NASA Air Traffic Control Software to Yeild Huge Savings

By John Bluck
  NASA Press Release, August 13, 1998
  NASA Ames Research Center

Almost a billion dollars could be saved annually when award-winning air traffic control software developed by NASA is in use nationwide at major airports and enroute centers.
     The Federal Aviation Administration has chosen the software for implementation at major airports and estimated its use could save as much as $800 million per year.
     
"The air traffic software is in daily use at Dallas-Fort Worth, the world's busiest airport," said Heinz Erzberger, senior scientist for air traffic management at NASA's Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA. "The software saves an average of two minutes per flight, saving money for airlines and passengers."
     Officially called "Center TRACON Automation System Software," or CTAS, it includes two software tools for managing air traffic. They are Traffic Management Advisor and the Final Approach Spacing Tool that assist air traffic controllers with airplanes enroute and at terminals. TRACON is terminal radar approach control.
     Traffic Management Advisor helps traffic managers establish a flow rate of air traffic that closely matches the capacity of an airport. The Final Approach Spacing Tool provides suggested landing sequences and runway assignments to minimize delays, and it increases landing rate by about 10 percent during critical traffic rushes. An advanced version of the spacing tool, now being developed, will provide speed and heading advisories to help controllers space air traffic accurately on final approach, further increasing capacity.
     "Cost to the FAA of implementing the first two tools is about $600 million over an eight-year period, an effort that began in 1996," said Erzberger. He was the originator of the CTAS automation concept. CTAS is to be installed in 22 major airports and 15 enroute centers. These centers control air traffic above 10,000 ft.
      In 1991, the CTAS project began at Ames. An early version of the system is in daily use at Denver, Los Angeles, Hartsfield-Atlanta and Miami international airports.
     "The entire CTAS effort is a successful partnership among NASA, the FAA, its controllers and contract companies," said Michelle Eshow, CTAS software development group leader at Ames. "The software design is flexible enough that we can add new tools without extensive re-writing of computer code," she added.
     The CTAS software, developed under the direction of Eshow, was recently named co-winner of NASA's 1998 Software of the Year Award.
     "CTAS is like a `windows' computer environment. CTAS enables the addition of many more air traffic controller tools beyond the first two," Erzberger explained.
     About 70 people at Ames are working on the continued evolution and research and development of the CTAS software and concepts, he said. One new tool now being developed is Descent Advisor. "It improves fuel efficiency of aircraft descents into large airports," Erzberger said.
     CTAS tools are designed to be "human centered" because the tools advise controllers, who retain full control over decisions. CTAS also adapts to controller actions and unplanned events. It refreshes trajectories and advisories every 4 to 12 seconds with each radar update as well as with each controller input.
     CTAS software now includes more than 500,000 lines of computer code, written in C and C++ languages. The software runs on a network of high performance workstations.
     To learn more about NASA software, other innovations, commercialization efforts and the agency's technology transfer programs, interested parties can call 1-800-678-6882 or access the Ames Commercial Electronic Technology Network web page at URL:
http://ctoserver.arc.nasa.gov/
     Additional technical information can be found on the CTAS website, http://ctas.arc.nasa.gov