Multi sector planning gives one air traffic specialist a task that crosses several controllers’ boundaries: managing the flows heading their way. NASA’s Multi Sector Planner (MSP) research examined this arrangement in simulations involving human operators, after NASA Ames and San Jose State University developed two approaches for the Federal Aviation Administration in 2005. Humans remained central. A 2006 comparison favored an area flow planner covering three sectors, establishing initial feasibility for this approach to multi-sector planning. [1]
Multi Sector Planning Across Airspace
NASA describes a traditional United States en route control team with two positions: a radar controller and a data controller, also called a radar associate. Their shorthand is R-side and D-side. The MSP concept redistributes responsibilities across a larger team, giving one position a remit beyond an individual sector. It also allows changes to where team members physically work. [1]
NASA Ames researchers treated the organization of human work as part of the air traffic management problem, examining how a planner could support radar controllers while taking responsibility for flows across a broader region. The setting was en route airspace. Here, multi sector planning means coordinating traffic across several sectors, with an explicit division of responsibilities among the people controlling and managing those flows. NASA’s description does not establish routine operational adoption, and these historical experiments do not constitute a September 2026 deployment announcement. [1] PerEXP Teamworks also examines NASA’s approach to coordinating urban air mobility. The MSP research instead examines how en route radar controllers and flow planners divide work across existing airspace sectors.
NASA Ames and San Jose State University provide a specific case of collaboration across operational boundaries. What is multi sectoral collaboration in this setting? Controllers and planners coordinate across airspace sectors and facilities while continuing to manage their own responsibilities, particularly when one planner needs help from a colleague whose decisions affect incoming traffic. The sectors are airspace divisions. The study concerns how people share that planning work. [1]
Why Reconsider the Controller Team?
NASA identifies several developments that made alternative team structures worth investigating: digital communication between controllers and with aircraft, more accurate positioning, conflict prediction, and assessments of sector complexity. Technology widened the design possibilities. NASA Ames and San Jose State University still needed to determine who should perform each task. They also examined how information should move between positions. Improved tools alone did not define an effective division of responsibilities within the controller team. [1]
Kevin Corker, Diana Liang, Paul U. Lee, and Tom Prevot described the assessment methodology in their 2007 paper, New Air Traffic Management Concepts Analysis Methodology: Application to a Multi-Sector Planner in US Airspace. NASA explicitly cites that work. Their Cognitive Systems Engineering approach (evaluating people and technology as a working system) addresses the changing demands of air traffic management when new tools redistribute information and control among human operators and automation. It provides the methodological basis for evaluating the two proposed MSP roles. [1, 2]
NASA’s emphasis on roles makes this a human coordination study. PerEXP Teamworks also covers planning actions for robot teams in ambiguous environments, a related topic with different participants. Here, the investigators focused on air traffic specialists working together, with automation supporting communication and decisions. The NASA account does not describe an autonomous system taking over the radar controller’s position. [1]
Two Roles Entered the Simulation
NASA Ames and San Jose State University developed a Multi-D concept in which one planner acted as the D-side controller for several radar controllers, extending radar-associate support across the team. The alternative emphasized traffic flows. Under the area flow planner concept, the MSP looked ahead across a multi-sector region and helped manage the distribution of traffic within it. NASA Ames and San Jose State University thus compared two ways of organizing the planner’s work, each changing existing team responsibilities. [1]
NASA compared both concepts with a baseline in 2006. The human-in-the-loop simulation (HITL, a simulated operation involving human participants) evaluated the proposed roles against a reference condition. NASA reports that the results favored further development of the area flow planner. Numerical comparisons are absent from its overview. NASA’s account explains the selection but supplies no effect sizes. It does not establish how much better the chosen concept performed. [1]
The area flow planner supported three sectors in the experiment. The planner looked ahead to smooth medium-term traffic flows and balance loads across the region rather than one sector. NASA gives no horizon in minutes. Multi sector planning in this test had a defined geographical remit, while the public description leaves the precise timing of interventions unspecified. The planner’s responsibility was advance flow management in support of the radar controllers. [1]
What Did the Test Establish?
