Transportation Innovation Center

MITRE’s Transportation Innovation Center conducts multimodal research and development to lead the transportation sector safely, securely, and efficiently into a future of automated and intelligent systems. Our pioneering research tackles the emerging challenges facing this vital ecosystem.

We work with innovation partners to test, evaluate, demonstrate, and integrate concepts and operations. Our combined capabilities instill critical insight into safety assurance, interoperability, safety-critical communications, and system dynamics of modern transportation ecosystems.

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Where do people, processes, and technologies come together to transform transportation? MITRE’s state-of-the-art IDEA Lab, where we run complex simulations and experiments to solve global challenges in aerospace and transportation.

It looks like a routine takeoff, but when this aircraft left the gate, it entered it environment teaming with technology, sharing the same ground and airspace. This pilot and air traffic controller are not in an airport. They're in a simulated world. The IDEA Lab, a key asset in MITRE's Transportation Innovation Center in McLean, Virginia. Experimenting and creating new strategies and tools in this state-of-the-art laboratory, MITRE has helped to transform the national airspace system and global aviation, enabling safer, more efficient air traffic on the ground and in flight. In the IDEA Lab, controllers, pilots, policymakers, industry innovators, third-party service suppliers, and airlines operation staff work together to see new concepts in action. Simulations have accelerated our ability to explore technologies, procedures, and ideas without impacting the safety, efficiency, and access airspace users depend on every day, reducing the impacts of wake turbulence at congested airports, preventing surface collisions at small airports, creating a digital assistant to help pilots fly more safely, demonstrating the Federal Aviation Administration's vision for planning, managing, and optimizing flight efficiencies in skies shared by commercial, private, unmanned aircraft, and commercial space vehicles. Operational expertise, the ability to rapidly develop and integrate prototypes. Sophisticated scenario development and experience in human-centered simulation set MITRE's IDEA Lab apart. The IDEA Lab is adaptable and portable. We can integrate others' technologies, connect to other labs, hop into the cloud, or even set up a partner site. Most importantly, it gives each stakeholder an understanding of what needs to happen to turn ideas into reality. The IDEA Lab is prototyping future environments, applying MITRE's expertise and processes to add value across the whole of government and solve problems for a safer world.

Our Capabilities

Transportation Data Analytics

Operational Simulation and Experimentation

Transportation System Modeling, Economic and Policy Analysis

Transportation Technology Integration

Transportation Data Analytics

Transportation stakeholders face increasing challenges in analyzing their operations, making complex decisions, and conducting tradeoff analyses between competing alternatives.

Consider the decision-making behind the technologies, infrastructure, procedures, and policies needed to integrate uncrewed aircraft systems—commonly called drones—into the National Airspace System and intelligent transportation systems. Those decisions require complex analysis of large amounts of technical and economic data from many different sources, in diverse formats, and at different levels of detail.

To tackle these challenges, MITRE developed our Transportation Data Platform. This big-data analytics enterprise accelerates prototype development and powers the execution of transportation-related data analytics projects, even the most multifaceted ones.

Operational Simulation and Experimentation

There are many new airspace users—such as uncrewed aircraft systems and commercial space operators—that must safely integrate with the current environment and future smart cities and intelligent transportation systems.

MITRE’s human-centered design and evaluation teams combine design, evaluation, and demonstration of current and future aviation and surface transportation systems, concepts, and user interfaces with a focus on human-machine teaming, interoperability, and safety. We apply our human factors and software development expertise to conduct usability studies and benefits analysis using composable simulations, immersive visualizations, and virtual environments.

Transportation System Modeling, Economic and Policy Analysis

We provide insights into the broader economic effects of changes in transportation operations, policy, or regulations, within and beyond transportation sectors.

Our teams develop multi-modal models and fast-time simulations of the transportation system. Our pre- and post-implementation analyses and logistics modeling improve transportation performance and efficiency. By conducting quantitative domestic and international economic modeling and analysis, we inform policy, assess impacts, and provide insights into supply chain issues.

Transportation Technology Integration

Global transportation systems are becoming highly automated, requiring careful integration of often incompatible technology standards, software, and control systems. This reality creates complex communication and network challenges that must be overcome to enable these intelligent systems.

Our teams design seamless communication interfaces between and among surface, aviation, maritime, and space domains. We define and analyze communications and networking systems requirements used in transportation applications from surface to space, including spectrum needs and constraints.

For example, MITRE collaborated with industry and the FAA to develop uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) minimum performance standards and implementation guidance for command and control radio links. Our team has evaluated radio architectures that can reliably support point-to-point and beyond-radio-line-of-sight terrestrial and satellite communications. This work helps ensure safe UAS operations in all operating environments.

Transportation Data Analytics

Transportation stakeholders face increasing challenges in analyzing their operations, making complex decisions, and conducting tradeoff analyses between competing alternatives.

Consider the decision-making behind the technologies, infrastructure, procedures, and policies needed to integrate uncrewed aircraft systems—commonly called drones—into the National Airspace System and intelligent transportation systems. Those decisions require complex analysis of large amounts of technical and economic data from many different sources, in diverse formats, and at different levels of detail.

To tackle these challenges, MITRE developed our Transportation Data Platform. This big-data analytics enterprise accelerates prototype development and powers the execution of transportation-related data analytics projects, even the most multifaceted ones.

Operational Simulation and Experimentation

There are many new airspace users—such as uncrewed aircraft systems and commercial space operators—that must safely integrate with the current environment and future smart cities and intelligent transportation systems.

MITRE’s human-centered design and evaluation teams combine design, evaluation, and demonstration of current and future aviation and surface transportation systems, concepts, and user interfaces with a focus on human-machine teaming, interoperability, and safety. We apply our human factors and software development expertise to conduct usability studies and benefits analysis using composable simulations, immersive visualizations, and virtual environments.

Transportation System Modeling, Economic and Policy Analysis

We provide insights into the broader economic effects of changes in transportation operations, policy, or regulations, within and beyond transportation sectors.

Our teams develop multi-modal models and fast-time simulations of the transportation system. Our pre- and post-implementation analyses and logistics modeling improve transportation performance and efficiency. By conducting quantitative domestic and international economic modeling and analysis, we inform policy, assess impacts, and provide insights into supply chain issues.

Transportation Technology Integration

Global transportation systems are becoming highly automated, requiring careful integration of often incompatible technology standards, software, and control systems. This reality creates complex communication and network challenges that must be overcome to enable these intelligent systems.

Our teams design seamless communication interfaces between and among surface, aviation, maritime, and space domains. We define and analyze communications and networking systems requirements used in transportation applications from surface to space, including spectrum needs and constraints.

For example, MITRE collaborated with industry and the FAA to develop uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) minimum performance standards and implementation guidance for command and control radio links. Our team has evaluated radio architectures that can reliably support point-to-point and beyond-radio-line-of-sight terrestrial and satellite communications. This work helps ensure safe UAS operations in all operating environments.