Separation Assurance Framework for ACES Simulation

National Airspace (NAS)-wide simulations provide modeling to emulate tens of thousands of flights for full days of traffic in the U.S. They allow system-level research to be conducted for the simulated airspace, and are currently being used by NASA, FAA, and industry to study interactions, costs, and benefits of advanced technologies for the NextGen program. The Airspace Concepts Evaluation System (ACES) is one of these NAS-wide simulations. One of the technologies being studied is separation assurance (SA), which allows prediction of potential collisions or losses of separation to be predicted in advance so aircraft can modify their flight plan to avoid the dangerous situation.