Identifying Information Needs and Tools to Support Interactions between Upper Class E Traffic Management (ETM) Operations and the Air Traffic System (ATS)

With the introduction of high-altitude long endurance (HALE) vehicles and balloons designed to operate above 60,000 feet, the frequency and duration of operations in Upper Class E airspace are expected to increase. In response to the need for scalable traffic management for these diverse operations at higher altitudes, the FAA introduced the Upper Class E Traffic Management (ETM) concept. Like the successful demonstration of Uncrewed Aircraft System (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM), the ETM concept is also designed as a community-based, industry-driven cooperative approach to traffic management. As these vehicles and balloons ascend to/descend from ETM Cooperative Areas in Upper Class E, they will transit through Class A controlled airspace where they will interact with various entities of the conventional Air Traffic System (ATS) (e.g., Air Traffic Control (ATC)). This work explores tools that will help support ETM-ATS interactions for users throughout the ATS, as well as ETM Operators. An information needs analysis using ETM-ATS interaction use cases, revealed that the needed functionalities generally grouped themselves into two main themes, the visualization of flights and airspace designations, and digital communication capabilities across various human users. In this paper, we describe two envisioned tools, 1) an Integrated Visualization Tool to display flight information and airspace designations, and 2) an Integrated Digital Communication Tool to facilitate two-way information exchange between users about vehicle position information, the coordination of airspace approvals, and notifications. The tools we describe create an integrated visual representation of vehicles and airspace designations with a set of communication capabilities to consolidate information into a single display interface. These tools may be used to guide the development of prototype tools for demonstrations at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Ames Research Center to further explore ETM-ATS interactions within the ETM concept.