Volume 5, Number 1     January/February 1997

  Advanced Technologies

NASA Technology Helps Pilots Taxi

AXI NAVIGATION AND SITUATION AWARENESS (T-NASA) is one of several advanced technologies NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are developing to increase traffic-handling capacity at existing airports.

Air traffic is projected to increase 32 percent in the next decade. The integrated T-NASA system will help pilots taxi more safely and efficiently especially in low-visibility weather conditions. T-NASA is part NASA's $100 million Terminal Area Productivity (TAP) program. It is being tested at Ames Research Center. Ames and Langley Research Center have planned a T-NASA flight demonstration and a mission simulation for next year.

"Pilots taxi at airports today basically like they did in the 1950s. They receive verbal route clearance and follow airport signs," said Ames Scientist Dr. David Foyle, technical leader of the T-NASA research development team. "The only cockpit aid currently available to taxiing pilots is a paper airport layout chart despite the technological boom in avionics, GPS satellite positioning technology and advanced display media."

T-NASA is a cockpit display system that combines software and navigational devices. Pilots manually control taxi maneuvers with T-NASA. The system has three components:

• a Head-Up Display (HUD) shows the cleared taxi route in virtual reality on a glass visor in front of the cockpit windshield.
• an electronic moving map of the airport on the instrument panel shows the pilot's aircraft position in relation to other aircraft.
• virtual three-D audio techniques produce traffic warnings that sound like they emanate from the traffic's direction.
• T-NASA updates the displays in real-time by using GPS satellite positioning and an airport layout database. HUD depicts the taxiway with a series of virtual cones. Virtual signs show the angle and direction of the turn. These virtual cones and signs move and change as the pilot taxis as if the objects are actually on the taxiway. The pilot's cleared route looks like a virtual highway on the ground.

T-NASA's Head-Up Display (HUD) shows cleared taxi route using virtual reality.

"Airline schedules become tighter and more intertwined as the amount of air traffic increases," said Dr. Robert McCann, T-NASA team member. "Bad weather at a major airport means tremendous disruptions on the schedules as backups occur. If we can increase the efficiency of airline surface operations so that planes can get from runway to gate and from gate to runway very efficiently, then we can impact airline schedules and reduce delays. I think that is the bottom line for taxpayers."

For more information about T-NASA, contact David Foyle at Ames Research Center.
Call 415/604-3053, E-mail: dfoyle@mail.arc.nasa.gov
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