Application of Artificial Intelligence in the National Airspace System – A Primer

The National Airspace System (NAS), as a portion of the US' transportation system, has not yet begun to model or adopt integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology. However, users of the NAS, i.e., Air transport operators, UAS operators, etc. are beginning to use this technology throughout their operations. At issue within the broader aviation marketplace, is the continued search for a solution set to the persistent daily delays and schedule perturbations that occur within the NAS. Despite billions invested through the NAS Modernization Program, the delays persist in the face of reduced demand for commercial routings. Every delay represents an economic loss to commercial transport operators, passengers, freighters, and any business depending on the transportation performance. Therefore, the FAA needs to begin to address from an advanced concepts perspective, what this wave of new technology will affect as it is brought to bear on various operations performance parameters, including safety, security, efficiency, and resiliency solution sets. This paper is the first in a series of papers we are developing to explore the application of AI in the National Airspace System (NAS). This first paper is meant to get everyone in the aviation community on the same page, a primer if you will, to start the technical discussions. This paper will define AI; the capabilities associated with AI; current use cases within the aviation ecosystem; and how to prepare for insertion of AI in the NAS. The next series of papers will look at NAS Operations Theory utilizing AI capabilities and eventually leading to a future intelligent NAS (iNAS) environment.