A standards-based approach to distributed air traffic management simulation

Organizations across the aviation domain are currently defining and developing a standards-based environment for sharing simulation capabilities and conducting joint experiments to meet the challenges that lie ahead for global aviation. This paper discusses an aviation community research project to define an open, standards- based set of object models, protocols, and software, designed to let simulations connect via the public Internet for research and development in air traffic management (ATM). Known as AviationSimNetreg (AviationSimNet is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation), this environment builds on existing aviation and distributed simulation standards to simulate ATM voice and data communications. It enables distributed evaluation of concepts at reduced time and cost and lowered risks. This paper begins with some historical context on the evolution of distributed simulation and then describes the AviationSimNet research results, architecture, performance characteristics, and applications. Two specific applications of the technology are discussed: a multi-organizational demonstration of airborne precision spacing and a multi-organizational experiment for defining future traffic flow management and en route interoperability requirements.