Aviation Week & Space Technology - January 15, 2015

John Croft Washington

Agents of Reuse

Airbus and Boeing repurpose and

bundle existing ATM technologies

to boost capacity and efciency

The NASA SPO ground sta-
tion provides the connectivity,
tools and situational awareness
aids that allow the operator in the
super dispatcher role to manage
the same number of aircraft as
today but with value-added func-
tions during normal operations.
By having an aircraft’s flight
plan, weather and other data
feeds, the super dispatcher can
use the workstation tools to sug-
gest route changes to gain more
favorable upper atmosphere
winds or avoid turbulence, and
send the suggestions directly to
the aircraft in a format for direct
insertion into the flight manage-
ment system (FMS) upon the
captain’s concurrence.
A key element of the ground control
station enabling the new functionality is
the NASA-developed cockpit situation
display (CSD), a multi-function screen
that depicts aircraft positions, routes
and hazards, including terrain, predic-
tive weather, hazard advisory areas and
trafc in 2-D or 3-D on the screen. The
CSD also includes a “pulse predictor,”
light pulses along the routes of nearby
aircraft that show the position of each
going forward in time, an indicator of
potential trafc conflicts on a new route
the super dispatcher might be contem-
plating. The pulse predictor also shows
the movement of weather to determine
if a reroute will remain clear of storms.

In addition to contingencies, the

conops calls for a ground operator to

take the first ofcer role during certain

portions of a flight where teamwork is

critical, including arrivals, departures

and taxiing. Given the variety of local

terrain, weather and airspace issues,

NASA is also considering a “harbor pi-

lot” ground controller who would take

over from the super dispatcher at the

top-of-descent point down to the gate.

In normal operations, the super

dispatcher is there to watch

the operations and offer ad-

vice or help for the pilot. In a

contingency, which has to be

triggered by the captain, the

super dispatcher transitions

into dedicated support mode

as a first ofcer in the left seat

of the ground station; the pilot

and first ofcer then conduct

a briefing over an open micro-

phone loop to assign duties,

including who will fly the air-

craft (the first ofcer flies via

inputs to the autoflight sys-

tem in the mode control panel

representation in the ground

control station). The super

dispatcher can then brief the

captain about information available in

the ground station, including the most

viable diversion choices given the en-

vironmental conditions and aircraft’s

physical state.

A new ground station capability in-

troduced in SPO-3 is the emergency

landing planner (ELP). Originally

designed by the Intelligent Systems

division at Ames as an emergency

landing spot finder for an aircraft that

had been damaged, ELP will recom-

mend the best diversion airport given

the weather and the conditions at the

various candidate airports. “It’s not

going to land the aircraft for the pi-

lot,” says Johnson, “but it will option-

ally devise a flight plan for them and

66 AVIATION WEEK & SPACE TECHNOLOGY/JANUARY 15-FEBRUARY 1, 2015 AviationWeek.com/awst

AIR TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT

The NASA-developed Cockpit

Situation Display provides a 3-D

graphic of current and future

weather, trafc and obstacles along

an aircraft’s route.

W

inning at technology does not always require devel-
oping new products or services from a clean sheet
of paper. The air trafc management (ATM) arms
of Airbus and Boeing have proven this by creating viable
businesses by advising airlines and air navigation service pro-
viders on how to take existing products for the ground or the
flight deck and repurpose or bundle the technologies for an
end-product the operators are willing to buy for cost-saving,
safety and environmental reasons. New or ongoing projects
for the companies include performance-based navigation so-
lutions, methods to reduce separation for arriving aircraft,
real-time wind updates for more efcient operations and

parallel runway operations. The concept that more efcient

ATM—typically the end product of the work—will help both

aircraft makers with sales in the future, leads to products

that work across aircraft platforms even as the companies

compete for new business.

Airbus’s ATM subsidiary, Airbus ProSky, recently launched

a new program in partnership with the European Union to

demonstrate better schedule predictability, efciency and

safety for operations at 10 vacation destinations in Europe

by implementing performance-based navigation (PBN) tech-

nologies that are available but not in widespread use. The

project, which will include more than 160 flight trials in visual

conditions at 10 airports over a two-year period starting in

mid-2015, is meant in part to demonstrate to European air-

lines and airports the benefits of equipping for PBN. Airbus

ProSky has about 200 employees, about 75% of whom are

located at the company’s Metron Aviation division in the U.S.,

with the others primarily in the company’s headquarters in

Toulouse, near the parent company.

Under the RNP Implementation Synchronized in Eu-

rope (RISE) program, Air France, Novair and TAP Portu-

gal will gain access to new PBN procedures at 10 airports

in France, Portugal, Greece and Cyprus, with Airbus and

JOHN CROFT/AW&ST