Future ATM Operational Concepts

All Weather Capacity Increasing Concept

Purpose
Weather is a major limiting factor in the National Airspace System (NAS) today, accounting for roughly 65% of all traffic delays. The trend over the last several years also indicates that the delays related to weather events are increasing as traffic levels increase. For the future, the capacity of the NAS is ultimately limited to its ability to accommodate safe and efficient travel under all weather conditions across all domains (surface, terminal area, and en route). To this end, Metron Aviation is in the process of designing an “All Weather Operational Concept” for the NAS for the year 2020.

Research & Development
Surface Management: Developing surface management algorithms for coordinating runway configuration changes Terminal/Transition Airspace: developing algorithms that dynamically re-route flow of arrival aircraft En Route Airspace: Designing algorithms to design and adjust playbook plays to 4D shape of weather constraints

Concept of Operation
A set of Core Ideas have been established:

Core Idea 1: Flexible Traffic Management Around Weather Constraints. This core idea identifies control techniques for managing traffic through and around weather. The concept is to optimize flow around hazardous weather constraints. These control techniques (see Figure below) span across all domains and cover all time-horizons of control ranging from long-term strategic planning to short-term tactical reaction. The goal is to identify control methods and procedures that strive for clear weather throughput during all-weather conditions.

Core Idea 2: Coupled Weather and Traffic Prediction. This core idea identifies methods for predicting traffic movement through and around weather. Prediction of weather and traffic effects must seamlessly extend from relatively precise tactical information for short time horizons to probabilistic strategic information for long-term time horizons. Decision Support Tools (DSTs) (covering all operational domains) must incorporate consistent predictions of the traffic/weather and/or constraints imposed by the weather. This is critical for maximizing capacity in each operational domain and for planning and coordinating future traffic management decisions.

User Triad

Core Idea 3: Situation Awareness, Coordination, and Information Distribution. Shared situation awareness among all members of the User Triad must be crafted in a constructive manner. We must ensure that the underlying weather/traffic prediction logic, DST adaptations, and user interface technologies are compatible with the human operator’s interpretive skills and action-taking/implementation capabilities. The goal is to identify types of interfaces, roles, responsibilities, and procedures that support effective decision-making during weather impacted conditions in the NAS.

Example Research and Development Efforts
Surface Management: Developing surface management algorithms for coordinating runway configuration changes based on forecasted wind shifts, accurate control of take off time to support weather avoidance maneuvers for departing aircraft, surface movement control that accounts for de-icing and snow removal, and new displays that assist in low and zero visibility operations.

Terminal/Transition Airspace
Developing algorithms that dynamically (minute-by-minute) change the jet routes to re-route the flow of arrival and departure traffic safely around hazardous weather constraints.

En Route Airspace
Designing algorithms to automatically design and adjust playbook plays to the 4D shape of weather constraints, coordinate 4D wind optimized routes with 4D weather constraints, and establish high capacity yet low complexity Flow Constrained Areas (FCAs) that direct traffic in a uniform direction.

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