Michael P. Matthews

Measurements of aircraft wake vortices at Memphis International Airport with a cw CO2 coherent laser radar

A CW-coherent laser radar using a 20-watt CO2 laser has been constructed and deployed for the measurement of wake-vortex turbulence. This effort is part of the NASA Terminal Area Productivity Program and has the goal of providing information to further the understanding of the motion and decay of wake vortices as influenced by the local atmospheric conditions. To meet this goal, vortex measurements are made with the lidar along with simultaneous measurements from a suite of meteorological sensors which include a 150 foot instrumented tower, a profiler/RASS, sodar and balloon soundings. The information collected also includes airline flight data and beacon data. The operation of the lidar during two field deployments at Memphis International Airport are described as well as examples of vortex motion and decay measurements in various atmospheric conditions.

Real-time predictive analytics to estimate air traffic flow rates

A Big data Analytics Infrastructure Testbed (BAIT) has been developed with the concept of providing analytics-as-a-service for algorithm developers to use when creating and testing new capabilities for air traffic management decision support. These capabilities typically require considerable processing power and must be tested and compared with a variety of algorithm modifications and parameter adjustments before they are incorporated into an existing real-time infrastructure. The BAIT infrastructure that has been developed and demonstrated has many applications, including: (1) Easily-configurable testing of multiple versions of the same algorithm simultaneously with automatic load balancing (2) Real-time and faster-than-real-time metrics generation providing the ability to alert air traffic flow managers of upcoming issues such as predicted flow rate limitations due to approaching weather (3) Rapid web-based display generation for the demonstration of real-time analytics and metrics This paper provides a description of the BAIT architecture, an initial use case and computational timing comparison, and a description of BAITs web browser-based demonstration display.

The Terminal Weather Information for Pilots (TWIP) program

A new technique is presented for improving pilot situational awareness of terminal weather hazards. The approach employed is to utilize new FAA terminal weather sensors and existing text-oriented data link capabilities found in most air carrier aircraft. Two types of messages are generated: a text message and a character graphics map. The Terminal Weather Information for Pilots (TWER) service has been demonstrated at several active airports with a number of airlines over the past three years. Two operational concepts were tested, one in which the pilots have to request TWIP messages and the other in which TWIP messages are sent to the cockpit automatically. Questionnaires were provided to the participating airline pilots in order to assess their reaction to the demonstration TWIP service. Message traffic was analyzed to determine whether pilots were using the service and if the use increased during periods of weather impact. TWIP messages and Surface Observations (SAOs) were compared for cases of significant airport weather impact. It was found that pilots responded favorably to the TWIP concept and made use of the demonstration service. It was also found that the TWIP messages provide more timely and accurate situational awareness of terminal weather hazards than the SAOs.