Since the recent disaster in Haiti, the world has come together to provide aid to help the survivors and to help the country begin to recuperate from this devastating tragedy. Mosaic ATM has joined in the effort to provide relief to the people of Haiti by asking its employees to contribute in whatever way they see fit and pledging a company-matching donation. In a companywide statement, President Chris Brinton said:

“We have all been very fortunate as a result of our success as a company. It is appropriate that we provide assistance to those in need as we can. To that end, we have decided to institute a company donation matching drive for Haiti earthquake relief…We invite and encourage all Mosaic ATM employees to make a personal contribution to support this worthwhile cause. Mosaic ATM will make a matching corporate donation to a qualified charity providing relief for Haiti and Haiti earthquake survivors to a maximum amount of $10,000. Your personal contribution can be made to any appropriate charity of your choice and through your own personal payment…The corporate contribution will be made in an amount equal to the sum of all employee contributions (with a max of $10,000).”

Mosaic ATM is pleased to announce that through employee and company donations, it has raised in excess of $13,000 for Haiti earthquake relief. Much is still needed, and Mosaic encourages everyone to contribute as they can.

Leesburg, VA, November 6, 2009

Mosaic ATM, a rapidly growing innovator of aviation solutions, today announced the creation of its Commercial Applications and Services Business Unit.  The Commercial Applications and Services Business Unit gives airlines, airport authorities, general aviation, and others access to the expertise that has been central to the success of Mosaic's Government clients. A key aspect of Mosaic's products is the provision of new, efficient means for aviation users to collaborate with Air Traffic Management (ATM), simultaneously enabling users to better achieve their goals and enabling ATM to improve system efficiency.

The new unit will be led by Dr. William Hall, who comes to Mosaic ATM with many years of experience producing efficiencies in aviation. He most recently served as Senior Vice President and Chief Performance Officer at CitationShares, an on-demand Part 135 air carrier, where he introduced new technologies and processes that improved responsiveness and reduced costs by double-digit percentages. Dr. Hall, an avid aviator and aircraft owner, holds a Ph.D. in Operations Research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a commercial pilot certificate with ratings for multi-engine land, instrument, and glider flight.

"We are extremely pleased that Bill is joining us at this exciting juncture in Mosaic ATM's history," said Chris Brinton, President of Mosaic ATM. "Bill's experience finding and delivering real cost savings for operational companies will be key to unlocking value for our customers."

About Mosaic ATM

Mosaic ATM is an engineering and consulting firm, founded in 2004, that conducts system engineering, analysis, development, and testing efforts for customers who need to operate or interact with complex systems. Our staff consists of industry-recognized experts who combine substantial operational knowledge of the National Airspace System (NAS) with extensive capabilities and experience in computer science, operations research, systems engineering, and human factors. Mosaic ATM has a broad range of expertise in key Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) domain concepts and technologies, and Mosaic ATM personnel have extensive experience with the critical programs and projects that are being conducted by the FAA, NASA, and other Government agencies toward the implementation of NextGen.

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For more information, contact:
Dr. William Hall
(800) 405-8576, ext. 50

The Integrated Communications Navigation and Surveillance (ICNS) Conference, jointly sponsored by government and industry, addresses research and development of integrated CNS technologies for advanced aeronautical digital information systems and applications supporting the future global air transportation systems.

The Conference is focused on understanding CNS programs, plans, research and technology, and other relevant issues for both near/mid-term (by 2015) and far-term (beyond 2015) time frames.

2007 marked the first year under the new sponsorship of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). From 2001 to 2006, the conference was hosted by the Space Communications Program at NASA Glenn Research Center.

Previous presentations and information about the conference can be viewed on the ICNS Conference archive website.

Summary taken from the INCS Web site at http://i-cns.org/about/

Mosaic ATM was proud once again to be a sponsor for this year's conference.  Additionally, a group of authors from Mosaic, working with Tom Prevost of the FAA, presented a paper entitled "Ration by Schedule for Airport Arrival and Departure Planning and Scheduling."  A summary of the paper is below:

The Ration by Schedule (RBS) algorithm has been accepted by the aviation community as the basis of Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) in strategic Traffic Flow Management (TFM) initiatives such as Ground Delay Programs (GDPs) and Airspace Flow Programs (AFPs). However, applications of RBS to date have been limited to strategic metering applications in which the slots to be allocated to flights are all of equal duration, and the flights to be assigned to slots do not need to be differentiated. Decision support capabilities for the general Air Traffic Management (ATM) problem require planning and scheduling algorithms that properly recognize different flight characteristics such as weight class, runway, departure direction and other Air Traffic Control (ATC) procedural issues in determining the slot size that is required for each flight. In this paper, we describe our design and implementation of the Generalized RBS algorithm for a surface traffic management scheduling application which involves detailed flight-by-flight slot time assignment. This algorithm has been designed and developed to support the Collaborative Departure Queue Management (CDQM) component of the Surface Trajectory Based Operations (STBO) project. CDQM provides an equitable allocation of departure capacity to each flight operator at an airport for dynamic use in management of departure queues. The principles of the RBS algorithm are achieved through an initial planning pass based on scheduled data, followed by a second planning pass in which dynamic flight status is incorporated into the planning results.

