: Concept engineering, as addressed in this report, is the act of translating stakeholder needs into a operational concept (or CONOPS) for a product or system capable of satisfying the goals set forth by the stakeholder. This report summarizes the work performed in the second phase of research on development of an approach to use graphical and collaborative approaches to generating an operational concept for a new system. The goal of this research phase was to develop an initial set of primitives (or core terms) organized into a hierarchy (taxonomy) that is reusable when creating a collection of future scenarios for different domain. The initial approach taken was to decompose a well tested scenario, the Noncombatant Evacuation Operation Intelligence Gathering Scenario (NEO). The first step was to perform a cognitive task analysis of what was necessary to plan the scenario, and then to perform a decomposition of terms and concepts used in the scenario. This effort resulted in a number of insights being discovered, which advance the research to the next step. However, the NEO scenario was found wanting in complexity and information. In discussions with the sponsor of this research, it was recommended the team investigate a news agency as a more representative analog for this research.

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Investigation of a Graphical CONOPS Development Environment for Agile Systems Engineering - Phase 2

Airline Based En Route S equencing and S pacing (ABESS ) is a concept of operations that allows airlines to adjust the cruise speed of airplanes during the en-route phase of flight to meet a predetermined inter-aircraft spacing prior to entry into the terminal domain. This preconditioning process is intended to prepare flights for advanced descent procedures including Optimized Profile Descents (OPDs) and Flight-deck based Interval Management (FIM). This paper describes the ABESS concept and a series of four field-tests with the United Parcel Service (UPS ) Airline Operations Center (AOC) where an ABESS software prototype was fielded and tested between 2006 and 2010 during regular UPS operations. Test operations were completed in 2010. The field tests demonstrated flight trajectory predictions of up to 100 minutes that allowed the detection of up to 90 percent of spacing conflicts. The field tests also helped identify additional work areas to make long distance spacing preparations operationally feasible for airlines. This paper discusses the contributors to, and limits of stability for long-term trajectory pre dictions in the context of the flight tests. These findings are expected to be useful for the Next Generation Air Transportation S ystem (NextGen) and S ingle European S ky ATM Research (S ES AR) projects that require longer-term predictions of flight trajectories and fix crossing times during the en route phase of flight.

Airline Based En Route Sequencing and Spacing Field Test Results Observations and Lessons Learned for Interval Management

This paper describes a concept of operations for improving the merging and spacing operations as aircraft approach and transit into the terminal area that implements the NextGen concept for en route and arrival operations. The En route merging and spacing preparation (EMSP) concept describes the process, procedures, and technical capabilities to modify flight trajectories from multiple airlines to merge at a desired spacing over a specific metering point. EMSP links air navigation service provider (ANSP) with airline operations centers (AOCs) to jointly improve efficiency and capacity constraints. EMSP as it is outlined in this paper will be implemented in three incremental steps with increasing complexity and enhanced capabilities. EMSP is in an early stage of development and is currently under refinement by a development group that consists of members of the federal aviation administration (FAA), the MITRE corporationpsilas center for advanced aviation system development (CAASD), and the national air and space administration (NASA).

K. Viets

Papers

En Route Merging and Spacing Preparation concept of operations