NASA Selects Robust Analytics Phase II SBIR For System Wide Analysis Network For Safety (SWANS)

Robust Analytics continued its recent string of proposal wins when NASA selected the Crofton, MD based R&D company to continue developing the technology for near-real-time tracking of safety-related events. The System Wide Analysis Network for Safety (SWANS) will provide continuous measurement of risk precursors and events in terminal areas around the NAS. With updates every minute, SWANS will provide insight into safety margin trends and detect changes in risk events at specific locations. These changes may indicate changes in airspace risk status, and identify possible procedural or other deficiencies. Our innovation provides a data processing, distribution, and display infrastructure for adding other data sources and algorithms to measure and predict flight risks. SWANS can also accommodate Urban Air Mobility (UAM) and other non-traditional operations and their interactions with traditional flight operations.

SWANS offers near-term benefits to diverse users by delivering in-time monitoring of risk metrics with alerts for emerging trends. SWANS monitors the NAS for medium (days before), short term (hours before), and near real time (minutes before) trends. The SWANS monitoring tool can be delivered directly to airlines and operators for timely use in safety analysis, flight planning, operations monitoring decision making, and flight crew/dispatcher training. FAA safety managers can use SWANS to identify “hot spots” and detect evolving safety trends.

SWANS will provide real-time answers to important questions that a robust safety monitoring system should ask:

1. What are the current status of hazard and risk events? How do those conditions compare to normal conditions?

2. Has the number of hazards and risk events increased over the past 15 minutes? 30 minutes? Seven days?

3. Are hazards and risk events becoming more or less frequent? Over what time periods?

4. What are the current and recent hot spots around the NAS?

By delivering timely answers to these and many other questions, SWANS meets an important airline requirement for improved tracking of airspace hazards and risk events.

When fully developed, SWANS will join other applications in the suite of Robust Analytics safety monitoring and prediction tools. This aviation safety tool suite will provide airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration with a comprehensive detection and prediction system to help maintain safe flight operations in terminal areas.