Air Traffic Management Concept Baseline Definition - The Boeing ...

In extreme low visibility conditions it can be taxiway guidance and surface surveillance
that limit the airport’s throughput. This enhancement step would improve surface lighting
to guide the aircraft, and implement surveillance and runway incursion alerting for the
tower controller.
Visual Throughput in CAT IIIb
This enhancement would be enabled by all-weather surface operations guidance in the
aircraft, along with aircraft position information. Presentation of other aircraft position
may also be a requirement.
6.3 Concept Validation Needs
The system transitions presented in Section6.2 are constructed to achieve phased
reductions in traffic spacing in high density areas in the NAS. None of the steps presented
have been fully validated, although the initial improvements are well supported by
performance data, and the steps are subject to more uncertainty as we predict further into
the future.
Regardless of what transition steps the system will eventually go through, it is necessary to
follow a disciplined process of transition plan validation before system procurement
decisions are made. Figures 2.1 and 2.2 are top level illustrations of what this validation
process entails, in terms of sequence and content of the validation tasks.
The first three steps in Figure 2.1 constitute the system preliminary design phase, which
when applied to the air traffic management system development will include the following
tasks:
1. Considering the whole system, which improvement steps should be taken first, based
on considerations of potential benefits vs. estimated cost This task produces a
prioritized list of transition steps, and thus serves to focus further more detailed efforts
on the most important problems.
2. For each of the operating phases, what are the kinds of improvement steps that are
needed, and in what order should they be taken This step involves a look at available
and emerging technology, taken together with human factors feasibility issues, but
must remain at a high enough level to retain an overall system view.
3. For a particular improvement step in the plan produced in 1 and 2, derive the required
system performance, and allocate to the associated CNS/ATM elements. This
allocation, again, must includes human factors feasibility along with technology
performance.
4. Given the CNS/ATM performance requirements in 3, determine what combinations of
technology and procedures can be applied to achieve the improvement objectives.
This produces a list of alternatives for each transition step under consideration.
5. Determine which of the alternatives in 4 is the best option. This involves technology
and human factors feasibility, investment analysis, and implementation risk, and must
be considered in the context of the overall system architecture. Thus, the design
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