ENRICHED TRAJECTORY DATA LEADS TO BETTER FLIGHT PLANNING
Airspace users share their flight plans with stakeholders on the ground so flights can be managed as closely as possible to their ideal profile. This shared business trajectory (SBT) is progressively refined prior to departure to create a reference business trajectory (RBT) agreed by air traffic control and the airspace user. This becomes the flight plan that is then filed. SESAR 1 introduced an extended flight plan (eFPL) to expand the information available for this collaborative decision-making process in order to improve trajectory prediction. The enriched data set is reflected in ICAO’s long-term vision of flight and flow information for a collaborative environment (FF-ICE).
SESAR JU partners set out to improve ATC prediction to better assess the expected sector load and reduce the number of false conflict detections. This solution expands the information exchange to distribute enhanced eFPL data to improve alignment of trajectories between air traffic control and airspace users. Included in this broader information exchange is the filed trajectory and agreed trajectory – with airport standard arrival and departure routes – as well as flight specific performance data, which allows air traffic control to recalculate, when needed, a trajectory closer to the preferred trajectory as would be generated by the airspace user. The activity supports trajectory-based operations by helping to align and unify air traffic control and airspace users’ trajectories in the pre-flight phase, and improves target time management for the network as a whole. The solution is part of European synchronised deployment.
This solution covers two technical enablers and one standardisation enabler to support eFPL distribution to air traffic control. SESAR JU partners tested eFPL data transfer between the Network Manager and air traffic control; and a real-time simulation using Swiss airspace. The validation exercises demonstrated the technical capability of the distribution of eFPLs from the Network Manager to air traffic control using the business-to-business services. It also showed the ability of ATC Flight Data Processing systems to treat flight plan data from the eFPL format.
The solution is available for industrialisation and is part of Europe-wide synchronised deployment. To date the solution has been implemented in the following countries: Armenia, Bulgaria, Georgia, Latvia, Maastricht UAC, Malta, Poland, Switzerland, Turkey
BENEFITS
- Increased cost efficiency
- Enhanced safety and security
DATAPACKS