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FLIGHT VALIDATION: By Jeremy Irish SUMMARY: As the demand for more efficient arrival and departure routes at airports continues to grow, the Federal Aviation Administration is seeking ways to allow airlines and private companies to meet the comprehensive safety testing requirements for designing flight procedures. MITRE has prototyped tools using inexpensive commercial technology that makes designing new procedures feasible. Securing Safe Approaches Despite the economy's current difficulties, travel experts expect air traffic to continue to increase at a steady pace. Some estimates show the number of planes in the sky at any given time doubling in the next few decades. To prepare the air traffic management system to accommodate this increased traffic while still maintaining our national airspace's exemplary safety record, the FAA is developing new concepts, standards, and solutions known collectively as the Next Generation Air Transportation System, or NextGen. One of the goals of NextGen is to improve the rate at which aircraft can safely land, especially in low-visibility weather conditions. As a result, the demand for more advanced routes that allow the aircraft to self-navigate is on the rise.
Inspecting Approaches Shortly before landing, an aircraft enters the approach phase of flight: the aircraft has achieved an appropriate speed for landing, it is descending at a fixed rate, the landing gear is deployed, the aircraft is lined up with the runway, and its wings are level. During an approach for a landing in poor visibility, a properly trained pilot in an appropriately equipped aircraft can fly the approach phase using just the navigation aid signals displayed on the instrument panel. This is called an instrument approach. Traditionally, the FAA tests each instrument approach prior to allowing its use. This safety check, called a flight inspection, involves flying the procedure during good visibility to ensure adequate signal reception from the navigation aids and appropriate clearance from prominent obstacles. Developing new instrument procedures is an expensive and time-intensive process, as each procedure requires a flight inspection to ensure a high level of safety. The FAA must dispatch a crew along with an aircraft to conduct these tests. During an inspection, it is not uncommon for the FAA to encounter issues that require sending crews back a second time to complete the tests. This can pose significant scheduling challenges. For the subset of instrument flight procedures that rely only on the use of Global Positioning System satellites, the FAA saw a need to augment some of the safety tests by flying the entire approach and capturing the flight data. This requirement puts more demand on limited resources than can be met by authorized airlines and procedure design companies. In response, MITRE is working closely with the FAA to develop the Flight Validation Capability, which MITRE will provide to aviation organizations so that they can conduct these additional safety activities in a cost-effective manner.
The Right Tools for the Job Flight validation consists of two distinct phases: a flight phase in which the procedure is assessed in an aircraft and a ground phase where the procedure may be assessed in a flight simulator and in which ground obstacles can be surveyed. For the flight phase, MITRE evaluated a variety of hand-held GPS units to record flight data. The best results were achieved using a $40 GPS receiver attached to the inside of the aircraft and connected to a laptop running the Flight Validation Capability. The Flight Validation Capability generates a moving map that displays the real-time progress of the validation flight while recording the required data. The moving map greatly increases situational awareness and makes completing the required validation tasks much easier. The Flight Validation Capability can also alert the operator if the satellite signals fall below desired levels and can merge multiple GPS readings into a single integrated flight track. Pinpointing Obstacles Probably the most critical capability of flight procedure validation is accurate obstacle assessment. Ensuring obstacles are in the correct location, traditionally done by the FAA, can now be accomplished by an approved testing organization. The FAA allows certified companies to complete the obstacle assessment from the air during the flight phase or from the ground during the ground phase. MITRE has prototyped a process to quickly and accurately conduct a groundbased obstacle assessment using inexpensive off-the-shelf equipment. The process consists of establishing a series of survey points around the given obstacle using a laser range finder and a hand-held GPS receiver connected to the Flight Validation Capability software. For the best accuracy, three or more survey points need to be recorded per obstacle. Once all measurements are complete, the software performs a "trilateration" calculation to determine the location of the obstacle with regard to the established survey points. Trilateration is a method in which a set of distance measurements from different locations is used to estimate an optimized location. Additionally, this solution provides the user with estimations of the survey accuracy, taking into account the instruments and geometry used in the survey. Flight procedure developers can now survey obstacles to the required accuracy without the cost of hiring a surveyor. Furthermore, the increased accuracy of obstacle surveys enables developers to safely use a larger region of airspace. Having more room to work with means the efficiency of new procedures can be improved. The Flight Validation Capability has been adopted by the FAA and several authorized domestic flight procedure validation organizations. The technology has also received attention from international airlines and foreign regulators interested in meeting similar validation requirements. MITRE recently filed an application with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office to patent the Flight Validation Capability. As the program evolves, MITRE will continue to work alongside the FAA and other flight procedure validation organizations to make any needed changes and enhancements to the technology. Related Information Articles and News
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For more information, please contact Jeremy Irish using the employee directory. Page last updated: February 15, 2011 | Top of page |
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