Encouraging new ideas and fresh thinking is critical for innovation in aviation in order to respond to the growing demand for air travel and the increasing number of air vehicles, such as drones, taking to the skies. That is why the SESAR Joint Undertaking (SESAR JU) supports exploratory research and has created an innovation pipeline in the research programme that transforms innovative ideas into solutions to increase the performance of air traffic management (ATM).
To increase airport & ATM community’s awareness about some of the SESAR exploratory projects, ACI EUROPE and SESAR organised a dedicated workshop on 12 April in Malta, kindly hosted by Malta International Airport (MIA) supported by Malta Air Traffic Services (MATS)
The workshop keynotes were given by Martin Dalmas, Head of Airport Operations at Malta International Airport, Dr. Kenneth Chircop, CEO Malta Air Traffic Services, and Luca Crecco, Project Officer & ATM Expert at SESAR JU.
Bringing together 40 representatives from the aviation industry, the airport operators and European research centres, the workshop successfully provided insights from the way synthetic vision and augmented reality technologies can be applied by the airport control tower to enable air traffic controllers to seamlessly operate, particularly in low-visibility conditions (RETINA).
It also showed how augmented multimodal solutions can support air traffic controllers in a remote tower environment (MOTO) and how automated systems help to optimise ground traffic management in complex airport environments (TaCo).
In addition, it gave a clear picture of how big data analytics and passenger-centric geo-located data can identify patterns in passengers’ behaviour and how this information can be used to inform (support?) airport and ATM decision making processes (BigData4ATM).
The workshop also presented the EUROCONTROL-led SafeClouds project, which aims to improve aviation safety and increase runway capacity by developing machine learning tools. Furthermore, the workshop brought into discussion on the need for competition in ATM with the presentation on the COMPAIR project, which studies various institutional and market design options for introducing competition for ATM services. There was also a presentation on probabilistic nowcasting of winter weather for airports (PNOWWA) – a project that produces methods for the probabilistic short-term forecasting (i.e nowcasting) of winter weather and enables the assessment of the uncertainty in the ground part of 4D trajectories for all the involved actors from de-icing to APOC.
Finally, representatives from the EU-Funded Project AirportIQ, presented techniques to improve aircraft turnaround process and its predictability in real time.
As most of these projects draw to a close, the SESAR JU is currently reviewing the results in order to identify solutions (research) that are already mature enough to move into the industrial strand of the programme.
Read more about the project presented: http://www.airport-business.com/2018/03/taking-fresh-look-airport-operations/
Learn more about the latest developments of ATM research in Europe by visiting the SESAR Knowledge Transfer Network: www.engagektn.net