The following is an excerpt from the AIAA Web site, describing the theme of the 2009 conference:

"The world as we know it is changing in dramatic ways due to global economics, escalating environmental concerns, and rapidly advancing technology, all of which directly affect aviation. The economic effects are clearly seen in the health of the airline industry. Concerns over global warming and pollution are not just focused on cars and electrical power plants, but now also on airliners and small aircraft. The noise of jet and propeller aircraft is also being called into question daily. All of these issues need to be addressed for future aircraft systems, and new technology needs to be applied to the basic aircraft configuration, engines, and subsystems, as well as to the larger Air Traffic Management system and the airspace in which they operate. All of this must be accomplished while maintaining or improving safety. Given this background, the 2009 ATIO Conference will focus on the theme of “Aviation and the Changing World.”

The ATIO Conference brings together aviation professionals, practicing engineers, researchers, and policy makers to explore ideas, share research, and create interactive opportunities in response to these issues. Particular emphasis this year will be on the impact of specific design visions and methodologies that address the fundamental global issues for aviation. There are four main streams to this Call for Papers:

• Aircraft Design and Design Methodologies
  

• Efficient Air Transportation Systems/Air Traffic Management Systems
  

• Economy, Energy, and Environmental Challenges
  

• Aviation Product Support Processes"

Mosaic ATM President and Principal Investigator, Chris Brinton, teamed with Jim Hinkey and Ken Leiden, also of Mosaic ATM, to co-author and present a paper entitled "Airspace Sectorization by Dynamic Density."  The abstract is as follows:

We propose and analyze an algorithm for airspace sectorization that uses Dynamic Density (DD) as the objective function. A primary hypothesis of this work is that the explicit use of Dynamic Density as the objective function is required to generate airspace sectors that consider all appropriate aspects of controller workload and cognitive complexity in managing the traffic in the sector. Due to the nature of the DD metric, which relies on explicit numerical computation of factors related to airspace sector boundary locations, traffic trajectories, and the inter-relationships between traffic and boundaries, it is necessary to use an optimization method that is compatible with general numeric objective functions. Although evolutionary computing might provide a greater likelihood of near-optimal results, the processing requirements of computation of the full DD metric in a realistic problem environment are prohibitive. A heuristic gradient descent approach has been implemented. The analysis results demonstrate the efficacy of the approach in the generation of airspace partitions and the successful manipulation of DD results in the sectors that are created by the algorithm.

Also at this conference...

Co-author S. Choi teamed with Mosaic ATM Vice President and Principal Investigator Steve Atkins and Principal Investigator Dr. Brian Capozzi to present a paper entitled "Towards Optimal Routing and Scheduling of Metroplex Operations." The abstract is as follows:

Metroplex management is based on the coordinated utilization of shared resources by flights operating into and out of a group of airports in close physical proximity, whether these resources take the form of airspace, fixes, or runways.  This coordination can be achieved by spatially segregating resources and their usage or, alternatively, through temporal interleaving of operations on a shared resource.  In this paper, we describe a mixed integer linear programming formulation which simultaneously solves a routing and scheduling probem for metroplex traffic. The space of routing options is treated in a discrete manner while time is treated as a continuous variable. Several heuristics are introducted that can optionally be applied to limit the time required to find near-optimal, satisficing solutions. We explore the application of this formulation to a number of different metroxplex interactions of increasing complexity to establish its computational feasbility and examine the nature of solutions obtained. In doing so, we identify conditions under which the planner switches "automatically" between temporal and spatial strategies as a natural consequence of the formulation and objective function considered.

Also at this conference...

Kenneth Leiden of Mosaic ATM teamed with Steven Peters and Stacey Quesada of Alion Science and Technology in Boulder, CO to write and present a paper entitled "Flight Level-based Dynamic Airspace Configuration." The abstract is as follows:

Flight level-based dynamic airspace configuration (FL-DAC) changes sector boundaries in the vertical dimension (by flight level) to maintain acceptable levels of controller workload. The flight levels composing each sector change as necessary with time to accommodate varying traffic levels. A parametric study was performed varying the frequency of sector reconfiguration to demonstrate the impact on sector capacity utilization and controller staffing. Furthermore, the impact of controller workload during the transition from one sector configuration to another was found to be a very important constraint to include in the FL-DAC algorithm. Lastly, the size of horizontal footprint of a sector was determined to not have a significant impact on a reduction in the number of sectors generated by the FL-DAC algorithm.

