SESAR research partners have successfully completed a series of tests on virtual centres and the delegation of air traffic management service provision. The tests were conducted as part of SESAR project PJ.10-W2 PROSA (Solution 93) and PJ.32-W3 Virtual centres, under the lead of German air navigation service provider, DFS Deutsche Flugsicherung, and compliant with the standard of EUROCAE WG-122.
Virtual centres sees the unbundling of the services that make up air traffic control such as flight data, radar and weather information and decoupling these services from the physical location of the control centre and the controller working position (CWP). In doing so, air navigation service providers can delegate services and resources to deal more flexibly with traffic fluctuations, virtually allocating controllers and resources where and when needed, and scaling capacity up or down according to demand.
Multiple cross-border validation (PJ.10-W2-93 and PJ32-W3-VC – EXE3)
Skyguide & Skysoft-ATM together with their partners (DSNA, DFS, NATS, INDRA and FREQUENTIS) have successfully developed and validated a virtual centre platform, composed of several ADSPs and ATSUs where all the data exchanged were managed through a central broker based in Vienna, at FREQUENTIS premises. The aim was to demonstration interoperability between ATSUs and ADSPs irrespective of the vendors of the systems installed at the premises. By combining different virtual centre architectures and different operational use cases (e.g., delegation by night and in contingency situations), a total of 10 different delegation use cases were developed covering the following operational scenarios.
Despite some instabilities observed in the network (VPN connections over public internet were used), the exercise partners were able to play all the planned use cases. The performances of the CWPs and ADSPs in exchanging data through the broker were rated from excellent to acceptable. In certain CWPs, the feeling was similar to being in a true OPS room, in front of an operational system.
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Italian validation (PJ.10-W2-93 EXE4 and PJ32-W3-VC – EXE 1.5)
The Italian validation was carried out at ENAV National Test Facility in Rome using Coflight Cloud Services, the LEONARDO Controller Working Position and SITTI Voice Control Distribution systems. They involved the delegation of ATM services provision among ATSUs and contingency use-cases involving an ADSP and two different air ATSUs (Rome and Brindisi Area Control Centres) and focused on the coordination of both air traffic flow capacity management (ATFCM) with the local traffic load management Tool from the partner IDS AirNav, and civil-military operations.
Specifically, the exercises combine architectures and tested different traffic load conditions ranging from medium to high density in a total of 15 different delegation and contingency use-cases scenarios, including night time operations, on-demand and service provision between civil military operations. Overall, the validations demonstrated the feasibility and added value of the solution.
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Danish-Swedish validation (PJ.10-W2-93 and PJ32-W3-VC – EXE5)
A newly developed TopSky ATC platform that was deployed in Copenhagen, Malmoe and Paris, and focused on ATS delegation across national boundaries in support of workload distribution. The exercise mainly looked at the operational aspects, human acceptability and feasibility in relation to ATS delegation. In the scenario, an increase in traffic occurred in Copenhagen airspace, triggering a delegation request to Malmö, to reduce the workload for the Copenhagen controllers. The operational procedures developed in PJ.10-W2 PROSA Solution 93 were applied during the delegation process and ATS delegation was performed across the boundary, both to an idle (not used) controller working position (CWP), as well as to a CWP already managing traffic. Several different sector configurations / delegation scenarios were tested. The exercise provided useful information about safety, human performance and operational concept, as well as platform development possibilities.
Even though some delay was detected in data transmission during the exercise, while using public internet for the data transfer, the stability of the platform was a major contributor to the successful outcome. The overall concept of ATS delegation was perceived as acceptable from a human performance perspective, even if some adaptation might take place in both systems and procedures to mature the concept further. No critical safety issues were identified during the exercise.
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About SESAR 2020 PJ.10-W2 PROSA
Keeping aircraft safely separated is one of, if not, the core function of air traffic management today. But as more aircraft become more diverse and numerous, the airspace becomes more complex to manage. The project aims to advance automation technology solutions and procedures that will help controllers to handle the traffic in a smooth and efficient way.
PJ.10-W2 PROSA has received funding from the SESAR Joint Undertaking under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 874464. With a funding of EUR 37 million, 28 partners and ten "linked third parties", the project is one of the largest projects in the industrial research strand of SESAR 2020.