Asynchronous Communications to Support Distributed Work in the National Airspace System

Author(s):  
Roger J. Chapman ◽  
Philip J. Smith

This research involved the evaluation of a multimodal asynchronous communications tool to support collaborative analysis of post-operations in the National Airspace System (NAS). Collaborating authors have been shown to provide different feedback with asynchronous speech based communications compared to text. Voice synchronized with pointing in asynchronous annotation systems has been found to be more efficient in scheduling tasks, than voice-only, or text only communication. This research investigated how synchronized voice and pointing annotation over asynchronously shared slide shows composed of post operations graphical and tabular data differs in its effect compared to text based annotation, as collections of flights ranked low by standard performance metrics are discussed by FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) and airline representatives. The results showed the combined problem solving and message creation time was shorter when working in the voice and pointing mode than the text based mode, without having an effect on the number and type of ideas generated for improving performance. In both modes the system was also considered useful and usable to both dispatchers and traffic managers.

2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Péter Orosz ◽  
Tamás Tóthfalusi

AbstractThe increasing number of Voice over LTE deployments and IP-based voice services raise the demand for their user-centric service quality monitoring. This domain’s leading challenge is measuring user experience quality reliably without performing subjective assessments or applying the standard full-reference objective models. While the former is time- and resource-consuming and primarily executed ad-hoc, the latter depends upon a reference source and processes the voice payload that may offend user privacy. This paper presents a packet-level measurement method (introducing a novel metric set) to objectively assess network and service quality online. It is accomplished without inspecting the voice payload and needing the reference voice sample. The proposal has three contributions: (i) our method focuses on the timeliness of the media traffic. It introduces new performance metrics that describe and measure the service’s time-domain behavior from the voice application viewpoint. (ii) Based on the proposed metrics, we also present a no-reference Quality of Experience (QoE) estimation model. (iii) Additionally, we propose a new method to identify the pace of the speech (slow or dynamic) as long as voice activity detection (VAD) is present between the endpoints. This identification supports the introduced quality model to estimate the perceived quality with higher accuracy. The performance of the proposed model is validated against a full-reference voice quality estimation model called AQuA, using real VoIP traffic (originated in assorted voice samples) in controlled transmission scenarios.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (19) ◽  
pp. 3112
Author(s):  
Michael Hatfield ◽  
Catherine Cahill ◽  
Peter Webley ◽  
Jessica Garron ◽  
Rebecca Beltran

Over the past decade Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS, aka “drones”) have become pervasive, touching virtually all aspects of our world. While UAS offer great opportunity to better our lives and strengthen economies, at the same time these can significantly disrupt manned flight operations and put our very lives in peril. Balancing the demanding and competing requirements of safely integrating UAS into the United States (US) National Airspace System (NAS) has been a top priority of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for several years. This paper outlines efforts taken by the FAA and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to create the UAS Traffic Management (UTM) system as a means to address this capability gap. It highlights the perspectives and experiences gained by the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) Alaska Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration (ACUASI) as one of the FAA’s six UAS test sites participating in the NASA-led UTM program. The paper summarizes UAF’s participation in the UTM Technical Capability Level (TCL1-3) campaigns, including flight results, technical capabilities achieved, lessons learned, and continuing challenges regarding the implementation of UTM in the NAS. It also details future efforts needed to enable practical Beyond-Visual-Line-of-Sight (BVLOS) flights for UAS operations in rural Alaska.


