Prototype Flight Management Capabilities to Explore Temporal RNP Concepts

Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) concepts of operation may require aircraft to fly planned trajectories in four dimensions three spatial dimensions and time. A prototype 4D flight management capability is being developed by NASA to facilitate the development of these concepts. New trajectory generation functions extend today's flight management system (FMS) capabilities that meet a single Required Time of Arrival (RTA) to trajectory solutions that comply with multiple RTA constraints. When a solution is not possible, a constraint management capability relaxes constraints to achieve a trajectory solution that meets the most important constraints as specified by candidate NextGen concepts. New flight guidance functions provide continuous guidance to the aircraft s flight control system to enable it to fly specified 4D trajectories. Guidance options developed for research investigations include a moving time window with varying tolerances that are a function of proximity to imposed constraints, and guidance that recalculates the aircraft s planned trajectory as a function of the estimation of current compliance. Compliance tolerances are related to required navigation performance (RNP) through the extension of existing RNP concepts for lateral containment. A conceptual temporal RNP implementation and prototype display symbology are proposed.

• Record URL:
  http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20080043675_2008043422.pdf
• 
• Corporate Authors:

  NASA Langley Research Center

  Hampton, VA  United States  23681-2199
• Authors:
  • Ballin, M G
  • Williams, D H
  • Allen, B D
  • Palmer, M T
• Publication Date: 2008-10

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 12p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Air traffic control; Air transportation; Aircraft operations; Control systems; Flight time; Navigation; Vehicle trajectories
• Identifier Terms: Next Generation Air Transportation System
• Uncontrolled Terms: Flight management system; Software engineering
• Subject Areas: Aviation; Safety and Human Factors; I85: Safety Devices used in Transport Infrastructure;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01135394
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Jul 21 2009 8:11AM