Research Progress on an Automation Concept for Surface Operation with Time-Based Trajectories

To address anticipated growth in air traffic demand, the surface operation automation research (SOAR) is a collection of research activities designed with the common goal to explore and develop automation technologies for enhancing surface movement efficiency at major airports. The concept features a tower automation system that counts on the availability of advanced surveillance data to plan the execution of timed surface operations to enhance movement efficiency and safety. Communication of the clearances will require the availability of digital data link for sending the data for executing the time-based trajectories - known to some as 4-dimensional (4D) trajectories. The concept also features a flight-deck automation system that counts on the availability of advanced navigation data to enable the flights to execute the 4D trajectories with high timing precision. The arrangement results in a collaborative concept where the tower and flight-deck automation systems count on each other's abilities to jointly deliver the efficient and safe surface traffic. Several publications have documented the SOAR concept and initial feasibility studies of the tower and flight-deck automation systems based on early experimental software prototypes of the automation functions. This paper serves as a progress update of the SOAR development effort. Specifically, it covers recent human-in-the-loop experiments to study procedures and controller roles and responsibilities involving the tower automation system, as well as development of the flight-deck automation system in terms of its guidance and control functions.