Crowded airports, flight delays and plane crashes — these are images that haunt travelers’ nightmares. But to curtail some of these problems, members of this university are joining forces with airline officials to upgrade aviation operations.
In 1996, a team of researchers from four universities and the airline industry came together under the Federal Aviation Administration to generate innovative ideas on air traffic control, airport design and combating flight delays. This month marks the launch of a new seven-year, $60 million contract — which has grown to include eight universities — to continue this research by blending business, economics and engineering concepts.
This university will serve as an academic leader in the coalition, and some professors and students have already worked on several projects with the first contract, spearheaded by the National Center for Aviation Operations Research.
Some of the innovations by researchers from this university have already impacted how airlines function. Under NEXTOR, students and faculty helped individual airlines work with the FAA to control air congestion and manage delays.
“A lot of our ideas have been integrated and are used on a day-to-day basis,” said business professor and researcher Michael Ball, an original co-director of NEXTOR.
The FAA decided to invoke this new contract — dubbed NEXTOR II — due to the success of the past aviation research.
During the previous study, university researchers also worked on managing airport congestion in New York, where several airports are so close together that their airways are interconnected.
“We had a series of projects that were looking at how you could control access to the airspace in New York in such a way where you could get these delays down to a more acceptable level,” said engineering professor and researcher David Lovell.
For NEXTOR II, the researchers said they hope to find ways to implement new technologies that will allow more planes to share the sky.
“Planes will be able to fly closer together than they can now simply because they’ll have more information on where each plane is,” Lovell said.
Some university researchers said balancing the interests of government with those of industry officials can be complex, though they try to accommodate all the competing perspectives when it comes time to make recommendations on how to advance.
Cooperation is the key to putting new research in motion, Ball said.
“It’s getting everything to work together as a system, getting the right incentives so … everybody will be on the same page,” he said.
Because NEXTOR researchers collaborate with FAA and airline employees, university researchers said the prospect that their work could be used in real life is motivating.
“There’s a good chance it’s going to have an impact and that’s very satisfying,” Ball said.
marcot at umdbk dot com
