After the successful introduction of Release 1 in 2011, the SESAR JU’s administrative and programme committees approved its plan for Release 2. With the innovative Release approach, the effort will thus also in 2012 lie on validating early achievements in an operational environment for the benefit of passengers, airlines, controllers and the environment. With 35 exercises planned, clustered into 18 themes (Operational Focus Areas), the many participants in Release 2 will be busy.
Building on the achievements of Release 1, but with more emphasis on coherency with the overall SESAR programme, Release 2 gives priority to exercises which will demonstrate that, assuming successful validation, industrialisation of the projects is feasible in the short-medium term. “We are aiming for more concrete results with direct benefits for users”, says Florian Guillermet, SESAR JU Deputy Executive Director Operations and Programme.
The SESAR Joint Undertaking together with its 16 members will concentrate on four main areas of operational improvements: airport platform safety, airborne operations, ATC operations and network management. After the successful world’s first I-4D flight (see here below) on 10 February 2012, SESAR members will further advance the synchronisation of airborne and ground profiles.
Improving capacity is one of the main goals of the SESAR programme and consequently, Release 2 will also tackle aspects such as improved flexible use of airspace or a user driven authorisation process where airlines can swap take-off times. These validated procedures will be the first step towards collaborative decision making. To make sure that the new developments are fit for purpose, airspace users will be deeply involved in the Release 2 validation exercises.
While they are of increasing relevance to the overall SESAR programme, Releases form only a part of the R&D efforts of the Joint Undertaking and its members. Begun as an innovative way of pushing forward potentially early improvements to the European ATM system, the Release process is now proving itself as a useful way of focussing the energy of the many participants on achieving practical results. Releases 3 and 4 will continue to make a vital contribution, with increasingly complex live exercises testing the elements that will make up the future European ATM system.
Release 1: a successful start
The SESAR Release 1 programme ended in February, concluding a significant milestone in the SESAR effort. Release 1 encompassed 25 validation exercises ranging from the development of green, efficient terminal airspace operations to the initial 4D trajectory, end-to-end traffic synchronisation and collaborative network management.
During the year 2011, validation activities were carried out across Europe to test SESAR solutions in an operational environment (e.g. through life trials). They included for example the world’s first initial 4D flight, an exercise to validate Short Term ATFCM Measures (STAM) or a three week long operational validation trial campaign on remote and virtual towers. One year into the Release process, it is evident that this new system has brought benefits in terms of focussing energy on the continuous introduction of new solutions, which are validated in an operational environment with the participation of all ATM stakeholders.
The world’s first I-4D flight
The first four-dimensional trajectory management (I-4D) validation exercise took place on 10 February 2012, when an A320 test aircraft flew from Toulouse to Copenhagen and Stockholm and back. It was the culmination of months of preparation between SESAR partners, including aircraft, avionics and equipment manufacturers as well as air navigation service providers.
I-4D represents a key element in the transition from constrained flights in the current ATM system to optimised flights in the future Single European Sky. I-4D operations establish far in advance a sequence for aircraft converging on a merging point in a congested area. After coordination between the ground systems and the aircraft, each aircraft is allocated a time slot for its arrival at a merging point, and in compensation is allowed to fly its optimum profile up to that point, without any vectoring instruction from the controllers.
Starting from Toulouse, the Airbus A320 test aircraft flew through the Eurocontrol Maastricht Upper Area Control Centre (MUAC) airspace where the airborne and ground systems agreed on a first time constraint at a merging point close to Copenhagen airport. The flight then continued into Danish airspace to demonstrate an optimised descent to Copenhagen. After reaching the first merging point, the aircraft climbed to a cruise level from which it negotiated a second time constraint at a merging point close to Stockholm Arlanda Airport. The flight then descended into Swedish airspace in a fully optimised way to the second merging point and landed at Arlanda.
The trial successfully verified the automated 4D data exchange between aircraft Flight Management System (FMS) and ground automation systems through datalink. It also aimed to validate how information is displayed to the controller and the pilot as well as the impact on their operations.
Short Term ATFCM Measures (STAM)
Balancing demand with available capacity is a key element of SESAR and on 8-10 November 2011 a live trial, the outcome of which was described as “beyond expectation” was carried out to validate the Short Term ATFCM Measures (STAM) exercise.
The trial was part of the overall dynamic Demand Capacity Balancing (dDCB) project which aims to find ways of smoothing out traffic bunching leading to demand peaks and sudden extra workload for controllers.
London, Reims and Maastricht Flow Management Positions (FMPs), 11 airlines and the Network Manager took part in the STAM exercise. “Cooperation between the involved airlines, FMPs and the Network Manager was excellent”, said SESAR project manager Othmar Schnabel (DFS). “In one instance, the application of nine short-term ATFCM measures reduced the initial regulation delay from 810 to 99 minutes. This is very promising”. The trials also demonstrated better traffic prediction. Results of the trials will now be carefully analysed, and consideration is being given to the operational implementation of these working methods in the course of 2012-2013.
Remote and virtual tower project
SESAR’s remote and virtual tower projects conducted a three week long operational validation trial campaign in autumn 2011. Twelve Swedish air traffic controllers participated in these SESAR validations at the remote tower facility in Malmö by shadow mode. They monitored all day-to-day live air and ground traffic at Ängelholm airport, 100km away, testing the latest updates to the concept and its technologies during day-light, dawn, darkness, CAVOK and LVP conditions.
Pending the final results of the exercise, the initial feedback from the controllers on the virtual out-of-the-window view is that the “Image is now pretty impressive”. The National Supervisory Authority of the Netherlands also participated in the exercise, and identified a certain number of areas of improvement including the need to mitigate big contrast differences between ground and sky or when facing the sun.