The first wave of SESAR 2020 industrial research projects has got underway, addressing many areas critical for the modernisation of European air traffic management (ATM). Contracts have already been signed for 20 projects that are included in the first wave of SESAR 2020 industrial research and large-scale validation activities, with the signature of the remaining five contracts in the coming weeks.
These projects will run from now until the end of 2019 and will aim to deliver new or improved technological and operations solutions to increase the performance of airports, air navigation service provision and the overall European ATM network.
All of this work will be done according to the timelines of the European ATM Master Plan and in support of the EU’s Single European Sky and Aviation Strategy. A total of approximately EUR 260 million has been earmarked for the first wave of SESAR industrial research and large-scale validation, which is funded by SESAR members and through the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.
Overview of 2020 industrial research projects (Wave 1)
Enhanced arrivals and departures (PJ01 EAD)
In order to meet forecast traffic growth, PJ01 will develop concepts, tools and procedures to increase the capacity of Terminal Manoeuvring Areas (TMAs) in a safe, cost-effective and environmentally sustainable manner. This will be achieved by taking advantage of the latest technological developments from both an airborne and a ground-system perspective and through the secure sharing of data. The needs of all Airspace Users will be addressed including General Aviation and Rotorcraft.
Airport safety nets (PJ03b SAFE)
Safety is aviation’s top priority. To work for even safer airports, Project 03b SAFE will define, consolidate and validate additional safety barriers to mitigate the risks of runway incursion, runway excursion and more generally the risk of incidents and accidents involving aircraft at the airport.
Total airport management (PJ04)
The project is articulated around two SESAR Solutions, emphasising all of the key airport processes. Integration of airports into the ATM network will be addressed through sharing information in a timely manner between the network operations plan and the individual AOPs using SWIM technology. The project unites key European aviation industry partners combining the right expertise to address these challenges and to drive deployment of validated improvements.
Remote tower for multiple airports (PJ05 Remote Tower)
The project proposes the development of a remotely provided aerodrome air traffic service by a "multiple" and/or "centre" setting. Those settings help to combine ATS services from various aerodromes in a centralized control room independent on airport location in order to make use of the valuable resource ATS provider more efficiently.
Trajectory-based free routing (PJ06 ToBeFREE)
Project partners will validate both the benefit to airspace users and the impact on ATM of the extension of free routing (FRA) into complex airspace and lower vertical limits through modelling and real-time simulations. The results will seek to provide evidence that FRA can be implemented, cost effectively, in all the Single European Sky airspace.
Optimised airspace users operations (PJ07 OAUO)
The project focusses on flight planning supported by improved trajectory information sharing with ATM as defined by ICAO and on flight prioritisation processes in capacity constraint situations with a step-wise integration of military operations into civil ATM collaborative processes.
Advanced airspace management (PJ08 AAM)
The project will focus on dynamic airspace configurations (DAC) and dynamic mobile areas (DMA), which enable more flexible response to traffic demand and regional/local performance objectives. Project partners will further elaborate the definition of DAC/DMA, the associated data models and operational processes, validate the operational feasibility and assess the performance impact. The readiness for integration of the DAC operational process in the DCB process will also be addressed, as well as automated tools to generate optimum sector design and configurations.
Advanced demand capacity building (DCB) (PJ09 DCB)
The project will evolve the existing DCB process to a powerful distributed network management function which takes full advantage of the SESAR layered collaborative planning, trajectory management principles and SWIM technology to improve the effectiveness of ATM resource planning and the network performance of the ATM system in Europe.
Controller tools and team organisation for the provision of separation in air traffic management (PJ10 PROSA)
The project aims at providing air traffic controllers with more automated tools, thereby allowing them to concentrate on situations where human intervention is crucial. The project aims to not only improve current conflict detection tools, but also develop new tools supporting the air traffic controller with resolution advisory and monitoring of flight trajectory. The project will address new ways of working together, taking into account developments such as drones.
Enhanced air and ground safety nets (PJ11 CAPITO)
ATM evolutions necessary to safely handle increasing traffic demand or to improve efficiency of air transportation impose new challenging requirements on existing safety nets. The project will anticipate these required evolutions to maintain, and if possible improve the level of safety. It will also support the safe integration of new airspace users such as remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS) in ATM.
Essential and efficient communication, navigation and surveillance integrated system (PJ14 EECNS)
The project aims to specify and develop the future technologies coming from the CNS domains in order to support and manage the operational services, like the 4D trajectory management, in the future ATM system. Performance requirements for CNS systems are becoming increasingly complex and demanding and need to be considered as part of an integrated and holistic system of systems, which includes air and ground CNS solutions considering convergence towards a common infrastructure, and a unified concept of operations, where possible.
