MITRE Releases Air Traffic Management Distributed Simulation Specification.

DALLAS -- At the Air Traffic Control Association's 50th Annual Conference, The MITRE Corporation's Center for Advanced Aviation System Development (CAASD) announced the release of a technical standard for interconnecting real-time air traffic management (ATM) simulations over the public Internet.

This new standard, known as AviationSimNet(TM), will allow the aviation community to test and evaluate new air traffic management systems, concepts, and procedures through integrated real time simulations that are geographically distributed among research laboratories, academia, commercial companies, and airlines.

In the development of AviationSimNet, MITRE CAASD worked closely with experts at NASA Langley Research Center, United Parcel Service, Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, the FAA's William J. Hughes Technical Center, and others in the aviation community.

AviationSimNet incorporates community knowledge and experience gained from previous distributed simulation activities. As a standard specification, AviationSimNet is designed to be reusable, reconfigurable, extensible, scalable, and highly flexible. Leveraging the existing public Internet infrastructure helps reduce the cost of distributed simulation while providing availability to the widest possible set of participants. This will help the aviation community reduce costs and save time when evaluating and fielding new systems, concepts and procedures. The AviationSimNet specification is built upon proven simulation and communications standards including the High-Level Architecture (HLA), TCP/IP, and IEEE Voice DIS 1278.1a.

Earlier this month, NASA and MITRE successfully demonstrated AviationSimNet by linking NASA-Langley cockpit simulators in Hampton, Virginia to Air Traffic Management and cockpit simulations at MITRE facilities in McLean, Virginia and Bedford, Massachusetts. Three different types of flight deck simulations from Langley were integrated for the demonstration: the Integrated Flight Deck, the Integrated Research Deck and 12 Air Traffic Operations Laboratory flight deck simulations. In the demonstration, two concepts were successfully integrated: (1) NASA-Langley's Airborne Precision Spacing and (2) the FAA's Cockpit Display of Traffic Information-Assisted Visual Separation standards.

In addition to the specification for interoperating distributed simulations, AviationSimNet consists of gateway software and a simulation hub. Today's release, version 1.0, is focused on the exchange of aircraft state data, however the specification will continue to evolve as new elements are added and the scope of simulation capabilities expands. MITRE has initiated a standards working group in the aviation community to coordinate the specification's evolution.

According to Amr ElSawy, Senior Vice President and General Manager of CAASD, "using the AviationSimNet standards will enable the aviation community to conduct joint simulations and experiments without replicating resources. This will save the community valuable time and money as the air transportation system transforms to the Next Generation. AviationSimNet takes collaboration to a new level of sophistication."

As an example of its use, AviationSimNet will enable evaluations of sophisticated airborne-based separation software designed for potential deployment on future flight decks and integrated with ground-based air traffic management decision support systems being developed by different organizations. "We are excited about the possibility of demonstrating the feasibility and value of new flight concepts that will enable greater user flexibility by leveraging existing flight deck technologies", says Captain Karen Lee, Director of Flight Operations for United Parcel Service.

For more information on AviationSimNet please contact Francis McLoughlin at [phone] or [e-mail].

CAASD is the FAA's Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC), operated by The MITRE Corporation at their McLean, Virginia location. MITRE (www.mitre.org) is a not-for-profit company that provides systems engineering, research and development, and information technology expertise to the government. In addition to CAASD, MITRE operates federally funded research and development centers for the Department of Defense and the Internal Revenue Service, with principal locations in Bedford, Mass., and McLean, Va.

(TM)AviationSimNet is a trademark of The MITRE Corporation

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