A Vision on Free Flight...

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A Vision on Free Flight...
By NLR in co-operation with NASA Ames, NASA
Langley, the FAA RLD

• Jacco Hoekstra (hoekstra_at_nlr.nl)
• Rob Ruigrok
• Ronald van Gent

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Today in the news...

• Near miss United 757 dep. from LAX missed a
  F-117 after a TCAS RA (500 ft)
• United loses millions of pax due to delays
• United pilots meet to discuss a pay raise
• (CBS News)

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Free Flight Operational Concept

• Reduce Costs via user preferred routing
• Horizontally
• direct to destination
• optimum speed
• Vertically
• optimum level gt cruise climb

• 100 Airborne Separation Assurance (no ATC)

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Operational Concept

• Co-operative conflict resolution (no priority
  rules)
• Implicit coordination by rules-of-the-air
  implemented in CDR system
• State info only (call sign, position and
  velocity)
• Look-ahead time of 5 minutes
• ASAS provides alerts with resolution advisories
  in a way that keeps pilots in the loop and aware
  of situation

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Conflict Detection Resolution

• Same principle yields vertical alternative
  solution

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Predictive ASAS

• Dont go indications
• Track
• Vertical speed
• Speed

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Distrust in distributed system

• Humans prefer orderly patterns (chaos danger)
• Unpredictability, due to higher order effect,
  which exceeds human mental simulation capability
  due to high number of interactions
• Resulting fears- bottlenecks- domino effects-
  overloads (workload etc.)

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Traffic Manager
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High Density sector
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Complex Conflict geometries
Wall
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Complex Conflict geometries
Super- conflict n 8
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Overview NLR studies

• NLR studies comprise- man-in-the-loop
  simulations (pilots ATC)- fast time traffic
  simulations- analysis- literature surveys
• Issues addressed are- conflict detection
  resolution methods- conflict prevention system-
  complex conflict geometries- pilot workload-
  pilot acceptability- display symbology- safety
  (both objective subjective)- mixed equipage
  procedures incl. ATC

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Overall Conclusions NLR study

• The feasibility of Free Flight with Airborne
  Separation Assurance could not be refuted ,
  based on 7 NLR studies on Free Flight
• The flight deck crew was able to handle much
  higher traffic densities than the ground
  controller

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Redundancy provided by co-operative conflict
resolution method

• Dangerous situation can only occur in a sector
  when- aircraft A has an ADS-B or ASAS
  failure- aircraft B has an ADS-B or ASAS
  failure- aircraft A B have a predicted
  loss-of-separation
• Compare ATC controlled scenario one central node
  is a single point of failure, which sequentially
  needs to solve global situation

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Distributed system vs. central system

• Effect on workload, safety and technological
  requirements

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Conclusion

• From results and analysis following hypotheses
  can be formulated
• Free Flight could provide a solution for
  en-route capacity problems.
• Because
• Problems due to the lack of central control can
  only occur at densities which by far exceed the
  capacity and demand of todays air transport
  system.

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Current men-in-the-loop experimenthuman
interaction experiment

• Logging into Traffic Manager via internet using
  downloadable FreeSim flight simulation program

• Goal Test effect of
• humans vs models
• competition
• on efficiency parameters

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More information

• NLR Free Flight web site
  http//www.nlr.nl/public/hosted-sites/freeflight
  Downloads section contains reports, presentations
  and demos.
• Comprehensive report on overall studies
  1997-1999Check web site for download!
• 2000 Demo sessions of human interaction
  experiment configuration will be announced on the
  website and NASA Langley.

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Free Flight the next step?

• Free Flight could be revolutionary improvement,
  but
• How do we get there?
• Focus
• ADS-B quality (bandwidth!) or other medium
• airborne separation assurance testing
• One test result is worth more than a 1000 expert
  opinions
• K.I.S.S.

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