- Air Traffic Management
- Guidance, Navigation, Control, and Estimation
- Multi-Modal Transportation
- Operational Procedures and Operator Interfaces
- Communications, Navigation, Surveillance, and Weather Sensor Systems
- Advanced Sensors and Machine Vision
ATI principals, associates and partners have extensive
research experience in air traffic management and air traffic control.
Their research activities cover vast topic areas, including: airspace
and airport designs and analyses, operational concept designs and analyses,
probabilistic forecasting of traffic demand, National Airspace System
(NAS) delay forecasting based on weather forecast and traffic demand,
and air traffic flow modeling. Specific concepts that have been studied
include: aircraft self-separation for Free Flight, modeling and prediction
of air traffic controller workload, direct routing as an alternative to
the conventional airspace route structure, integration of space launch
vehicle operation into the NAS, advanced traffic flow management techniques,
use of very closely spaced parallel runways for IFR operations, and automation
systems for ATC and the flight deck.
Principals of ATI have led the development of various ATM analysis tools
as well as decision support tools for air traffic control (ATC) and traffic
flow management (TFM). The suite of tools for ATM ayalyses are useful
for studying system-wide models involving airspace geometry, sectorization
of the en route airspace, Special Use Airspace (SUA), victor airways and
jet routes, terminal airspace, and airport operations. The tools support
models of most common aircraft and rotorcraft types, and sophisticated
models of guidance and navigation algorithms for simulating realistic
aircraft operations and trajectories. These computer-based tools have
been used in evaluating novel concepts for improving safety and increasing
capacity of the NAS. In addition to analysis tools, the ATI staff have
spearheaded the development of various decision support tools that incorporate
advanced technologies for TFM as well as en route, terminal, and airport
ATC.
Guidance, Navigation, Control, and Estimation:
ATI principals are all experts in guidance, navigation, control, and estimation involving all sorts of aerospace vehicles. Their practial experience in these areas covers various types of fixed-wing aircraft including commerical and fighter jets, rotorcraft, missiles, spacecraft and space-launch vehicles. Their studies often involve verification and analyses using detailed six-degree-of-freedom simulations, with some of the more complex systems verified in flight tests. Estimator design to support operation of the aerospace vehicles is routine, and more sophisticated nonlinear estimation techniques have been applied to accomplish health monitoring of the aerospace systems.
ATI personnel have extensive experience in modeling and analyzing complex transportation systems. Multi-modal transportation is quickly becoming a key factor in advancing the economy and commerce of modern society. Proper design of such systems will require sophisticated and detailed analysis tools to validate their benefits and efficacy.
Operational Procedures and Operator Interfaces:
ATI personnel have been involved in the development and analysis of operational procedures for various domains in the air transportation system. Advanced procedures have been developed for operations in the en route, terminal, and surface domains. Some of these studies involve the use of advanced Flight Management System (FMS) for improving air traffic operations. Assessment efforts include the use of highly complex and yet general-purpose distributed-network systems. Some of these involve computer simulations modeling the operatinal components as distributed agents. Others involve human-in-the-loop simulations integrated with rapid prototyping tools to assess human factors in the operatinal environment. Flight evaluations have been performed to demonstrate the more mature technologies.
The technology development has included the designs and analyses of operator intefaces for air traffic control (ATC) and the flight deck. Examples of ATC displays include those designed to introduce automation to the control tower, TRACON, and ARTCC. Flight-deck display examples include the design of Cockpit Display of Traffic Information (CDTI), and the implementation of a state-of-the-art laboratory for the development of cockpit situational display concepts and guidelines to support flight-deck--based self-separation and real-time routing in a Free Flight environment. Advanced cockpit displays are also being studied to support future concepts involve automated surface operations.
Communications, Navigation, Surveillance, and Weather Sensor Systems:
Most advanced concepts studied by ATI principals involve advanced communications, navigation, surveillance (CNS) and weather sensor systems. Examples include definition of software requirements for such applications as datalink communications, and ATCRBS (Air Traffic Control Radar Beacon System) surveillance simulation model. ATI partners include major radar manufacturers and avionics companies.
Advanced Sensors and Machine Vision:
ATI principals have experience in developing advanced sensor systems, and especially systems involving imaging sensors and machine vision. Examples include:
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Machine vision for automated helicopter operations—The technology involved real-time image processing for range estimation based on sequences of video images. Neural networks were developed for segmenting images based on texture information and range estimates.
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Image processing for space interferometer control—Sophisticated image processing algorithms were developed to estimate structural errors in the optics of a multi-spacecraft space interferometer. The technology allowed the errors to be estimated without the use of exorbitantly expensive metrology sensors.
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Software developed for "Eye Movements and Cognition Studies" projects to process and calibrate eye-head movement data and to model human tracking performance—The activities included human-factors evaluation of a wireless head-mounted display.
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Shrink-wrapped commercial product developed for automatically generating a caricature of a given facial image.
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Project management for building an on-line fault detection system for one of the major chip manufacturing industries—The system was based on image processing and statistical pattern recognition techniques.
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"Modeling for Sensor-Based Semiconductor Process Control" project—A 3D radiative heat transfer algorithm based on ray-tracing technique was developed and implemented.
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Project management for a Model-Based Control System Design for Ceramic Components Gelcasting—The project involved building an interface with an optical sensor and developing algorithms to detect changes in object size and dimension based on the sensor data.
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Advanced Crew Station Automation (ACSA)—The Reconnaissance, Selection and Occupation of Position (RSOP) module involving image processing was developed to perform route planning and evaluation of sites and routes based on digital terrain maps.
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Decision Enhancement System program—New algorithm was developed for combining evidence from the different on-board sensors to determine a total/combined risk value. This algorithm was based on the use of fuzzy linguistic variables and incorporated the dynamics of the environment in the model.
