NASA’s Integrated Arrival Departure System/Airspace Technology Development-2: A Case Study for the Application of the Human Readiness Scale

NASA formalized the use of the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) scale in 1989 to provide insight into the necessary tasks to define the maturity of a particular technology, but the scale does not directly assess the readiness of the technology for the users. A scale was introduced to mirror the TRLs with a human usability mapping as a measure to communicate the readiness of a system for use by human operators and maintainers, called the Human Readiness Levels (HRLs). (Acosta, 2010). Although NASA has not fully adopted the use of the HRLs, the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate conducted a technical transfer of the Integrated Arrival, Departure, and Surface (IADS) traffic management system to the FAA in 2021. The many activities supporting the technical transfer of IADS provide an opportunity to retrospectively assess the application of the goals and parameters from the HRL scale to the IADS technology. This paper addresses the HRL scale application to IADS research and development by discussing the research tasks at various scale levels. A brief background of the goals, methods, and expected benefits of IADS is presented, as well as a brief background of the development and usage of the HRL scale. The IADS research work is examined relative to the HRL levels. The analysis revealed that many of the tasks recommended as part of the HRL Scale were conducted during the IADS system development. Lessons learned from the application of the HRLs to the IADS work are discussed.