Flight critical systems research - the contractor shall conduct basic and applied research, technology development, systems analyses, and systems integration in airborne and ground-based systems…

The Boeing Company's Engineering, Test & Technology Division was awarded a multiple-award Indefinite Delivery Contract by NASA's Langley Research Center (a civilian federal agency) with a $16 million ceiling value and period of performance from July 13, 2013 through July 14, 2016. The contract vehicle facilitates the conduct of basic and applied research, technology development, systems analyses, and systems integration focused on airborne and ground-based systems critical to flight safety, management, and control. Work is performed on a performance-based task order basis, with the contractor responsible for defining operational and system requirements and delivering engineering and research results meeting specific technical requirements. The contract encompasses two primary research areas: crew systems and aviation operations, addressing integrated flight deck systems, aircraft self-separation, distributed air traffic management, atmospheric hazard awareness, situation awareness assessment, synthetic vision, human-machine interface design, and human-centered design as applied to aviation safety challenges including controlled flight into terrain, loss of control in flight, runway incursions, and high-density air traffic operations; and safety-critical aviation systems, covering mathematical proof of safety properties, quantitative reliability and safety analysis, system safety assurance, fault tolerance modeling, real-time upset detection and recovery, vehicle health management, and commercial off-the-shelf technology integration in safety-critical applications.

Two significant task orders were issued under this contract vehicle. The first, valued at $11.1 million with completion targeted for June 29, 2017, involved development of a retrofit Flight Deck Interval Management avionics solution to enable interval management operations within the National Airspace System, including design, testing, flight deck integration support, and identification and securing of test aircraft for flight demonstrations at the Huntington Beach, California facility. The system architecture employs an ARINC 735B-compliant traffic collision avoidance system traffic processor unit to collect air traffic surveillance data via automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast messages, feeding processed information to an electronic flight bag hosting the flight deck interval management application and serving as the human-machine interface. The second task order, valued at $281,208 with completion targeted for September 15, 2014, focused on investigating current best practices in using and evaluating assurance cases for the development and approval of safety-critical systems, with deliverables providing comprehensive documentation of assurance case principles, terminology, notations, and methodologies applicable to NextGen flight-critical system deployment.

Flight critical systems research - the contractor shall conduct basic and applied research, technology development, systems analyses, and systems integration in airborne and ground-based systems critical to flight safety, management and control. The work to be performed will be defined in performance based task orders issued by the contracting officer in accordance with section h, h.8 task ordering procedure (NFS 1852.216-80) (october 1996). The contractor shall be responsible for defining operational and system requirements, and for delivering engineering and research results that meet the specific technical requirements defined in the SOW of each task order. The contractor shall furnish all personnel, facilities, equipment, material, supplies, and services to perform the work as outlined in each task order, with the exception of the items designated as government furnished. Crew systems and aviation operations: this work area includes, but is not limited to: integrated flight deck systems; aircraft self-separation and distributed air traffic management; atmospheric hazard awareness and avoidance; situation awareness assessment; synthetic vision; human-machine interface; and human-centered design. These research areas investigate aviation safety and airspace capacity issues such as controlled flight into terrain (cfit), loss of control in flight, runway incursions, high density air traffic operations, and operation of remotely piloted and autonomous aircraft. Safety-critical aviation system: this work area includes, but is not limited to: mathematical proof of safety properties for software and hardware; quantitative analysis to ensure functionality, reliability, and safety; system safety assurance; fault tolerance; fault modeling and emulation; real-time upset detection and recovery; architecture concepts to improve system robustness to disturbances; vehicle health management; commercial-off-the-shelf technology in safety-critical systems; complexity modeling and management; and integrated modular avionics. Specific research topics include, but are not limited to: the prevention and reduction of malfunctions and failures in aircraft and airspace systems and components by developing design and assessment tools to verify system design correctness and validate required system functionality; the investigation, development, and integration of existing and future sensing/processing technologies to enable vehicle-wide health monitoring; and airworthiness and system safety for unmanned aircraft, autonomous, and robotic systems. Flight critical systems analysis and integration: this work area includes, but is not limited to, performance of systems engineering in support of novel flight critical systems analysis and development from research concept through simulation and test to flight experiment.