Every day, 50,000 flights take off, transit and land safely within US airspace. NASA Aeronautics is behind many of the technology concepts that make this possible. With drones proliferating and traffic volume rising rapidly, NASA needs a way to stay ahead of the curve. In this session, you will learn how IBM Bluemix quickens NASA's pace in air traffic management research, and hear three lessons learned from a recent NASA project using Bluemix Mobile and Bluemix Data Analytics.

1. Robust
Analytics
Session # 4716
IBM Cloud in a US Federal Agency:
How Bluemix Helps NASA Innovate
Dr. Peter Kostiuk – President, Robust Analytics, Inc. | peter.kostiuk@robust-
analytics.com
Randall S. Ho – Consulting Solution Architect, IBM SW Services for Federal |
rsho@us.ibm.com
Insight for an UncertainWorld
IBM InterConnect 2017 Conference

2. Robust
Analytics Agenda
1. Overview of Air Traffic Management (ATM) research
domain
2. How Robust Analytics helps NASA innovate
3. An example of how Bluemix speeds Robust Analytics
research for NASA
4. Three top lessons learned
5. Questions
2

3. Robust
Analytics Overview of ATM
Key Characteristics of Air Traffic Management
1. Responsibility shared among:
• Government and industry
• Pilots, controllers, and dispatchers
2. Require high levels of safety and reliability
• Diverse information with varying fidelity and timeliness
• Frequently at the mercy of weather
3. Mixture of advanced technology and legacy systems
4. Expected influx of new vehicles with greater automation
• And, of course, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS)
3

4. Robust
Analytics
Phases of Flight and
Communications
Terminal Wi-
Fi, 4G/3G
Connections
Ku and Ka Band Satellite
Communications
Air-to-Ground
Networks

5. Robust
Analytics Airline Operations
5
Network Operations
Control System
Flight Planning
System
Schedule/MVTs/
AircraftAssignments
FlightPlanData
Load Planning
Schedule/MVTs
Fuel
Payload
Aircraft
Situation
Display
Route Recalc Requests
Alerts
Go to Flight / Flight List / RoutesATM
Surveillance
ASDI
ASDE-X
CFMU
Recovery Systems
Passengers
Schedule Manager
System
Pax
SSIM FILE/ASMs
Reservation
System
FLIFO
ASMs/MVTs
Air-Ground
Communication
system
(ACARS, SATCOM)
Airplane
Weather
Systems
WX Feeds
WX Feeds
WX Feeds
Flight Plan Data
MVTs/FreeText
CDM Net/
TFMS
Portal /FSM
Schedule Data
Flight Plan Data
TMIs
AFP
GDP
ETC...
Final Loadsheet
ACARS (Position Reports)
Aircraft Rotations

6. Robust
Analytics
NASA Aeronautics Strategic
Research Thrusts
6
1. Safe, Efficient Growth in Global Operations
2. Innovation in Commercial Supersonic Aircraft
3. Ultra-Efficient Commercial Transports
4. Transition to Low-Carbon Propulsion
5. Real-Time System-Wide Safety Assurance
6. Assured Autonomy for Aviation Transformation

7. Robust
Analytics Active ATM Research Areas
1. Trajectory Based Operations (TBO)
1) Gate-to-gate flight planning and management
2) Increased automation and negotiation between operators
and FAA
2. Real-time System-wide Safety Assurance
3. Airspace Technology Demonstrations
1) Optimized descents
2) Integrated arrivals and departures
3) Traffic flow management
4. UAS Traffic Management System
1) Small vehicles
2) Operating at low altitude
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8. Robust
Analytics Active Research Topics
8
= New Applications
= Legacy Applications

9. Robust
Analytics
How Robust Analytics Helps NASA
Innovate
• Develop air traffic management
technologies,
• Demonstrate their value through modeling,
simulation, and operational tests; and
• Deploy technology solutions for airlines
and the FAA to improve the efficiency and
safety of flight operations
9
Develop – Demonstrate – Deploy
Develop – Demonstrate – Deploy
Air Traffic Management Solutions

