Federal Aviation

AIAA ANERS 2017 Administration

Radar Trajectory
Processing Technique for
Merged Data Sources
April 21, 2017
Prepared by Bao Tong

Federal
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 Introduction
The FAA has access to multiple historical radar
data sources
TFMS, PDARS, NOP, etc.
Method needed for unifying how noise, fuel
burn, and emission are computed based on
actual radar tracks
AEE internal analyses
NextGen benefits analyses
Raw radar data should not be used directly in
AEDTs performance-based methods
Assumptions and data quality concerns
Multi-sensor fusion of data into single flight
track not trivial
External pre-processor has been developed
to identify and resolve common issues
Big data analytics techniques applied to facilitate
interactive, geospatial queries for real-time data
analysis/exploration

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 Radar Data Quality Issues
Spatial uncertainties (lat/long/alt)
Tends to increase with range from
ground-based interrogators
Ground reflection (ghosting) issues
Pressure altitude vs. geometric altitude
Temporal uncertainties
Time synchronization between facilities
Interlacing good data with bad
Strong impact on ground speed calcs

Additional post-processing needed

Requires understanding of data flow and
intermediate processing steps from each
data source provider
Completion of flight tracks in presence of
data gaps
Merging track data to preserve
consistency in ground-speed estimation

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 Uncertainty in Ground Speed Profile
Visually smooth ground track not a good indicator due to time sync between facilities
ASDE-X/TRACON/CENTER has sweep rates of around 1s/5s/12s, respectively
Spurious oscillations in ground speed indicates poor data quality (supersonic speeds?)
Moving time-average possible, but leads to synchronization issues with corresponding
ground track points and altitudeespecially for long flight performance computations
Merged radar data can result in worse performance than its individual inputs
Merging process needs to consider facility hand-off messages

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 Uncertainty in Altitude Profile
Pressure-altitude reported by aircraft
altimeter and relayed to the ground
Below 18k ft, altimeter calibrated to
local ground conditions
Shape of data indicates vertical offset
No definitive answer regarding
ASDE-X altitude being pressure
altitude or geometric altitude
Non-physical altitude jump of 100-200 ft
visible on ASDE-X on ground
Data transitions need to be declared and
traceable to original data source ASDE-X altitude not
reliable on ground
Different sensors have different Vertical offset
jitter/noise characteristics between
TRACON/ASDE-X
Method needed for consistent data
source prioritization/merging

GPS-based data source for same flight

track needed for further validation

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Radar Data Processing Technique
Comparison of ground tracks before and after
applying smoothing spline on NOP data (gold
curve can be simplified with 2D RDP)
Ground speed processing via down-sampling and
clustering results to reduce ambiguity in estimated
ground speeds
Altitude profile can be represented with tens of
points due to simple shape (via 1D RDP)
Linear model used between change-points
identified to resample data as needed

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 Validation and Verification
http://discover-aq.larc.nasa.gov/

DISCOVER-AQ (2014 Denver)

Compared INS+GPS to
processed radar
Ground track offset
Method also applicable to
GPS-based data sources
Linkages with BADA 4 and
AEDT sensor path development
Integrate w/ weather data

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 Big Data Visualization and Geo-spatial Queries
High performance data format as storage
back-end for analytic work flows
Hierarchal Data Format (HDF5)
compatibility w/ modeled weather data
xarray (python) for multi-dimensional in-
memory arrays + manipulations
Datashader (python) enables generation of
heat maps for billions of points in real-time
Fast, parallelized method for data
aggregation and transformations
Automated network detection to obtain
backbone tracks, compute metrics, etc.

One month KBOS data visualization

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One month KBOS data below 500 ft
Web Analytics Platform (Under Development)

Platform needed to manage, filter, and select desired data for further analysis
Repository for storing processed radar data and serving requests
Web app enables quick data access and retrieval from trusted machines (intranet)
Provides interactive front-end to easily visualize multi-dimensional data
Data + analysis can be done remotely through a browser window

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 Summary and Next Steps
Common issues with radar-based data sources examined
Method for data simplification identified and validated in 4D
Excellent data reduction capabilities while preserving track features
Change-point analysis enables 4D aircraft trajectory to be resampled to capture
weather fluctuations and fill-in data gaps
More extensive validation against different aircraft types needed (e.g., business jets,
commercial, military, etc.)
Refining weather data in 4D based on simplified physics needed in APM to properly
model environmental operating conditions
Needed for determining True Air Speed (TAS), engine states, Mach number, etc.

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Questions? Comments? Suggestions?

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