Also at this conference...

Kenneth Leiden of Mosaic ATM teamed with Ben Willems of the FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center in Atlantic City, NJ to author and present a paper entitled "Modeling the Scan Pattern Behavior of Air Traffic Controllers." The abstract is as follows:

Computational human performance models are useful for predicting operator workload under future concepts. The scan pattern behavior in these models can be improved by assuming that operator scan pattern is driven by valuable event information in expected locations at expected times. As applied to the air traffic control domain, this means scan pattern behavior can be driven by traffic density within user-defined areas of interest on the controller display. The areas of interest, manually created by dividing the controller display into non-overlapping regions, indicate the importance and value of the tasks performed in those areas of interest (e.g., separation, spacing, merging, taking handoffs, and giving handoffs). Eye tracking data collected from the Future En Route Work Station (FEWS) experiment at the FAA Technical Center was utilized to calibrate and validate the model of scanning pattern behavior.

Also at this conference...

Mosaic ATM personnel Chris Brinton, Jim Hinkey, and Kenneth Leiden teamed with Michael Bloem and Kapil Sheth of the NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, CA to co-author and present a paper entitled "A Robust Approach for Predicting Dynamic Density." The abstract is as follows:

This research proposes and analyzes an approach for predicting controller workload by predicting dynamic density. Most dynamic density formulations estimate workload with a linear combination of a set of dynamic density factors that describe the traffic situation in a sector. The robust approach proposed here uses this linear structure and the available data to explicitly consider the relative levels of uncertainty in dynamic density factor predictions when predicting dynamic density. The benefits of the robust approach are analyzed by using predicted and actual dynamic density factor data collected while playing back traffic data in the Future ATM Concepts Evaluation Tool. Results indicate that the robust approach produces errors that are more than an order of magnitude smaller than those produced by a simple approach that ignores factor prediction uncertainties. However, other approaches achieve lower prediction errors than the proposed robust approach.

Below is an excerpt from the ATM Seminar Web site, which describes the theme of this year's conference:

"In a continuous effort to further the science that is necessary to lead to a harmonized global Air Traffic Management (ATM) system, the United States Federal Aviation Administration and the EUROCONTROL Organization jointly organized the Eighth USA/Europe Seminar on ATM R&D. This event took place June 29 – July 2, 2009, in Napa, California USA. It is a continuation of seminars held since 1997 in both Europe and the USA."

Lara Cook and Bryan Wood of Mosaic ATM co-authored and presented a paper entitled "A Model for Determining Ground Delay Program Parameters Using a Probabilistic Forecast of Stratus Clearing." The abstract is as follows:

An approach is presented for using the probabilistic forecast of stratus clearing time at San Francisco (SFO) to achieve more efficient Ground Delay Programs (GDPs) by better determining GDP end time and scope. Given a probabilistic forecast, we use a Monte-Carlo simulation approach to generate many stratus clearing times for each discrete GDP end time and scope under consideration. Various key measures are evaluated such as unnecessary ground delay if the GDP ends later than stratus clearing and the risk of airborne holding at the end of the GDP if the GDP ends earlier than stratus clearing. An objective function that includes each of the key metrics captures the cost of each scenario under consideration, and the optimal GDP parameters can then be selected. Results show reductions of 29% for unnecessary issued ground delay and reductions of 39% for unnecessarily delayed flights over the SFO GDPs during the severe weather seasons in 2006 and 2007.

Below is an excerpt from the ICNS Conference Web site, discussion the theme of this year's conference:

"'The Integrated Trajectory'--Getting There

The 2009 Integrated Communications Navigation and Surveillance (ICNS) Conference, jointly sponsored by government, civil and military, and industry, addresses research and development of integrated CNS technologies for advanced aeronautical digital information systems and applications supporting the future global air transportation systems.

The Conference is focused on understanding CNS programs, plans, research and technology, and other relevant issues for the near-term, mid-term (2012 – 2018) and far-term (beyond 2025)."

