A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/808779
SAFETY AND TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT AIRSPACE TE CHNICAL DEMONSTRATION 2 (ATD - 2) Pete Slattery (CLT) represents the membership as the Article 114 Representati ve for ATD - 2. His report for is below. Airspace Technology Demonstration 2 (ATD - 2): On March 7 - 9, I participated in a Human - In - The - Loop (HITL) simulation of the ATD - 2 system at NASA Ames Research Center. I was accompanied by another NATCA member and TMC f rom CLT, Wade Brooks. Also participating was Gene Walling from ZTL. Members of the American Airlines Ramp tower at CLT also participated in the HITL. Attending as observers were members of management from CLT and ZDC , along with representatives from FAA Ne xtGen, Surface, and Operational Requirements and Validation Offices . The primary objective of this HITL was to enable eventual users of the system (Field Demo Partners - NASA ' s term) to interact with the fully integrate d Phase 1 system in a realistic simula tion environment in preparation for us ing the system later this year. The simulation environment included four distinct operational areas: airport ramp traffic control (Ramp), Air Traffic Control Tower (ATCT) TMU, Terminal RADAR Approach Control (TRACON) TMU, and Air Route Traf fic Control Center (ARTCC) TMU. NASA designed a very faithful emulation of the operational facilities, and the routine traffic encountered at these various locations in order to evaluate the two major prototype components of ATD - 2 s ystem: the Surface Trajectory - Based Operations (STBO) subsystem and the Time - Based Flow Management/ Integrated Departure Arrival Capability (TBFM/IDAC) subsystem. Quantitative and qualitative data (NASA terms) were collected from the participants who evalu ated the expected ATD - 2 procedures for surface departure metering implemented in the ramp management tools, the Call For Release process between Charlotte ATCT and Washington Center, and the procedures associated with information sharing between the Charlo tte ATCT and AAL Ramp Tower. NASA will feed results from this HITL into the final set of capabilities for the Phase 1 Field Demonstration set to begin in CLT in September of this year. My impression of the system was that it worked very well and gave us much greater insight into when aircraft will really be ready to enter the airport movement area (AMA), thus enabling us to make better use of airport resources and allow us to make better predictions of surface congestion. It will also allow us to make bet ter requests for releases into overhead streams to constrained destinations. NASA also placed a final f reeze on all features and capabilities of the Phase 1 version of their software at CLT on March 29th. NASA has completed all of the cabling necessary to install the equipment into the operational areas at CLT tower and TRACON and the equipment should be installed in the next few weeks and months. There will also be continued Operational Shadow evaluations and observations of traffic management activiti es at CLT throughout the