Medium and small airfields have limited resources to invest in advanced ground infrastructure to support all weather operations. Vision-based technologies offer an alternative located on board the aircraft and available to all aircraft types.

This solution refers to enhanced vision systems (EVS) and synthetic vision systems (SVS), alone or in combination, which enable more efficient taxi, and landing operations in low visibility conditions (LVC). The operational credits provided for landing are beneficial to medium and small aerodromes using category I and required navigation (RNAV) approach procedures while the vision based system use on the surface benefits larger aerodromes with busy or complex taxi operations. The on-board vision systems receive information from infrared and multispectral sensors.

SESAR tested head-mounted displays (HMDs) fitted with surface routing, live traffic and clearance information in various weather conditions. In addition to fast-time simulations at Czech Republic, live flight trials were conducted in Italy and France.

In the case of landing operations in low visibility conditions, a head-mounted display provides an acceptable alternative to a head-up display (HUD) and also provided taxi-in support.

In the case of taxi operations, HMD was shown to be feasible. The workshare between the pilot flying and the pilot monitoring was unchanged compared to current operations and the display of taxi guidance information was shown to be extremely valuable in large airport environments. Flight crew liked the three-dimensional depiction of surrounding traffic.

When EVS and SVS are used together to deliver combined vision system (CVS) the solution helps to interpret the environment, especially if infrared camera performance is insufficient, and secondary airports in particular stand to benefit as a result of fewer cancellations, diversions and delays.

The solution is available for industrialisation.

BENEFITS

Improved airport resilience in poor weather

Better situational awareness for flight crew

Enhanced capacity in low visibility conditions

DATAPACKS

SESAR Solution PJ03a-04 Contextual Note v6 
D4.010 SESAR PJ03a-04 SPR-INTEROP-OSED for V3 - Part I
D4.010 SESAR PJ03a-04 SPR-INTEROP-OSED for V3 - Part IV
D4.010 SESAR PJ03a-04 SPR-INTEROP-OSED for V3 - Part V
D4.010 SESAR PJ03a-04 SPR-INTEROP-OSED for V3 -Part II
D4.020 SESAR PJ03a-04 TS-IRS for V3- 00.01.07 
D4.070 SESAR PJ03a-04 CBA for V3 00.01.03