3.1 Overview of DAG-TM Benefits
Distributed Air/Ground Traffic Management is a revolutionary paradigm for flight operations in which the flight deck crew, and if applicable, the AOC participate with the ATSP in dynamic decision-making regarding their operations within the NAS. This includes the sharing of real-time information between the aircraft and the ground (both AOC and ATSP), collaborative decision-making between the users (AOC and/or flight deck) and the ATSP, and in some cases, autonomy for the aircraft to free-maneuver. DAG-TM brings the user into the decision-making process, starting with preflight planning and continuing throughout all phases of flight; this process offers the potential for VFR-like operational flexibility for IFR operations.
The primary benefit of DAG-TM is that it gives users maximum opportunity to self-optimize their operations within the dynamic constraints of the ATM system. The most obvious user benefit is a reduction in the per-flight direct operating cost that every user operating under IFR can obtain through real-time optimization of their flight trajectory. It is not clear, however, whether the distribution of control will actually provide more benefit than improving the capabilities and information exchange in a centralized mode of control. This is a research issue that has not yet been resolved. However, AATT has considered multiple issues for determining the focus towards distributed control. Perhaps the first consideration is the goal of offering the largest possible benefit to all users of the NAS; this is different from optimizing the performance of the NAS. Determining the globally optimized performance of the NAS may lead to an unequal distribution of benefits to the various users of the NAS. Therefore, AATT has focused on a more equitable approach that considers the distribution of stakeholder benefits. The distributed approach will provide the largest benefits to the users while indirectly providing the necessary improvements in the NAS to benefit the ATSP. A second consideration, which is in alignment with NASA’s number-one value, is the potential improvement in system safety. From a high-level perspective, the distributed control concept provides a significant increase in situational awareness and a distribution of the workload. Both of these will be required to deal with predicted traffic demand increases in the future. These improvements will be driven by the desire of every user to maximize their benefits-to-cost ratio. It is hypothesized that the optimal benefit-to-cost will be achieved by the aircraft and AOCs equipped for fully distributed control. The technologies required on board an aircraft to support the fullest distribution will allow these appropriately equipped aircraft to contribute to separation assurance as traffic growth continues. This effectively increases the resources available for separation safety.
A second benefit is the increase in capacity. In centralized control, the volume of traffic will be limited partly by the ability of the ATSP to safely manage the traffic. With distributed control, research may determine that self-separating aircraft can off-load the ATSP to some extent. Therefore their attentions can perhaps be focused primarily on those aircraft that are not equipped for self-separation. This may allow more aircraft to operate within the airspace for the same number of ATSP personnel.
　
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