TPSS

If you want to edit this page please click here to login (username: tppStudent password: E40)

Topic: Dynamics of Implementation and Diffusion of Mitigating Measures to Reduce Commercial Aviation’s Environmental Impact

By: Rahul Kar ‘10

Supervisor: R.John Hansman

Description of the project: The increasing demand for air transportation worldwide and growing environmental concerns result in increasing pressures to implement mitigating measures to reduce CO2 emissions from commercial aviation. Case studies of historical changes in the air transportation system have shown that measures take a long time to be implemented throughout the system. This research proposes to analyze the dynamics of implementation of these mitigating measures using system models and recommend policies and strategies that accelerate the reduction in aviation’s carbon footprint.

Topic: The Future of Human Spaceflight

By: Eph Lanford ‘10

Supervisor: David Mindell

Description of the project: The United States stands at the threshold of a new era of human spaceflight; the Obama administration will soon make the most important decisions in a generation about this endeavor. For instance, when should the Space Shuttle be retired? How should the International Space Station be utilized? How should immediate and long-term goals incorporate the moon, Mars, and international collaboration? These all derive from the larger question of why make the investment to fly humans into space? This effort takes a close look at the reasoning that underlies human spaceflight, and examines both policy and engineering-architecture options in that light.

Economics of Human Systems Integration: A Systems Engineering Perspective

by: Kevin Liu, ‘10

Supervisors: Ricardo Valerdi, Donna Rhodes

Description of the Project: Human Systems Integration (HSI) is the collection of interdisciplinary technical and management processes for integrating human considerations within and across all system elements. This discipline seeks to treat humans as equally important to system design as are other system elements, such as hardware and software. HSI has been defined by many stakeholders, particularly government agencies that advocate the “total system” approach, which incorporates humans, technology, the operational context, and the necessary interfaces between. HSI considerations include the following nine domains: manpower, personnel, training, human factors engineering, environment, safety, occupational health, habitability, and survivability. This project, sponsored by the U.S Air Force,  seeks to develop an approach for determining what percentage of the overall systems engineering activity should be allocated to HSI in order to effectively estimate the costs of these nine domains as part of the overall systems engineering effort.

Comparing the delays and capacities of American and European airports

by: Thomas Morisset ‘10

Supervisor: Amadeo Odoni

Description of the Project: American and European airports are characteristically different on the airside. To generalize, the US air transportation scheduling policies are more flexible, allowing for greater utilization of the runways, whereas European countries are more conservative and impose schedule limits (”slots”). The trade-off here is between efficiency (high levels of utilization, free market) and quality of service (reliability: delays, cancellations). The research intends to highlight the differences, and to somehow quantify this trade-off. Eventually, we are making policy recommendations at the national air admnistration level (the FAA and Eurocontrol) by advancing empirical data analyses combined with model-based theoretical delay and capacity estimates currently developed at MIT.

This page is wiki editable click here to edit this page.