Common Services (PJ15 COSER)
The project will address the notion of Common Service, which is defined as “a service that provides capability to consumers in the same way that they would otherwise need to provide themselves”. The Common Service approach follows a general principle within the Single European Sky initiative that encourages the harmonisation on the provision of common air navigation services wherever it is possible. Therefore this Common Service approach, if it is proved to be successful, could be viewed as an essential means to improve the overall cost effectiveness of the ATM business in Europe.
Controller working position/Human machine interface - CWP/HMI (PJ16 CWP HMI)
The project aims to reduce development and operating costs of air navigation service provision. These savings will ultimately benefit airlines and their customers. It achieves this by delivering the ATM Master Plan goals (defined by the European ATM community) for a more efficient deployment of human resources, a progressive increase in automation support, the implementation of virtualisation technologies and the use of standardised and interoperable systems whilst increasing the safety level.
SWIM technical infrastructure (PJ17 SWIM-TI)
The project addresses the technical infrastructure of SWIM as an enabler for other SESAR 2020 projects. It will build on the SESAR 1 research results by integrating the aircraft on the one hand and the military stakeholders on the other hand into the SWIM infrastructure. Both aspects will improve trajectory-based operations and thus improve the experience for the passengers. The common runtime registry will extend the capability of the SESAR 1 SWIM design-time (static) registry by acting as a real-time directory, used to dynamically discover and connect to deployed SWIM services, suited best for the current request during operation.
4D trajectory management (PJ18 4DTM)
Harmonised and global trajectory information sharing, including improved negotiation mechanisms, will enable significant operational benefits on flight management. The aim is to enable a unique and integrated view of all flights trajectories (including military ones) among the stakeholders. The project will investigate new tools and capabilities ensuring all stakeholders are managing a single, updated and complete view of the forecasted meteorology and airspace configuration.
Content integration (PJ19 CI)
The project aims to generate a consolidated big picture of the future European ATM system – the SESAR 2020 Concept of Operations, high-level architecture options, services and the associated performance results. The project will also provide steering guidance, principles and frameworks to support and facilitate the production and the integration of the content produced by SESAR2020 solution and enabling projects. It will provide the main input for the future updates of the European ATM Master Plan.
Master Plan maintenance (PJ20 AMPLE)
The aim of the project is to ensure the maintenance, update and alignment of the three levels of the European ATM Master Plan (executive, planning and aricitectire, implementation) and its associated portal. The project will bring together contributions from SESAR 2020 members, ensuring the broad ATM representativeness required from air navigation service providers, airports, airborne and ground industry and network manager; all having a keen interest in future ATM evolution.
Validation and demonstration engineering (PJ22 Seabird)
The project aims to address validation and demonstration engineering associated with SESAR 2020. The project will provide a system engineering data management framework (SE-DMF) to support the coherent development and delivery of SESAR Solutions. The project will develop an efficient approach based on a data-centric, data-driven rather than document-based paradigm. The project will also identify a set of strategic validation tools and interoperability solutions to improve the SESAR 2020 validation process.
VLD network collaborative management (PJ24 NCM)
The network collaborative management (NCM) project is based on a collaborative approach involving the whole spectrum of ATM actors: Airspace users, airports, ANSPs and Network Manager (NM). An important part of improving the performance of network operations is the effective and efficient planning of network resources, by linking local optimisation processes (including airport processes) with network optimization processes, taking into account stakeholders’ preferences where possible. This facilitates also the innovative usage and application of fine-tuned tailored measures (including target times) to further enhance of performance.
Initial trajectory information sharing (PJ31 DIGITS)
The project will demonstrate the ATM benefits that can be realised through the use of downlinked 4D trajectory data in ground systems. The project proposes, in a close to operational environment and in fully representative operational conditions, a set of tightly coordinated development and demonstration actions of key airborne and ground stakeholders in Europe. The airborne industry will develop up to certification the worldwide first airborne unit capable of downlinking ADS-C data according to ATN baseline 2 standard in compliance with the EU Pilot Common Project.
Flight object interoperability VLD demonstration (PJ27 IOPVLD
The project aims to demonstrate flight information sharing (flight object) interoperability in a large area of European core airspace. The project will assess the benefits of the flight object to improve ATM network performance and situational awareness supporting demand and capacity balancing between and within the participating air traffic control centres. The demonstration is expected to provide a proof that the flight object Concept is ready for deployment as required in the AF#5 of the PCP Regulation (EU) No 716/2014.