the
Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA)
mission to modernize the National Airspace System (NAS). As the FAA's
Federally Funded Research
and Development Center (FFRDC), CAASD must understand the current-and
future-problems in the ATM system in order to design well-understood near-
and far-term solutions. In order to adequately understand and test new
operational concepts and procedures before placing them in the field,
it is first necessary to test them in a controlled environment. CAASD's
ATM laboratory provides such an environment. It is here in the lab that
new concepts can be fleshed out before introducing them to the field,
ensuring success while reducing cost and risk.
The CAASD ATM laboratory is in essence an enabling tool. The capabilities
of the ATM laboratory enable MITRE to go beyond just "visioneering."
The lab provides a place for air traffic controllers, traffic management
specialists, airline and GA pilots, industry participants, MITRE and FAA
personnel to gather and simulate elements of the NAS while testing candidate
enhancements in a real-time, realistic simulated environment. Because
new capabilities are established with the collaboration of end users,
when a new capability successfully exits the ATM laboratory, we are assured
that:
- The capability is well-defined algorithmically
- Its interface with air traffic personnel is functional and efficient
- Its implementation path into the NAS has been defined
- Its data requirements have been examined and provided for; and
- Documentation has been created for an effective technology
transfer.
The path from lab to field is not singular, nor is it always direct.
Often, before actually achieving operational acceptance and common use
in the field, high-fidelity simulations are used. These simulation facilities
use the actual field equipment. The FAA
Technical Center's Integration and Interoperability Facility 
and actual facility test beds are two examples. CAASD's ATM laboratory
is used earlier in the research process, balancing an appropriate level
of fidelity with rapid prototyping.
CAASD's ATM laboratory provides a number of advanced capabilities to
support this type of research. These capabilities include combinations
of human-in-the-loop capabilities as well as analytical and simulation
models. They are used to develop and explore areas including operational
concepts, procedures, decision support tools, and architectures.
Some highly visible capabilities and projects that are either housed
in or used in the ATM Lab include:
Capabilities that have fielded versions
Projects that use the ATM Lab
Furthermore, many new procedures and concepts being tested are designed
and engineered by CAASD staff, using the ATM laboratory facilities. Typical
tests might include MITRE-designed hardware and software projects in which
the lab capabilities can be tailored to address specific ATM and/or flight
deck interaction issues in the presence of advanced air and ground automation.
The ATM lab is where new concepts first  gain
definition and then operational acceptance for one main reason: FLEXIBILITY.
This flexibility provides for quick turn-around, customized testing while
saving money. Flexibility means to us the capability to represent different
areas of the NAS in one place; tie those representations together in varying
combinations, and reconfigure the lab as needed.
The ATM laboratory has representations of NAS domains that can "stand
alone" or work within an integrated context with other domain representations.
It can simulate - in real time - the entire breadth of the NAS, individual
domains of the NAS, or different combinations of domains of the NAS.
The NAS domains represented in the ATM lab include
- En Route
- Terminal area
- Airport surface
- Traffic flow management
- Transport and general aviation (GA) cockpit flight deck representations
To achieve the flexible laboratory environment that exists today, CAASD
staff have done groundbreaking work in
- Data managment and scenario construction
- Inter-task communication
- Simulation control
Many of the capabilities in the ATM Lab use a common, sophisticated,
yet simple-to-use underlying infrastructure that allows us to quickly
integrate systems, both in-house and externally developed simulations.
This infrastructure also allows the freedom to use a variety of computer
platforms (some of which are used in the field).
In addition to being able to quickly integrate software systems, the
ATM Lab is beginning to use the web-based CAASD Repository System (CRS)
to quickly assemble and use real-world data sets, a system that CAASD's
Fast Time Analysis (FTA) Lab uses extensively with great success. Some
of the data sets used in the ATM lab are:
- System Analysis Recording (SAR) and Automated Radar Terminal System
(ARTS) recorded history data
- Rapid Update Cycle (RUC) wind data
- Jeppesen navigation data
- Enhanced Traffic Management System (ETMS) aircraft traffic data
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Terminal video
map data
- Digital Feature Analysis Data (DFAD) terrain data
CRS has proven to be a valuable asset by easing the difficulty of gathering
data from various sources. Consequently, simulations can be assembled
quickly, allowing valuable time to be focused on procedure and concept
exploration.
Not only is the software in the ATM lab designed for flexibility, the
physical lab is flexible because of its modular design. It can be customized
to the suit the needs of an experiment.  For
example, the transport-category cockpit has wheels and can be rolled out
of the way to create an out-the-tower visual environment for experiments
that require an out-the-tower view rather than an out-the-window cockpit
view. Additionally, all of the tables are modular and can be quickly re-arranged
within close proximity of network and power supplies located throughout
the entire lab.
The ATM laboratory comprises a substantially complete representation
of the evolving Air Traffic Management system. The lab's modular design
allows new operational concepts to be assessed quickly in a total NAS
context. CAASD's ATM laboratory is a unique place where FAA officials,
operational experts, developers, and system users are able to evaluate
and assess alternative enhancements to the ATM system prior to major financial
investment.
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