Thomas Feuerle

The Convective Storm Initiation Project

The Convective Storm Initiation Project (CSIP) is an international project to understand precisely where, when, and how convective clouds form and develop into showers in the mainly maritime environment of southern England. A major aim of CSIP is to compare the results of the very high resolution Met Office weather forecasting model with detailed observations of the early stages of convective clouds and to use the newly gained understanding to improve the predictions of the model. A large array of ground-based instruments plus two instrumented aircraft, from the U.K. National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) and the German Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research (IMK), Karlsruhe, were deployed in southern England, over an area centered on the meteorological radars at Chilbolton, during the summers of 2004 and 2005. In addition to a variety ofground-based remote-sensing instruments, numerous rawinsondes were released at one- to two-hourly intervals from six closely spaced sites. The Met Office weather radar network and Meteosat satellite imagery were used to provide context for the observations made by the instruments deployed during CSIP. This article presents an overview of the CSIP field campaign and examples from CSIP of the types of convective initiation phenomena that are typical in the United Kingdom. It shows the way in which certain kinds of observational data are able to reveal these phenomena and gives an explanation of how the analyses of data from the field campaign will be used in the development of an improved very high resolution NWP model for operational use.

Rule-based NOTAM & Weather notification

Today, commercial airline pilots need to consider various sources of information during flight operation. The documentation is both available on paper or within a digital medium. The extensive amount of information is neither prioritized nor filtered, and therefore lead to information overflow. The consideration of all relevant information from the various sources is performed without electronic support and may potentially lead to misinterpretation of the context. It is also challenging to merge and evaluate all delivered information regarding specific phases of flight as well as unforeseen adversarial scenarios. Jeppesen, integrator for world wide aeronautical information and provider for airborne and ground systems such as Electronic Flight Bags (EFB) and dispatch systems, and Technische Universität Braunschweig, with its Institute for Flight Guidance, have jointly developed a rule-based weather and NOTAM notification system. In order to develop a cockpit notification system, a generic data format has been established that copes with all necessary message types used in commercial and general aviation. The paper discusses the rules and definitions required for the implementation of the concepts described above. It presents possible solutions for the integration into the airline cockpit workflow with the following key objectives: • Development of a concept of business rules for the Rule Based NOTAM and Weather Notification System • Connection of real-time NOTAM and weather source data to a data-driven EFB charting application to apply the business rules • Depiction of relevant NOTAM and weather information as notification to the pilots.

Testbed for dual-constellation GBAS concepts

Satellite based Navigation Systems (Global Navigation Satellite System GNSS) will become a major element in the navigation infrastructure of the future. In addition to classical en-route and terminal navigation, where GNSS is increasingly used, approach and landing procedures are being developed and implemented based on GNSS. To meet the requirements of integrity, accuracy, continuity and availability for precision approach and landing operations, augmentation systems are needed. Currently there are two augmentation systems for these periods of flight available: Ground Based Augmentation Systems (GBAS) and Space Based Augmentation Systems (SBAS).

Geometrical siting considerations for wide area multilateration systems

Multilateration or hyperbolic positioning is more and more becoming a vital part of air surveillance. An important aspect of the installation of multilateration systems is the arrangement of receiver sites. This paper focuses on the influence of applied methods and algorithms to solve the multilateration equation set and their influence on the goodness of the geometrical arrangement represented by the dilution of precision.

New Concept for Wake-Vortex Hazard Mitigation Using Onboard Measurement Equipment

Wake-vortex hazards are a huge threat in aviation. These hazards are well accepted in the vicinity of airports (both departure and arrival). But also a number of en route incidents have happened in the past. Current wake-vortex mitigation strategies are based on static distances (in space and/or time). In future air traffic management concepts of Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research and NextGen, these static distances will be replaced by dynamic separation strategies. Furthermore, concepts for self-separation of aircraft are described. This paper will discuss the work at Technische Universitat Braunschweig, where a new concept for wake-vortex hazard mitigation has been developed. The basic idea of the new concept is that only a criticality parameter will be transmitted between aircraft to ensure a safe separation even within new self-separation concepts. The criticality parameter will give an indication about the severity (and therefore criticality to the following aircraft) of the vortices...

Evaluation of an Automated Taxi Concept in a Distributed Simulation Environment

Taking into account the actual predictions for the growth of air traffic in Europe in the next 20 years, major hub airports will become more and more the bottlenecks in the overall air transport network. Amongst other factors, current taxi procedures and the dependency on airfield view for both, controllers and flight crews, have a large impact on an airport’s efficiency and capacity. The ROLF project (Rollfuhrung, Taxi Guidance), a sub-project of the research project iPort (Innovative Airport) within the scope of the German Aeronautical Research Program (LuFo IV), aimed at operational changes at airports to meet future requirements regarding the arising European airspace demand by introducing an increased level of automation. Following the project’s objectives, a concept of operations was developed by the ROLF partners that describes in detail the systems and procedures necessary for automated taxi operations. This paper focuses on a human-in-the-loop evaluation of the operational concept in order to investigate its feasibility and the general acceptance by its users from flight deck perspective. At first, the operational concept is introduced in the context of an Advanced Surface Movement Guidance and Control System (A-SMGCS). A simulation environment spatially distributed over multiple locations in Germany is described, which was the base for the evaluation study. Finally, the conducted simulation study and evaluation results are presented. Several positive effects with regard to automated taxi procedures were observed.