2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 63-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gwendolyn Stubbs ◽  
Timothy Baghurst

Today's evolving business environment requires that organizations combine the talents of diverse and dispersed individuals to develop creative solutions to complex problems. One such emerging concept used by successful organizations to leverage the diverse talents of dispersed individuals is collective creative problem solving (CCPS) in distributed work teams. The purpose of this study was to develop a better understanding of the nature and motivating factors of CCPS in geographically dispersed teams. This goal was accomplished through examining information technology (IT) distributed work teams in a U.S. federal IT organization. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 21 IT specialists to explore the perceptions and lived experiences regarding CCPS of team leaders and team members in IT distributed work teams. Five core themes emerged: (a) developing a strategy to facilitate CCPS in distributed work teams, (b) using team interaction to stimulate CCPS, (c) motivating team members to engage in CCPS, (d) leading CCPS from a distance, and (e) using technology to achieve CCPS in distributed work teams. Based on the conclusions drawn from the study's findings, recommendations are provided for leaders and practitioners to leverage the full capabilities of CCPS in dispersed work environments.


Author(s):  
Masahiro Toda ◽  
Satoko Ezoe ◽  
Tatsuya Takeshita

This paper investigates associations between mobile phone use and stress coping. To 139 medical university students, a set of self-reporting questionnaires designed to evaluate mobile-phone use and stress coping was administered. In relation to the intensity of mobile phone use, the low-dependence group had statistically significantly higher scores for coping strategy, planful problem solving, than the high-dependence group. When the respondents were allocated to one of three groups according to which mobile-phone service they use most frequently, scores for planful problem solving were statistically significantly higher in the voice phone group than in the Web-browsing group. These findings suggest that the intensity and type of mobile phone use may be associated with stress coping, particularly planful problem solving strategy.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Sameer Ud-Din ◽  
Yoonjin Yoon

A rapid increase in the occurrence of loss of control in general aviation has raised concern in recent years. Loss of control (LOC) pertains to unique characteristics in which external and internal events act in conjunction. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has approved an Integrated Safety Assessment Model (ISAM) for evaluating safety in the National Airspace System (NAS). ISAM consists of an event sequence diagram (ESD) with fault trees containing numerous parameters, which is recognized as casual risk model. In this paper, we outline an integrated risk assessment framework to model maneuvering through cross-examining external and internal events. The maneuvering is in the critical flight phase with a high number of LOC occurrences in general aviation, where highly trained and qualified pilots failed to maintain aircraft control irrespective of the preventive nature of the events. Various metrics have been presented for evaluating the significance of these parameters to identify the most important ones. The proposed sensitivity analysis considers the accident, fatality, and risk reduction frequencies that assist in the decision-making process and foresees future risks from a general aviation perspective.


1999 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 303-312
Author(s):  
Carl McCullough

This, and the following paper, were first presented during the European GNSS98 Symposium held at the Centre de Congrès Pierre Baudis, Toulouse, France, from 20 to 23 October 1998; however, both authors have provided updated scripts for use in this Volume of the Journal.This paper provides an update of the development and implementation of the United States of America Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) and Local Area Augmentation Systems (LAAS). It also addresses FAA efforts to implement these satellite navigation technologies into the US National Airspace System (NAS), as well as interoperability efforts concerning Satellite Based Augmentation Systems (SBAS) between the FAA and other worldwide Civil Aviation Authorities.


Author(s):  
Jeffrey P. Cohen

A number of recent Executive Office mandates have outlined the need for U.S. government agencies, including the Federal Aviation Administration, to conduct benefit-cost analyses for policy decisions. Policy decisions concerning local airspace system infrastructure could result in national airspace benefits. If the benefit-cost analyses are to be conducted properly, there is a need to account for these benefits. A method for conducting simulations is developed within a benefit-cost framework to examine the social welfare implications when localities act unilaterally without internalizing potential national airspace system benefits. Rates of return, compensating variation, and equivalent variation are simulated for a hypothetical economy, and social welfare as measured by these techniques improves when localities account for national airspace system benefits. The equivalent variation method enables policy makers to distinguish some equity implications from efficiency improvements that may occur simultaneously when localities move to account for national airspace system benefits in their aviation infrastructure decisions. Other issues in conducting benefit cost analyses for aviation infrastructure projects are discussed, and suggestions concerning how to attain efficient outcomes in compliance with institutional guidelines are made.


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