May 4, 2007

In 1996, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) established a small team of engineers and computer scientists, called the Conflict Probe Assessment Team (CPAT), at the William J. Hughes Technical Center to evaluate the accuracy of the conflict probes in Decision Support Tools (DSTs).  Since its creation CPAT has: (1) measured the conflict prediction accuracy of the User Request Evaluation Tool (URET), (2) measured the trajectory modeling accuracy of both URET and CTAS, (3) conducted a study that measured the sensitivity of the URET conflict probe to weather forecast errors, and (4) assisted in the formal accuracy testing of URET Current Capability Limited Deployment (CCLD), which was the initial operational implementation of URET.  More recently and within the Simulation and Analysis Team, CPAT has lead a cross-functional team developing test metrics for the En Route Automation Modernization (ERAM) Program.  As a part of these analyses, CPAT has always valued tools that supplement their data analysis with visual representations of the data.  For example in 2001, CPAT developed a Java application called the Proof Encounter Preparation Program (PREPS) that provides input files for an off-the-shelf product called Proof Animation, which animates conflict encounter data.  In 2003, CPAT had a summer intern supported through the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education to develop a prototype of the TrajectoryGUI. 

In 2004, CPAT teamed with the Software Engineering, Graphics, and Visualization (SEGV) Research Group that was established by the Department of Computer Science at Rowan University and currently has 13 Alumni, two External Collaborators, seven Student Members, and one Senior Member.  Since SEGV’s research is focused on Software Engineering Education, Web Browsing and Visualization, Sound Visualization, and Graphical Software and Applications, CPAT saw that collaboration with them would provide an excellent opportunity for the continuing development and enhancement of the TrajectoryGUI application, as well as enrich the academic opportunities of the participating Rowan University students and staff.

Since inception, this collaboration has been very productive.  The group worked informally for the first few years and then in 2006 a Collaborative Research Development Agreement (CRDA) was established.  The CRDA formally recognizes the special relationship established and authorizes government personnel and equipment to be used for the activity.  It also formally addresses any intellectual property rights generated from the work.

On May 4, 2007, the Rowan University students presented their accomplishments from the Spring 2007 semester.  Under the direction and supervision of Rowan Professor, Dr. Adrian Rusu, two groups of students in teams of two and supplemented by our very own FAA Cooperative Student and Rowan graduate student, Confesor Santiago, worked on two graphical user interface projects.  Mr. Santiago also acted as a liaison between FAA personnel and the university students, responding to questions, acquiring data, defining requirements, and doing some of the programming.  Dr. Rusu, as the overall academic advisor and supervisor of the activity, set up independent study classes for the student teams.

The first set of students, Gary Gasko and Richard Wallace, presented their upgrades to TrajGUI.  This interactive tool provides a graphical interface to CPAT’s trajectory accuracy data, residing in an Oracle Database server.  The students upgraded several features of TrajGUI, most notably the supplemental display of sector boundaries.  The display dynamically responds to user adjusted slider bars for altitude and time, since sector mappings change with time based on operational requirements and by altitude geographically.  The enhancements allow analysts at the FAA to better understand not only what the trajectory prediction errors are but where they are in reference to the airspace.

The second set of students, Christopher Reyes and Thomas Pennetta, developed a brand new application, the Trajectory Accuracy Galaxy Visualization Tool (TrajGalaxyViz).  This tool is an exciting collaboration borrowing from Dr. Rusu’s and Rowan’s SEGV Research Group’s world class expertise in data visualization techniques.  The tool uses graphical models, using size and spatial mappings, to explore the relationships of the many factors influencing the trajectory prediction accuracy of a trajectory predictor.  It accomplishes this by interrogating the same Oracle Database tables as TrajGUI, but allows the user to explore the factors influencing the trajectory prediction accuracy.

Following the student presentations, letters and certificates of appreciation were presented to Dr. Rusu and his students by Mike Paglione, Engineer/Project Lead, of the Simulation and Analysis Team.  Both in attendance, these letters and certificates were signed by the Division Manager, Stan Pszczolkowski, of the System Analysis Team, and Richard Ozmore, Manager of the Simulation and Analysis Team. 

Mr. Pszczolkowski concluded the technical interchange meeting with a message to the students.  He stated that the projects they completed not only were excellent academic assignments, which they should be very proud of, but real productivity enhancing tools that will help improve the efficiency and safety of the National Airspace System in which the Federal Aviation Administration is responsible.  He challenged them to tell their family and friends about their positive experience with the FAA and civil servants working in the agency.

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November 10, 2006

Members of the Simulation & Analysis Team made presentations at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Young Professional, Student and Education Conference. The conference was held at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, MD. In the session: "Aviation Technology's for FAA," members of the Simulation & Analysis Team presented two of three briefings from the Technical Center. Confesor Santiago gave a briefing titled: "Development of a Graphical Tool for Aviation through Government and University Collaboration." Confesor is in the FAA intern program as a Rowan University Graduate student in Engineering/Computer Science. Mike Paglione presented a briefing titled: "Methods for Evaluating the Software Tools for Air Traffic Control," which illustrated the use of a genetic algorithm for testing aircraft-to-aircraft conflict probes and its context for our recent work in developing testing metrics for the En Route Automation Modernization (ERAM) program.

October 13, 2006

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (AIAA/IEEE) Digital Avionics Conference Mike Paglione of the Simulation & Analysis Team will present a technical paper and be a session chair at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (AIAA/IEEE) 25th Digital Avionics Conference in Portland Oregon on October 18-19, 2006. He will chair the technical session titled, "Performance/Trajectory Based Operations for Aviation." Mike will also present a paper he authored in the session "Surveillance and Radar Automation." The paper titled, "The Impact of Turns on Host Radar Tracking," is available at: http://acy.tc.faa.gov/cpat/docs/167pagliT.pdf

Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting

Scott Terrace of Titan representing the Simulation & Analysis Team, will present a paper at the 50th Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society which takes place October 16-20, 2006, in San Francisco, CA.

Air Traffic Control Association Annual Conference

Two papers from the Simulation & Analysis Team have been accepted for publication in the proceedings of the Air

Traffic Control Association 51st Annual Conference and Exposition being held in Washington DC, October 29 - November 1, 2006. The papers are available at the links below:

Metrics-based Approach for Evaluating Air Traffic Control Automation of the Future, Mike Paglione, Shurong Liu,

July 26, 2006

The FAA has recently entered into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRDA) with Rowan University. The collaborative research is in surveillance.

The objective of this collaborative partnership is the development and improvement of a graphical user interface for the display of recorded air traffic data, the display of the predictions of this air traffic data from National Airspace System decision support tools, and a Visualization Framework for radar data integrity. The expected outputs are software and documentation.

This is an excellent example of a partnership with an educational institution by assembling and using students under the direction of a professor to develop and test the project outputs while working with a Government engineer and allowing the collaborative party to have access to a federal laboratory and leverage resources.

The Government’s Principal Investigator is Mike Paglione located at the William J. Hughes Technical Center. The Principal Investigator for the Collaborating Research Organization is Adrian Rusu at Rowan University. This CRDA was awarded on July 25, 2006 and is effective for one (1) year.

February 6, 2006

The Simulation & Analysis Teams support of the FAA's EuroControl partnerships is featured in FAA an publication available at: http://www.tc.faa.gov/act4/insidethefence/2006/0102_19_eurocontrol.htm

2005 Past News