Functional Analysis of DLR's Decision Support Tools for Arrival, Departure, and Surface Operations

Abstract

This document introduces a functional analysis of the decision support tools of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) for air traffic controllers in the area of arrival, departure and surface management. DLR and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) initiated a cooperation that comprises research collaborations in the areas of surface management and runway management under the title of “Coordinated Arrival/Departure/Surface Operations“. For the area of runway management the focus lies on the analysis whether an integrated capability between NASA’s Tactical Runway Configuration Management system and DLR’s arrival/departure and surface management systems is possible and beneficial for both sides. To serve a harmonized view of DLR’s decision support tools for arrival, departure and surface management on one hand and NASA’s runway configuration management system on the other hand both partners agreed on conducting the analysis of an integrated capability with functional flow block diagrams. The DLR decision support tools are extracted from the mutual integration analysis and described here.