Ground Operation Concept Testing Requirements and Challenges

Abstract

In view of the increasing air traffic demand as well as the increasing complexity of systems that operate in the Air Traffic Management (ATM) environment, many future concept research topics involving automation have been proposed to improve traffic efficiency and safety. The development of far-future concepts has a disruptive research path in which the concepts work with a future automation scenario that requires the consideration of transition from the current-day operation scenario. This research path allows for greater creativity in the re-thinking of air traffic control management systems without being tied into the pre-existent systems. However, such freedom comes at a cost of making assumptions pertaining to transition plausibility. This research strategy poses difficult challenges in creating the right environment to support development of the concept and other future concept research. This paper summarizes the requirements identified through experiments, including the use of suggestions from subject-matter experts, for implementing a proper research environment that can ultimately simulate the automated operations intended for air traffic controllers in the future. The purpose of this paper is to identify and address the factors limiting concept development and testing, and use lessons learned to improve the chances of viable concepts maturing to deployment readiness.