Assessing Diverse Operational Factors for Agile Decision Making in an Info-Centric National Airspace System (NAS)

Highly autonomous aircraft providing surveillance, telecommunication, passenger, and cargo transportation services are expected to see widespread use in the coming years. The integration of these novel vehicles poses many challenges that have to be addressed before their use for commercial purposes can be implemented. The goal of this paper is to provide a structured approach utilizing the decision identification framework (DIF) to identify key decisions to address unique operational needs in an Info-Centric NAS (ICN). Example use cases related to advanced air mobility (AAM) operations are utilized to demonstrate the application of the framework.