Development of a database for strategic route planning considering noise protection areas and meteorological conditions

As air traffic remains despite the economic recession in summer 2008 a growth market and current forecasts still predict an increase in the air traffic worldwide, it becomes necessary to change current traffic procedures and to integrate innovative ATM technologies in order to meet future requirements. The air transportation system is a highly complex system with innumerable influencing factors. One of the main goals is to preserve or even improve the current safety level, however environmental and economic aspects become more and more important. This paper describes a concept for a dynamic flight path optimization by means of spatial and timely changing variables focusing on ecological efficiency. Regarding the influence factors, there are several weather phenomenon as well as noise protection areas to consider. Particularly, the gathering of meteorological information is challenging as a single aircraft is only able to accomplish local measurements. Nowadays, the flight crew is provided with weather forecasts for the planned route and its surroundings before the flight. Within this research concept it is assumed that in the near future regular updates are transmitted via data link to the aircraft. As a large amount of data has to be processed then, efficient data storage, sorting, and weighting is necessary to ensure a clear data handling for the generation of the four-dimensional trajectories. For this purpose an onboard database is considered. Through an early optimization of the flight path, an ecological efficient route planning can be achieved which allows a minimization of detours and a reduction of noise pollution at the same time.

Flight Testing and Data Evaluation of Ground-Based Augmentation Systems

Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) are becoming an integral part of the navigation structure available to civil aviation. The ground based augmentation system (GBAS) is a practical GNSS application in the aviation community. The ILS-substitute is in the final development phase for CAT I approaches and preparations for certification are in progress. The certification will contain analytical assessments and simulations as well as experiences won by practical applications. In order to contribute to the investigations for a CAT II/III capable GBAS, the DLR (Deutsche Zentrumfur Luft- und Raumfahrt, the national aerospace center) and the Institute of Flight Guidance (IFF) of the Technical University of Braunschweig intend to install a GBAS ground station at the Braunschweig research airport

Feasibility study on efficient arrival operations via the integration of fixed-flight path angle descent and GBAS landing system

Ever increasing demands and challenges in the aviation industry provoke the global attention to seek for innovative solutions. Fixed-Flight Path Angle (FPA) descent and Ground-Based Augmentation System (GBAS) Landing System (GLS) are considered to be two potential approaches for efficient arrival operations in a Continuous Descent Operations (CDO) implemented future air traffic management system. Integrating these two procedures can provide substantial benefits for operators with reduced operating cost while supporting controllers and regulators with increased trajectory predictability and throughput. This paper provides a conceptual framework to develop an integrated system of FPA descent and GLS as an augmentation to the implementation of CDO. Key components of FPA and GLS are introduced and the integration process is discussed from the viewpoints of operators and air traffic controllers. Necessary procedure design suggestions and challenges / solutions in implementing such a concept are also revealed. Preliminary results from full-flight simulator experiments and fast-time simulator show that FPA is feasible for large passenger aircraft with the existing avionics and can be generated according to current standard arrival routes (STAR) and altitude / speed restrictions. Future activities of this research are dedicated for system validation in various traffic and operational environment including the consideration of atmospheric deviations and feasibility in multi-aircraft environment.

Onboard Taxi Guidance - Tactical Support for Pilots Facing Automated Ground Operations

Capacity bottlenecks at congested hub airports are increasingly affecting the performance of the European air transport network. This effect will grow into a major problem when considering the actual predictions for air traffic growth in the upcoming years. Amongst others, current taxi procedures and the dependency from airfield view in combination with complex airport environments have been recognized as keys factors having a large impact on an airport’s operational efficiency. The ROLF project (Rollfuhrung, Taxi Guidance), a sub-project of iPort (Innovative Airport) within the German Aeronautical Research Program (LuFo IV), aimed at operational changes at airports to meet future requirements regarding the arising European airspace demand by introducing a higher level of automation in surface traffic management and visual guidance via ground and onboard solutions. As part of the envisaged concept of operations and respective assistance systems, this paper focuses on an integrated Taxi Guidance Display Application (TGDA) supporting the flight crew during the ground movement process. A detailed description of the TGDA in terms of its functionality, graphical user interface, and system and data interfaces is provided. The onboard system was evaluated in a complex human-in-the-loop simulation study, which aimed at evaluating key aspects of the operational concept from flight deck perspective, i.e. pilots’ performance and preferences when being supported by the TGDA. Several positive effects of the system in the context of higher levels of automation were observed. Furthermore, valuable feedback regarding display and interaction design as well as data link communication was given by the participants.