MITRE Engineers Honored for Achievements in Airborne Traffic Avoidance
December 7, 2009
MITRE Corporation engineers Chris Moody, Doyle Peed, Robert Strain, and Dr. Warren Wilson have received the 2009 Dr. John C. Ruth Digital Avionics Award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), the world's largest technical society dedicated to the global aerospace profession. The award, formerly known as the Digital Avionics Award, recognizes outstanding achievement in technical management and/or implementation of digital avionics in space or aeronautical systems to include system analysis, design, development or application.
Modeling a "Green" Effort
December 4, 2009
Over the past year Gene Lin has focused on developing models to find methods for reducing the environmental impact of air travel. Lin, a modeling and simulation engineer at MITRE's Center for Advanced Aviation System Development (CAASD) in McLean, Va., is the primary researcher and project leader of an exploratory research project called Green Airspace Design.
Green Air Space Design: Reducing Fuel Burn
October 26, 2009
Could making small adjustments at the beginning and end of aircrafts' flight paths add up to big benefits to the environment? That's what MITRE's Center for Advanced Aviation System Development (CAASD) is trying to find out through a new internally funded research effort called Green Airspace Design. The project studies how flight paths can—and cannot—be adjusted in terminal areas to minimize fuel consumption.
Putting Signal Processing to Work in the National Airspace
September 4, 2009
Rob Strain was studying computer and electrical engineering at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., when he first heard about MITRE in 1989. As a leader of the Young Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA), he arranged for student AFCEA members to meet with MITRE's signal processing group to visit its labs and learn about its work. "It was inspirational," he says. "I was impressed by the technology research, people, and the work MITRE was doing for the public good."
A Successful Landing: Modeling Chicago's Airspace in Real Time
August 6, 2009
If you've ever passed through Chicago's O'Hare Airport, you probably know firsthand that it's one of the world's busiest. Airplanes awaiting their turn for takeoff line up on the runway like taxicabs during rush hour. Numerous industry projections estimate that O'Hare will only get busier in the future. The strain on the airport has created the need for more capacity. Fortunately, a major effort designed to ease congestion—the $6.6 billion, multiphase O'Hare Modernization Program (OMP)—is already underway. The OMP will increase the number of air traffic control towers and runways to meet the region's current and future aviation needs.
TCAS: A Second Set of Eyes for Pilots
June 9, 2009
The safety of commercial aircraft in the United States is something most travelers take for granted. It's been 23 years since the last aircraft collision over the U.S., thanks to a network of complementary systems that augment pilots' situational awareness of the airspace surrounding them.
Clear Skies for NextGen
June 4, 2009
Looking up at a sleek new aircraft crossing a blue sky may lead you to daydreaming about flying to Las Vegas to try your luck or hoping that the birthday present you overnighted to your Aunt June arrives in time. But when MITRE's Gregg Leone looks skyward, he anticipates a future where advances in aviation technology and air traffic management enable an unprecedented increase in air transportation options for the public, cargo shippers such as FedEx and UPS, and the military.
FAA Project -
OPD Prioritization Project
May 19, 2009
How do you begin prioritizing where to implement a new operational concept, from all the airports in the National Airspace System (NAS)? When considering optimized profile descent (OPD), the answer is to measure three categories of metrics and use that to rank potential implementation sites. An OPD is an arrival procedure designed to reduce fuel consumption, pollutant emissions, and noise generation during descent. The basic idea is to allow aircraft to set their engines near idle throttle while they descend, by designing the OPD as an Area Navigation (RNAV) procedure with a prescribed vertical profile near the optimum idle descent trajectories of aircraft.
Fusing Aviation Data: A New Approach to Keeping Skies Safer
April 24, 2009
The ability to capture and analyze previously untapped aviation safety data is key to improving the already high levels of U.S. air travel safety. Recognizing this, the Federal Aviation Administration asked MITRE to create a new repository of airline safety data that can be mined to spot potential safety issues before incidents occur.
Reducing Flight Delays by Managing Air Traffic Uncertainties
April 13, 2009
Even with the aid of the latest in forecasting tools, weather can be hard to predict. This causes no end of headaches for air traffic managers, who must weigh this uncertainty as they make decisions—often many hours ahead of takeoff—about flight routing and schedules. Just a single sudden storm in a major transportation hub such as Chicago or New York can trigger gridlock across the entire country, potentially throwing thousands of flights off schedule.
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