NASA’s Ames Research Centre has issued a request for information (RFI) from industry for comments and feedback on its proposals for a Discovery and Synchronization Service (DSS) that satisfies Urban Air Mobility (UAM) requirements.
The RFI was published on November 21, 2022 with a response date of January 6 2023.
“Ultimately, NASA intends to procure an initial prototype and necessary engineering support required to maintain it for a period of time.”
NASA’s objective is to have industry provide a solution for the DSS that satisfies UAM requirements. Understanding that this is a research effort and some requirements are expected to change or new ones identified in the future, NASA intends to procure an initial prototype and necessary engineering support required to maintain it for a period of time.
Some of the tasks (verbatim report) are listed below:
- The contractor shall examine current methods, technologies, and approaches used in today’s NAS for distribution and access of digital data to enable common operating picture to the appropriate end-users, including, but not limited to Air Traffic Controllers, airline dispatchers, and Fixed Base Operators (FBOs). The contractor shall also consider planned changes in the next five years by examining the FAA’s acquisition pipeline for technologies and capabilities that are expected to be operational soon. The contractor shall address the potential role of existing NAS infrastructure such as FAA’s System Wide Information Management (SWIM).
- The contractor shall evaluate potential prototype DSS solutions that satisfy the following UAM requirements: Interoperability with current NAS operations under VFR and IFR; secure exchange of information among system actors; provide a multi-factor authentication mechanism; provide a role-based authorization mechanism; provide a mechanism to enable logging; system robustness requirements, such as availability and fault tolerance, for a highly distributed system; provision of a common operating picture for relevant UAM system actors including, but not limited to, ATC, PSU, Fleet Operator, Vertiport Operator, and pilots / aircraft, to support cooperative traffic management for UAM; identify relevant demand at shared resources.
For more information
https://sam.gov/opp/674b8c35bddb4e9093a19264c847a9bd/view
(Image: NASA)