Mr. Chris Wargo of Mosaic ATM co-authored and presented a paper with Gregory E. Frye and David W. Robinson of the FAA. The paper was entitled "Security Certification and Accreditation Analysis for UAS Control and Communications." The abstract of the paper is as follows:

In this informational paper, we propose the analysis steps required under the National Institute of Standards (NIST) process for information security Certification and Accreditation (C&A) to enable commercial Unmanned Air Systems (UAS) operations in the National Airspace System (NAS). The initial work performed in RTCA Special Committee (SC) 203 has provided insight into the need to support the identification of the levels of security deemed appropriate to secure the UAS Control and Communications Links (CCLs). Since these first steps in technical need identification, we have progressed to understand the methodology to study and analyze information system security. We are now able to identify the appropriate government standards which can be used to detail the process required to achieve definition of UAS security requirements. The purpose of this paper is to update interested parties on the status of the security analysis activities within SC-203.

Below is an excerpt from the DASC Web site, describing the theme of this year's conference:

"As both commercial and military fleets begin to age, the modernization of avionics systems on those aircraft becomes extremely important.  Coupled with that is the modernization of ground-based Air Traffic Management (ATM) operations which will drive new avionics updates.  Therefore, the dual-facet theme of the 28th Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC) will be "Modernization of Avionics and ATM — Perspectives from the Air and Ground."  This theme builds on both the 26th DASC (4-D trajectory based operations) and the 27th DASC (Integrated Modular Avionics).  We will have 2 main theme tracks, one for the air segment (avionics) and one for ground segment (ATM).  The technical program will present an integrated picture of avionics upgrades in the context of aging aircraft and the ATM modernization efforts.  The theme includes a focus on MRO (maintenance, repair, and overhaul) and future flight operations, which resonates with both commercial and military operators worldwide. While we will reflect our main theme in two dedicated tracks and other events, we will continue to have papers and courses that span the breadth of digital avionics design, implementation and operation.  These topics include but not limited to CNS (Communications, Navigation, and Surveillance), IMA (Integrated Modular Avionics), Avionics Applications, Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Human Factors, Human-Machine Interfaces, Flight Critical Systems, and Avionics Design."

Mosaic ATM President and Principal Investigator, Chris Brinton, presented a paper entitled "Dynamic Density Management via Minimal Trajectory Manipulation." The abstract of the paper is as follows:

Previous efforts have focused on the modeling and measurement of air traffic control (ATC) dynamic density (DD) as an indicator of the complexity of the air traffic situation for the human controller. Many studies have addressed the appropriate formulation of the DD metric, including factors related to airspace and traffic characteristics. Other studies have shown that DD is a better measure of controller workload and sector capacity than a simple count of the aircraft in the sector. In this effort, we address methods and algorithms for active management of the DD in the sector through exception-based control of flight trajectories.

The following is an excerpt from the AIAA Web site, describing the theme of the 2009 conference:

"The AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GN&C) Conference is the premier forum for providing the latest developments in GN&C technology with a unique focus on theory and applications in aeronautics and astronautics. It offers an environment for presentations and discussions about theoretical advances as well as the implementation issues required for the transition of new technology to operational systems. This year’s technical program includes many sessions in the areas of Control Theory Analysis and Design, GN&C Concepts in Air Traffic Control Systems, Autonomous and Unmanned Systems, and Aircraft and Spacecraft GN&C. Other technical areas addressed in this year’s conference include Novel Navigation, Estimation, and Tracking Methods; Missile Guidance, Navigation, and Control; Multi-Vehicle Control; Space Exploration and Transportation GN&C; Sensor Systems for GN&C; Intelligent Control in Aerospace Applications; Verifi cation and Validation Methods in GN&C; and Aerospace Robotics. A number of invited sessions cover specialized topics in aerospace GN&C, including adaptive control, UAVs, and the National Airspace System."

Co-authors K. Turkoglu and Y.J. Zhao joined with Mosaic ATM's Principal Investigator, Dr. Brian Capozzi, in presenting a paper entitled "Real-time Insitu Strategies for Enhancing UAV Endurance by Utilizing Wind Energy." The abstract of the paper follows:

This paper presents real-time practical strategies for enhancing the endurance of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) flights by utilizing wind energy. Consistent with actual flight, no regional knowledge of the wind field is assumed. Rather, the technique relies solely on making "optimal" decisions at each successive time instant, given the instantaneous values of estimated local wind speeds. Based on these estimates, optimal airspeed and/or heading angle corrections are determined to minimize the instantaneous power requirement for stead level flight. UAV dynamics are described in terms of a dynamic point-mass model, and vehicle motion is constrained via boundary trajectory tracking. A nominal reference trajectory is assumed in which the UAV flies a fixed radius, constant altitude orbit with an airspeed that would maximize the endurance in zero wind. Simulations conducted for varying wind patterns compare the average power consumption of the proposed strategy with that of the reference trajectory. Obtained results indicate a potential saving in power consumption and in endurance of the UAV by simply using the appropriate wind component instantaneously during the flight regime.