NASA reports that the 2006 simulation demonstrated initial feasibility of the MSP as an effective member of the controller team. The finding supported continued development of the proposed position. Neighboring planners raised another research problem. The experiment did not assess how successfully one MSP could manage the assigned area while also assisting adjacent MSPs. NASA identifies that combined responsibility as a specific limit of the initial test and a reason for follow-up work. [1]
Neighboring planners create an additional demand: a local flow problem can depend on action upstream. Who can help while still managing their own traffic? NASA’s follow-up objectives addressed exactly that situation, requiring procedures for interactions both within a facility and across facility boundaries. A planner responding to an external request would still have responsibilities inside the assigned area. The research needed to examine the feasibility and effects of those overlapping demands. [1]
NASA states that “effective collaboration procedures are crucial to the position’s success.” The account supplies no measured delay reduction or capacity increase. [1]
How Researchers Developed the Follow-Up
NASA’s follow-up program expanded roles, responsibilities, and procedures to integrate MSPs into wider air traffic control and traffic management operations, where decisions outside one planner’s area could affect local goals. Researchers also examined decision support needs. Their objectives covered assessing the traffic situation, manipulating flows, and coordinating with other positions. Multi sector planning required information about the broader operational setting as well as the planner’s own region. Procedures also needed to accommodate requests from colleagues elsewhere. [1]
NASA lists radar controllers, data controllers, adjacent MSPs, adjacent and underlying facilities, the traffic management unit (TMU), and front-line managers among the parties requiring coordination with the planner during these operations. The list extends beyond neighboring planners. NASA’s account identifies these relationships as requirements for the investigation. It does not assign a completed communication protocol to each one. NASA’s Airspace Operations Laboratory needed to establish what information and tools the MSP would require for those interactions. [1]
NASA used cognitive walkthroughs, simulation shakedowns and walkthroughs, and a four-week HITL evaluation to address the follow-up objectives. The first two walkthroughs helped refine the concept of operations, with particular attention to interactions and information requirements. They also helped identify research issues and plan the 2009 HITL simulation. NASA’s Airspace Operations Laboratory research and development team prototyped the planner’s technology and automated communication support using the 2006 findings and walkthrough activities. [1]
Which Questions Remain Open?
NASA’s description supports continued evaluation of the simulated role. It recounts the choice of a concept, the limits of the initial experiment, and the development work that followed. Current adoption remains unestablished in this account. For multi sector planning, NASA documents initial feasibility and a program for investigating wider coordination demands. Its overview does not give detailed outcomes from the later evaluation or demonstrate operational benefits in everyday air traffic management. [1]
NASA’s other coordination work provides related reading through PerEXP Teamworks’ coverage of NASA’s approach to coordinating urban air mobility. The MSP account concerns en route controller teams. Its unresolved question is specific: can a planner manage flows within the assigned region while reliably helping neighboring planners, when local success depends partly on decisions made upstream? NASA’s follow-up objectives make that interaction central to evaluating the role, and the supplied description does not give a final performance result for it. A fuller assessment would need the later simulation findings, including evidence about how the operators handled those simultaneous demands. [1]
- WEBSITE So, P. (2026, September 11). Multi sector planner. NASA. [Article Link]
- ACADEMIC JOURNAL Corker, K., Liang, D., Lee, P. U., & Prevot, T. (2007). New air traffic management concepts analysis methodology: Application to a multi-sector planner in US airspace. Air Traffic Control Quarterly, 15(4), 347–367. https://doi.org/10.2514/atcq.15.4.347 [Article Link]
APA 7: TWs Editor. (2026, September 12). One planner, three sectors: NASA’s multi sector planning. PerEXP Teamworks. https://perexpteamworks.com/en/multi-sector-planning/
