FACET (F uture A ir Traffic Management C oncepts E valuation T ool) is a simulation and analysis tool being developed at the NASA Ames Research Center. This paper introduces the design, architecture, functionalities and applications of FACET. The purpose of FACET is to provide a simulation environment for exploration, development and evaluation of advanced Air Traffic Management concepts. Examples of these concepts include new Air Traffic Management paradigms such as Distributed Air/Ground Traffic Management, advanced Traffic Flow Management, and new Decision Support Tools for controllers working within the operational procedures of the existing air traffic control system. FACET models system-wide en route airspace operations over the contiguous United States. The architecture of FACET strikes an appropriate balance between flexibility and fidelity. This feature enables FACET to model airspace operations at the U.S. national level, and process over 5,000 aircraft on a single desktop computer running on any of a wide variety of operating systems. FACET has been designed with a modular software architecture to facilitate rapid prototyping of diverse Air Traffic Management concepts. FACET has prototypes of several advanced Air Traffic Management concepts: airborne self-separation; a Decision Support Tool for direct routing; advanced Traffic Flow Management techniques utilizing dynamic density predictions for airspace redesign and aircraft rerouting; and, the integration of space launch vehicle operations into the U.S. National Airspace System.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.