ATD-2 Team Wins the NASA AA Technology and Innovation Group Award

April 2019

The Airspace Technology Demonstration-2 (ATD-2) Field Demonstration Team led by Richard A. Capps has been selected as the winner of the Technology and Innovation group award for 2018 by Associate Administrator for Aeronautics, Dr. Jaiwon Shin. The Associate Administrator Awards are presented to individuals and groups who contribute to Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate activities and who demonstrate exemplary performance in one of six award categories.The congratulatory letter states: “The group’s work and contributions stood out from all of the outstanding research being performed by NASA employees, and thus is well deserving of this recognition.” 

The ATD-2 team successfully fielded and tested the first-of-its-kind Integrated Arrival/Departure/Surface (IADS) system at Charlotte Douglas International Airport in Charlotte, North Carolina. This air traffic management (ATM) decision support system addresses airspace and airport congestion problems in an integrated fashion, across a broad set of air transportation domains, operators, and air traffic functions. The ATD-2 Team established and operated a fully functioning NASA ATM laboratory at a major U.S. airport, gained the enthusiastic and full cooperation of the external stakeholder community, and performed a technical evaluation of the IADS concept in multiple operational facilities. This evaluation already is demonstrating notable improvements to the predictability and operational efficiency of the U.S. air transportation system in metroplex environments.