10. Robust
Analytics
How Robust Analytics Helps NASA
Innovate
• Identify promising ideas early in the research
process
– Conduct initial operational, economic, and safety impact
analyses
– Assist managers develop the research portfolio
• Develop prototypes for concepts proposed by
NASA and awarded through full and open
competition
– NASA Research Announcement (NRA) process and other
procurements
• Propose new ideas through the Small Business
Innovation Research (SBIR) annual solicitation
• Develop new ideas with company internal research
funds 10

11. Robust
Analytics Multiple Hurdles to Deployment
1. Operational Impact: does
the proposed concept
increase capacity or
reduce flight time?
2. Economic Impact: will the
airline operating cost
change and will revenue
increase?
3. Safety Impact: will risk
increase or decrease?
11
Operations Economics
Safety

12. Robust
Analytics
Development Environment for ATM
Research
12
Hub
AOC Gateway
LaRC SNTB DDS Messaging System
WSI Fusion
Flight Plan Data
LaRC SMART NAS
Test Bed
Flight Planning
System
WSI SWIM & Weather
Data
Flight Schedule
FAA SWIM -
TFMS
NASA SNTB User
RA Analyst
Cloud Data
Warehouse
NASA
Firewall
Flight Schedule
Robust
Analytics Mini
Test Bed

13. Robust
Analytics
Capabilities to Accelerate Research and
Development
• Rapid prototyping to explore new concepts and
algorithms
• Fast-time modeling and simulation to mature
concepts and estimate benefits
• Real-time and shadow mode testing and
demonstration
• Integration with NASA laboratories through the
SMART NAS Test Bed
13
End-to-end process requires access to lots of data
(traffic, flight plans, weather, navigation), flexible
processing capabilities, analytical services, and
scalable architectures

14. Robust
Analytics
How Bluemix Speeds Robust Analytics
Research for NASA: An Example
Data
Analyzer Mobile
Server-Side
Road traffic state
In-terminal pax
traffic state
(Bluemix
IoT/Data/Analytics) (Bluemix Mobile)
On-time departure
Bluemix cloud environment
Key
Non-traditional data source
2
1
34
Mobile App
• Location service
• Door departure deadlines
• Pax Travel time prediction
• Flight updates
• Gate
Flight Information
Customer Sales & Service
Airline Passenger tracking
Airline departure control
system
Mobile
(Client-Side)
Server
Airline Interface
For gate agent, web app
accessed through a
browser
Integration Bus
5
6
14

15. Robust
Analytics
How Bluemix Speeds Robust Analytics
Research for NASA: An Example (Cont.)
15
Geospatial
Services
MQTT
Data Analyzer
Core SDK
Mobile (Client-Side) Server
Push SDK
Cloudant
SDK
1
Push
Notifications
2
3
4
5
Cloudant
NoSQL DB6
Mobile (Server-Side)
7 Core
Logic 8
Airline Web
App (Liberty
for Java)
Airline Interface
API10
Integration Bus
Gate
Agent
Flight Information
Customer Sales & Service
Airline Passenger tracking
Airline departure control
system
Cloudant
NoSQL DB6
B
9
Gate
Agent UI
CA D

16. Robust
Analytics Other Bluemix Capabilities for Aviation Research
16
Bluemix Services:
• Weather (TWC/WSI data and API)
• Spark Streaming
• Watson Speech2Text/Text2Speech
• Watson Tonal Analysis
• Watson Machine Learning
Aviation Research Areas:
• Real-Time System-Wide Safety
Assurance
• Trajectory-Based Operations
• Airspace Technology Demos
• UAS Integration into NAS

17. Robust
Analytics Challenges
17
• Integration with Peer Cloud and On-Prem Applications
- Interoperation
- Latency
- Security
• Federal Cloud Security Assurance: FedRAMP
- Production environments require initial certification and ongoing
monitoring for FedRAMP compliance
- Rapid advances and open source vs. demand for security
assurance

18. Robust
Analytics Top Three Lessons Learned
18
• Lesson 1: What worked
- Use Bluemix for rapid prototyping
- Find best alternatives fast
• Lesson 2: What worked
- Leverage Architecture Center & Catalog for pattern reuse
• Lesson 3: What did not work
- Proprietary technologies need extra justification to win NASA research
awards
- NASA researchers tend to favor open technologies

19. Robust
Analytics
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20. Robust
Analytics
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