THE TASK
 
Background: Buildings and trees surrounding the runways of the airport at Wallops Flight Facility may obstruct the approach of aircraft during landing and take-off.  Computer Science Corporation (CSC) wants to map these obstructions so that trees may be cut and flight paths restricted for safety.

Description of the Project: A CAMS project team will study the problem of mapping FAA obstruction zones for the airport at Wallops Flight Facility (Virginia) showing how nearby buildings and trees intrude. CSC will provide

1. A computer file containing map data for the airport vicinity, showing locations and heights of buildings and trees.
2. A description of landing and take-off paths to be studied, according to the requirements of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and CSC.
3. Technological advice on request.

During the fall semester of 1998, the CAMS project team will:

4. Convert the map (item 1) to a format acceptable to the ARCINFO program for use with the Geographic Information System (GIS).
5. Describe the aircraft landing approaches (item 2) in a form acceptable to ARCINFO.
6. Seek to produce a map of the airport vicinity, showing those ground locations where trees or buildings obstruct landing approaches.
7. Prepare oral and written reports to CSC of options considered and the significance of the results.

TEAM STRUCTURE

    Initially, students will be organized into teams as follows.

ZONE TEAM                      DATA TEAM                   DISPLAY TEAM
Danielle Dolence, MATH     David Barrineau, COSC     Morgan Campbell, GEOG
Donna Jones,  MATH          Allen Hoffman, ISMN         Carrie Clay, GEOG
Bianca Townsend, STAT                                                Megan Hawke, GEOG
                                                                                      Matthew Morton, GEOG

Each team will meet as often as necessary outside class, and students are encouraged to attend meetings of other teams.  If the class decides to change the organization, it can be done later.

    The zone team will describe the obstruction zones.  They will study the FAA regulations, apply them to the six approaches on the runways, and describe mathematically the polyhedral surfaces above which an aircraft must fly.  Then they will write a computer program in C++ (for example) to the tree height data.

    The data team will study the format of the tree height data and prescribe the formats input to  and output from the C++ program, so that the output will be acceptable to the ARCVIEW GIS package.  Then they will participate with the ZONE team in writing C++ code.

    The display team will plan and execute the display of all data sets necessary to explain our work to the client.  The most important display will show the ground location of those trees and buildings which interfere with obstruction zones.  The display team will work with the zone team to decide which trees will be cut and which landing and take-off zones must be excluded.