1AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF AERONAUTICS AND ASTRONAUTICS DEVELOPMENT OF A REAL-TIME VIRTUAL AIRSPACE SIMULATION CAPABILITY FOR AIR TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT RESEARCH

This paper describes the NASA Ames Research Center's effort to develop a real-time human-in-the-loop Air Traffic Management (ATM) simulation capability that will emulate operations within the National Airspace System. This unique capability will be used to evaluate the human performance impact of ATM concepts at both the systems and local levels with the requisite degrees of fidelity. This new Virtual Airspace Simulation Technology (VAST) will examine critical core component technologies and candidate system level concepts and architectures to meet the requirements of the air transportation system of the future. The goal of this new capability is to provide human-in-the-loop simulations of operations within the NAS to never before achieved levels of fidelity. This capability will also provide a safe, cost effective, common, flexible and accessible platform for evaluating futuristic ATM concepts