TBO Conference Meeting Summary Available

Just a quick note to say that we posted a meeting summary from the March 24th TBO Conference. This was an informative meeting with good discussion around developing a common understanding of the TBO vision for the far-term, and identifying how the JPDO Working Groups can contribute to that vision.

The Meeting Summary is available here on the JPDO.gov Web site, under the “Knowledge Center” and “Collateral Library.”

David Kerr
JPDO Director, Partnership Development Division

JPDO and NIST Discuss Possible Collaboration

Today, Bob Pearce and I met with Cita M. Furlani, Director of Information Technology Laboratory (ITL), and her staff at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Headquarters.  The objective of the meeting was to explore areas of mutual investment and development interests between the JPDO and NIST.  Bob and I covered the JPDO initiative and investment portfolio objectives, and Cita Furlani gave an overview of the NIST organization and ITL objectives. During my talk, I presented eight fundamental areas that the JPDO believes are possible areas of coordination in regards to standards development or technology assessments: 1.  Virtual Towers  2. Trajectory Based Operations  3. Reconfigurable Systems  4. Strategic Real-time Collaborations  5. Integrated Super Dense Operations  6.  Advanced Weather Capabilities  7.  UAS Operations  8. Advanced Safety and Security.

ITL took the action to coordinate a group to visit the JPDO to get an in-depth understanding of the JPDO Enterprise Architecture and to map possible points of coordination and integration.  ITL staff in attendance included: Jim St. Pierre, Deputy Director (ITL); Kamie Robers, Associate Director for Federal & Industrial Relations (ITL); Marty Herman, Chief, Information Access Division (ITL); and Jim Dray, Scientific Advisor to ITL Director.

Yuri Gawdiak
JPDO Director, Interagency Portfolio and Systems Analysis Division

JPDO Holds Trajectory-Based Operations (TBO) Conference

The JPDO’s TBO Conference was held yesterday.  The goals of the conference were to:  better align JPDO Working Group activities with ongoing agency and industry TBO efforts; facilitate movement towards a common vision and understanding of TBO for the far term, including concepts and operational benefit; share knowledge of who is working on TBO activities, including program goals, objectives, and timeframe; and, develop an understanding of TBO planned efforts from the participants’ view.  The conference included a very rich set of presentations–which you can access here on the JPDO.gov Web site, under “Meetings and Conferences”–that spanned JPDO, FAA and industry TBO concepts, plans, and actions.

The open discussion in the afternoon indicated that there was reasonably good agreement on the far-term TBO concept, but that vocabulary and definitions needed to be aligned to ensure that there is consistent communication of the concept.  There was also substantial discussion as to the need to establish the major pacing issues and key trade-offs that will drive near-term actions necessary to enable the far-term concept.  Many of those issues were discussed at the conference, but they need to be consolidated and prioritized as one of the next steps.

A set of next steps was discussed in the wrap-up to the conference. Those next steps will be refined and used as input to updating Working Group plans in the TBO priority area.  Look for more information and updates as we move forward.

You can view pictures from the event on the JPDO Facebook Fan Page, which is located here.

Bob Pearce
JPDO Deputy Director