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The Flight Deck Research Group's Flight Simulation - Voice over Internet Protocol (FS-VoIP) capability was originally conceived and built to support the group's Distributed Air/Ground - Traffic Management (DAG-TM) work. The resulting application is a tested and proven solution for providing flight simulation communications between Air Traffic Controllers and pilots - study participants and support personnel alike - located anywhere internet access is available.
Implementing Voice Over IP in the Distributed Air/Ground - Traffic Management (DAG-TM) Efforts
In 2003 the analog technology providing real-time DAG-TM flight simulation communications at NASA Ames became obsolete. With participants needing to enter flight simulation studies remotely, via the internet, a reliable, multi-channel communication tool was needed. VoIP technology provided the medium.
FS-VoIP Testing
Communications during a flight simulation need to be reliable and ecologically accurate, in addition to meeting the expectations of participants. Prior to use in the first distributed DAG-TM simulation, extensive testing was undertaken.
Test parameters included:
- Performance - including network latency (the round-trip delay in a two-way conversation), and interference control response time.
- Voice Quality - the goal being packet-based voice streams absent jitter, dropouts, interference, and distortion.
- Distributed Connectivity - the ability of users to connect to a Voice Server, irrespective of geographic location and network traffic volume, employing secure voice signal tunneling through firewalls.
- Functionality - to ensure the full range of specified capabilities was correctly implemented.
- Capacity - defined as the number of voice sessions (channels) and voice clients (individual users) that can be accomodated - 14 channels and 50 users being the minimum.
- Reliability - defined as the ability to operate under nominal system and network load for extended periods without degradation on any other test parameter.
FS-VoIP Features
Key functionality of the FS-VoIP System include:
- 14 channel / 50 user capacity
- Transmission / Monitoring modes
- Pilot-to-Pilot air-side-only 'private' communications
- Controller-to-Controller ground-side-only 'private' communications
- Multi-channel monitoring and recording
- Push-to-talk
Below is and example of the DAG-TM Radio User Interface and the Controller Interface-
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