Robust Analytics

Session # 4716

IBM Cloud in a US Federal Agency: How Bluemix Helps NASA Innovate

Dr. Peter Kostiuk – President, Robust Analytics, Inc. | peter.kostiuk@robust-analytics.com

Randall S. Ho – Consulting Solution Architect, IBM SW Services for Federal | rsho@us.ibm.com

Insight for an Uncertain World

IBM InterConnect 2017 Conference

Robust Analytics Agenda

1. Overview of Air Traffic Management (ATM) research domain

2. How Robust Analytics helps NASA innovate 3. An example of how Bluemix speeds Robust Analytics

research for NASA 4. Three top lessons learned 5. Questions

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Robust Analytics Overview of ATM

Key Characteristics of Air Traffic Management

1. Responsibility shared among: • Government and industry • Pilots, controllers, and dispatchers

2. Require high levels of safety and reliability • Diverse information with varying fidelity and timeliness • Frequently at the mercy of weather

3. Mixture of advanced technology and legacy systems 4. Expected influx of new vehicles with greater automation

• And, of course, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS)

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Robust Analytics

Phases of Flight and Communications

4

Terminal Wi-Fi, 4G/3G Connections

Ku and Ka Band Satellite Communications

Air-to-Ground Networks

Robust Analytics Airline Operations

5

Network Operations Control System

Flight Planning System

Sche

dule

/ M

VTs /

Air

craf

t Ass

ignm

ents

Flig

ht P

lan

Dat

a

Load Planning System

Sche

dule

/MVT

s

Fuel

Payl

oad

Aircraft Situation Display

Route Recalc RequestsAlerts

Go to Flight / Flight List / RoutesATM Surveillance

ASDIASDE-XCFMU

Recovery SystemsPassengers

Schedule Manager System

Pax

SSIM FILE/ASMs

ReservationSystem

FLIFO

ASMs/MVTs

Air-Ground Communication

system(ACARS, SATCOM)

AirplaneWeather Systems

WX Feeds

WX Feeds

WX Feeds

Flight Plan Data

MVT

s/Fr

ee T

ext

Booked PAX

CDM Net/TFMS

Portal /FSM

Schedule Data

Flight Plan Data

TMIsAFPGDP

ETC...

Final Loadsheet

ACARS (Position Reports)

Aircraft Rotations

Robust Analytics

NASA Aeronautics Strategic Research Thrusts

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1. Safe, Efficient Growth in Global Operations

2. Innovation in Commercial Supersonic Aircraft

3. Ultra-Efficient Commercial Transports

4. Transition to Low-Carbon Propulsion

5. Real-Time System-Wide Safety Assurance

6. Assured Autonomy for Aviation Transformation

Robust Analytics Active ATM Research Areas

1. Trajectory Based Operations (TBO) 1) Gate-to-gate flight planning and management 2) Increased automation and negotiation between operators

and FAA

2. Real-time System-wide Safety Assurance 3. Airspace Technology Demonstrations

1) Optimized descents 2) Integrated arrivals and departures 3) Traffic flow management

4. UAS Traffic Management System 1) Small vehicles 2) Operating at low altitude

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Robust Analytics Active Research Topics

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= New Applications

= Legacy Applications

Robust Analytics

How Robust Analytics Helps NASA Innovate

• Develop air traffic management technologies,

• Demonstrate their value through modeling, simulation, and operational tests; and

• Deploy technology solutions for airlines and the FAA to improve the efficiency and safety of flight operations

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Develop – Demonstrate – Deploy

Develop – Demonstrate – Deploy Air Traffic Management Solutions

Robust Analytics

How Robust Analytics Helps NASA Innovate

• Identify promising ideas early in the research process – Conduct initial operational, economic, and safety impact

analyses – Assist managers develop the research portfolio

• Develop prototypes for concepts proposed by NASA and awarded through full and open competition – NASA Research Announcement (NRA) process and other

procurements

• Propose new ideas through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) annual solicitation

• Develop new ideas with company internal research funds

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Robust Analytics Multiple Hurdles to Deployment

1. Operational Impact: does the proposed concept increase capacity or reduce flight time?

2. Economic Impact: will the airline operating cost change and will revenue increase?

3. Safety Impact: will risk increase or decrease?

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Operations Economics

Safety

Robust Analytics

Development Environment for ATM Research

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HubAOC Gateway

LaRC SNTB DDS Messaging System

WSI Fusion

Flight Plan Data

LaRC SMART NAS Test Bed

Flight Planning System

WSI SWIM & Weather Data

Flight Schedule

FAA SWIM - TFMS

NASA SNTB User

RA Analyst

Cloud Data Warehouse

NASA Firewall

Flight Schedule

Robust Analytics Mini

Test Bed

Robust Analytics

Capabilities to Accelerate Research and Development

• Rapid prototyping to explore new concepts and algorithms

• Fast-time modeling and simulation to mature concepts and estimate benefits

• Real-time and shadow mode testing and demonstration

• Integration with NASA laboratories through the SMART NAS Test Bed

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End-to-end process requires access to lots of data (traffic, flight plans, weather, navigation), flexible processing capabilities, analytical services, and scalable architectures

Robust Analytics

How Bluemix Speeds Robust Analytics Research for NASA: An Example

Data Analyzer Mobile

Server-Side Road traffic state

In-terminal pax traffic state

(Bluemix IoT/Data/Analytics) (Bluemix Mobile)

9 On-time departure

Bluemix cloud environment

Key

Non-traditional data source

2

1 3 4

Mobile App

• Location service • Door departure deadlines • Pax Travel time prediction • Flight updates • Gate

Flight Information Customer Sales & Service Airline Passenger tracking Airline departure control system

Mobile (Client-Side)

Server

Airline Interface For gate agent, web app accessed through a browser

Integration Bus

5 6

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Robust Analytics

How Bluemix Speeds Robust Analytics Research for NASA: An Example (Cont.)

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Geospatial Services

MQTT

Data Analyzer

Core SDK

Mobile (Client-Side) Server

Push SDK

Cloudant SDK

1

Push Notifications

2

3

4

5

Cloudant NoSQL DB 6

Mobile (Server-Side)

7 Core Logic 8

Airline Web App (Liberty for Java)

Airline Interface

API 10

Integration Bus

Gate Agent

Flight Information Customer Sales & Service Airline Passenger tracking Airline departure control system

Cloudant NoSQL DB 6

B

9

Gate Agent UI

C A D

Robust Analytics Other Bluemix Capabilities for Aviation Research

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Bluemix Services: • Weather (TWC/WSI data and API) • Spark Streaming • Watson Speech2Text/Text2Speech • Watson Tonal Analysis • Watson Machine Learning

Aviation Research Areas: • Real-Time System-Wide Safety

Assurance • Trajectory-Based Operations • Airspace Technology Demos • UAS Integration into NAS

Robust Analytics Challenges

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• Integration with Peer Cloud and On-Prem Applications - Interoperation - Latency - Security

• Federal Cloud Security Assurance: FedRAMP

- Production environments require initial certification and ongoing monitoring for FedRAMP compliance

- Rapid advances and open source vs. demand for security assurance

Robust Analytics Top Three Lessons Learned

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• Lesson 1: What worked - Use Bluemix for rapid prototyping - Find best alternatives fast

• Lesson 2: What worked

- Leverage Architecture Center & Catalog for pattern reuse • Lesson 3: What did not work

- Proprietary technologies need extra justification to win NASA research awards

- NASA researchers tend to favor open technologies

Robust Analytics

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Robust Analytics

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