BAA Call 011 ARAS0013.pdf

BAA 692M15-20-R-00004

White Paper Call 011

Vertical Flight Data

August 6, 2024

This Call (011) for white papers is being issued in accordance with FAA Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) 692M15-20-R-00004, which was posted on FAACO.com on December 05, 2019 and last updated on sam.gov on July 29, 2024. Respondents must refer to the document entitled 692M15-20-R-00004 Rev R23, Amendment 022 (July 29, 2024) in conjunction with this Call to prepare and submit their white paper. All instructions set forth in the 692M15- 20-R-00004 Rev R23, Amendment 023 solicitation document apply to the Call. This Call provides supplemental information and specific criteria to the Government requirements. Information included herein applies to this Call only.

The FAA has an immediate requirement in support of research Topic Number:

ARAS0013 Vertical Flight Data as described below. White papers submitted under this call are due by close of business on September 20, 2024. White papers received after that date will be considered under the BAA Topic related to this Call, however, selection may already be complete for the specifics of this Call.

Topic Number: ARAS0013:

Vertical Flight Data

Technical POC: William Gorman; William.R.Gorman@faa.gov Copy: 9-ACT-AAQ-600-BAA@faa.gov

Background:

Operations within the National Airspace System (NAS) are complex and diverse and require sufficient mitigations to maintain safety. Helicopters, drones, and new entrant vehicles integrating into the NAS under the concept of Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), operate in a low altitude environment with terrain, obstacles, and challenging climatic conditions. The FAA has been conducting extensive research on these aircraft’s use, performance and infrastructure.

Operation of these vehicles are considered aeronautical activity and are conducting missions in locations and at altitudes not aligned with the existing NAS infrastructure for navigation, surveillance, and communications. This use of low altitude airspace causes challenges and risks that most existing NAS-users do not experience. Many facilities are missing the fundamental data that could enhance safety and efficiency, including, accurate and reliable facility geospatial and operational data.

Vertical flight facilities across the NAS possess a variety of omitted, inaccurate, disparate, and limited spatial and operational datasets. With a focus on improving facility safety and enabling the integration of the emerging low altitude users of the NAS, improvement is needed. This “data problem” is a critical roadblock to the FAA and the vertical flight industry in advancing the safety of all low altitude operations and the safe integration of unmanned aircraft systems, unmanned aircraft system traffic management, and AAM systems. As aviation users of low altitude airspace advance towards performance-based operations, the FAA is interested in understanding the scale of the essential data gap and developing an innovative plan to collect data.

Purpose:

Conduct research on the existing facility data gap, information that can be useful for performance-based operations and innovative data collection methods and validation.

Requirements:

The FAA would like white papers to address the specific areas listed below; however, submittals are not limited to those requirements:

Conduct a literature review and stakeholder collaboration to collect information on features, infrastructure, and operating environments that are unique and specific to these facilities.

Develop recommended modifications to the current Facility Database and Airports Geographic Information System geospatial data standards that incorporate vertical flight facility data.

Evaluate the Vertiport Feature Mapping requirements, and real-time asset availability that will be required to support AAM operations, and to be transmitted via System Wide Information Management.

Research acceptable airspace obstruction identification surfaces and reporting requirements for vertiports.

Conduct testing and evaluation of prototype data development procedures to populate the FAA Airport Data and Information Portal with a large amount of vertical flight facilities data (facility database and Airports Geographic Information System).

Period of Performance/Rough Order of Magnitude:

The Period of Performance for projects under this topic is anticipated not to exceed 24 months.

There are currently no set parameters for the ROM.