Requirements elicitation through storyboarding NextGen operational improvements

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has defined several operational improvements, based upon emerging technologies and aircraft equipage, which largely comprise air traffic operations expected at the end of the mid-term time frame, 2018. These operational improvements are intended to not only enable user and system-wide benefits, but also serve as the foundation for transforming the National Airspace System (NAS) into the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen). To plan for and better understand operational improvement implementation issues, the MITRE Corporation's Center for Advanced Aviation System Development (CAASD) has been formulating scenarios, derived from identified sets of related operational improvements, that provide a snapshot of future operations and detail key aspects. Development of the scenarios was largely based on the utilization of a visually motivated technique referred to as dasiastoryboardingpsila. The nature of storyboarding allows for new concepts to take a dasiashapepsila that can be commonly understood. This affords consensus building and promotes feedback acquisition in the early stages of the design phase, both which were prominent goals of this effort. These goals are accomplished because the scenarios developed provide a vehicle for conceptualizing interactions between the operational improvements described in the NextGen Implementation Plan on a more tangible level while also communicating their impact to various aviation and industry stakeholders. Scenarios can also facilitate cross-FAA and industry-FAA discussions for the purpose of identifying implementation gaps and, in turn, stimulate collaborative solutions which will serve to define implementation requirements. The compilation of these scenarios will help clarify the impact of operational improvements and their utilization. More importantly, the collaboration among key stakeholders as the by-product of this process will serve as the basis for successful partnerships in the FAA's progress towards NextGen.