Every aircraft moving through the U.S. National Airspace System (NAS) passes through a complex network of air traffic control facilities, controllers and digital systems. These coordinated handoffs help guide flights safely from departure to arrival. Although the NAS is recognized as one of the safest aviation systems in the world, the traditional approach of managing traffic on a facility-by-facility and sector-by-sector basis is becoming increasingly demanding as traffic volumes, operational complexity and data requirements rise.

“Controllers have a very tough job,” said Doug Lieberman, Leidos vice president and chief technology officer for air traffic. “The mental processing they have to do is astounding. So, the goal is to reduce that cognitive load.”

As the country's airspace continues to develop, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is looking to consolidate two major air traffic control platforms through a unified Common Automation Platform. The objective is to give controllers nationwide a more integrated way to sequence aircraft, maintain situational awareness and ensure safe separation. The FAA is seeking industry solutions for the new automation platform.

One of the systems involved is the Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System (STARS). It assists controllers handling aircraft arriving at and departing from airports and is also used at Terminal Radar Approach Control facilities. The other is En Route Automation Modernization (ERAM), which supports controllers at Air Route Traffic Control Centers as they manage aircraft operating at higher altitudes.

Evolving requirements for the national airspace

The FAA is also seeking a platform that can provide a more comprehensive view of airspace activity, enable information to move smoothly between systems and adapt continuously as new air traffic management techniques are introduced.

A more coordinated and flexible NAS could improve safety while helping address congestion, passenger delays, airline fuel consumption and aviation-related emissions.

At the same time, the airspace must accommodate emerging types of aircraft and operations. These include advanced air mobility (AAM) vehicles such as electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft and drones, which are expected to support passenger transportation, delivery and other local and regional services. The FAA describes this development as ushering in a new era of aviation.

“The future of the national airspace system is that control will be done from a holistic standpoint, so that we’re optimizing the entire gate-to-gate experience.”

— Doug Lieberman, Leidos Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Air Traffic

Leidos develops a common automation approach

Leidos has more than two decades of experience developing and maintaining ERAM, which the company describes as the “heart” of the NAS. Drawing on that experience, it has developed the Leidos Common Automation Platform (L-CAP), a technology architecture intended to bring ERAM and STARS capabilities and information together within a shared environment.

The proposed platform could also support oceanic air traffic management. At present, that role is handled by the Advanced Technologies and Oceanic Procedures (ATOP) system. Leidos developed and supports ATOP for the FAA, whose controllers use it to manage aircraft operating in U.S.-controlled portions of the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans.

Michael Hawthorne, Leidos' FAA account manager, said incorporating ATOP capabilities alongside ERAM and STARS could extend the advantages of shared functionality and a common data environment across much of the airspace controlled by the United States.

Shifting from control toward broader traffic management

As the number of aircraft increases, maintaining a common operational picture becomes increasingly important. Bringing information together could allow facilities around the country to coordinate aircraft-management decisions more effectively and better balance traffic demand against available capacity.

More efficient traffic flows could also reduce the amount of time aircraft spend waiting on the ground or in the air.

Hawthorne described this development as an “evolution away from air traffic control and toward air traffic management.”

“L-CAP is really enabling aviation’s future because one of its key aspects is the unified data platform,” Lieberman said.

One of the platform's potential advantages is its ability to address the long-standing separation of data among individual systems and facilities. Removing those information silos could make it easier to combine en-route, terminal and tower data and apply newer analytical technologies.

For example, artificial intelligence could be used to improve traffic forecasts, support route planning and identify potential operational problems earlier.

“We expect to be able to do optimizations that we haven’t done before,” Lieberman noted, “because we’ll be able to feed data into AI-enabled analytical engines.”

Creating a platform for future capabilities

According to Hawthorne and Lieberman, L-CAP is also intended to provide a technological foundation on which additional air traffic management capabilities can be developed.

Its flexible architecture could allow the FAA to introduce specialized capabilities from Leidos and other industry partners and subsequently modify, replace or upgrade those capabilities with less disruption. Such an approach could give the agency greater freedom to change how airspace is managed rather than remaining tied to existing operational models.

“L-CAP gives FAA the flexibility to define how it wants to manage air traffic,” Lieberman said. “By separating operational policies and airspace constructs from underlying technologies, the platform can evolve without requiring extensive recoding, much like a smartphone operating system is a platform upon which developers can add new applications and enhance capabilities.”

Addressing controller workload

Air traffic controllers continuously monitor flights within their assigned sectors, which can involve managing multiple aircraft simultaneously. They must process large quantities of information, make decisions under strict time constraints and maintain regular communication with pilots.

Reducing this workload and the associated cognitive demands is therefore an important objective for the FAA.

The agency is introducing newer approaches, including trajectory-based operations (TBO), while concepts such as management by exception could eventually reduce the need for controllers to intervene in routine situations.

Under TBO, aircraft are managed not only according to their geographic position and altitude but also according to time. One example is Time Based Flow Management (TBFM), a TBO capability developed by Leidos for the FAA.

TBFM evaluates numerous real-time variables, including weather conditions, airspace congestion and airport capacity. It can use that information to develop more efficient flight plans from departure and regulate aircraft along their routes so that suitable airspace and runway capacity are available when they reach their destinations.

New operating methods could reshape air traffic management

TBFM is intended to reduce some of the reactive calculations, route adjustments and interventions that controllers currently have to perform.

Combined with management-by-exception, the approach could reduce routine communications and the possibility of misunderstandings between pilots and controllers. It could also allow aircraft to follow optimized trajectories without being constrained by predetermined airspace structures, according to Hawthorne.

Lieberman said management-by-exception could fundamentally change the way controllers interact with aircraft.

“Going to exception-based routing, controllers would only need to interact with an aircraft when there’s a deviation,” he said. “That’s how we could move from air traffic control to air traffic management.”

The ability to adapt will become even more important as new categories of aircraft begin operating within the NAS. Their different flight profiles and operating requirements could introduce new demands on existing airspace-management practices.

The FAA is already exploring the integration of eVTOL aircraft and other AAM vehicles through a pilot program examining their integration into the NAS.

“When you have eVTOLs moving people from Baltimore to Philadelphia, they could impact that regional airspace and disrupt the classic model of the way airlines work,” Lieberman noted. “We expect to see the aviation system realign.”

According to Lieberman and Hawthorne, L-CAP could provide the FAA with a common technological foundation for addressing current operational requirements while giving the NAS the flexibility needed to accommodate future changes in aviation.