Integrated Airport - SESAR-VLD1-02-2016

Deadline: Mar 22, 2017  
CALL EXPIRED

Specific Challenge:

This demonstration project will coordinate the Airspace User (AU) involvement in the demonstration of innovative airport operations functionalities designed to improve airport operations. The functionalities that will be demonstrated are advanced concepts that are related to the core scope of the second Air Traffic Management (ATM) Functionality of the Pilot Common Project (AF#2 of the PCP).

In particular it demonstrates the use of two distinct functionalities designed to improve airport operations from an airspace user perspective: on-board surface traffic alerting system and On-board taxi route guidance.

With reference to the SJU Annual Work Programme 2016, this topic covers Section 3.5.4, sub Work Area 2.1 topic b).

Traffic growth is expected to strengthen for the coming years in most European airports. One of the major challenges, those airports will have to encounter within the next years is to manage increased congestion while maintaining safety. Whilst ground technology will play a significant part in addressing these challenges, the airspace users must integrate seamlessly, without incurring unacceptable additional costs.

Scope:

This action, which follows on from the project PJ28 IAO funded under call H2020-SESAR-2015-2, will organise the participation of airspace users in the demonstration of two distinct functionalities being developed to improve airport integration and throughput:

• On-board surface traffic alerting; and

• On-board taxi-route guidance.

Consortia applying for this topic must include at least one AU, and may include additional entities provided their role in supporting the demonstration from the AU perspective is adequately justified in the proposal.

The intended function of the on-board surface traffic alerting system is to increase flight crew’s situational awareness and reduce a risk of collision with other traffic on the airport’s surface through the use of a dedicated display featuring an airport moving map showing an airport layout and also the position and state of the own aircraft and its surrounding traffic, using ADS-B data.

This Wave 1 demonstration will focus on gathering a large amount of ADS-B data from revenue flights to allow off-line analysis with a view to verifying its performance and assessing its suitability for use in the traffic-alert context.

The off-line analysis, comparing the logged ADS-B data with data from A-SMGCS systems, will be undertaken by a parallel demonstration project. AU involvement shall be as follows:

• Several aircraft shall be equipped with logging equipment. The flights shall be conducted mainly within Europe. The data that will be logged consists of the own aircraft and other ADS-B information received during these regular flights.

• The equipment installation will need to be approved by appropriate authorities.

• Data shall be logged and provided to the parallel project for off-line analysis.

• The airspace users will support the off-line analysis by providing pilot feedback on the alerting that is possibly required to adjust thresholds for alerts.

On-board taxi route guidance can be provided either through manual taxi clearance insertion made by flight crews, or by the D-TAXI capability. The taxi clearance information depicted in the cockpit on a suitable display with an airport moving map significantly increases flight crews’ situational awareness, especially on complex airports.

Since D-TAXI is not widely available, this demonstration will demonstrate, on several aircraft platforms, the safety and situational awareness improvements associated with the provision of manual taxi routes to the flight crews on an Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) device, using a single airline and several taxiing aircraft. This demonstration will thus support SESAR Solution #26: Manual Taxi Routing Function.

The demonstration approach will be:

• An on-board surface routing and guidance system that has already achieved proven V3 maturity in SESAR will be provided to the airline. The system provider will support the airline in obtaining all required operational approvals from local authorities.

• Once approved, the airline will use the on-board surface routing and guidance system on several aircraft flying their regular short- and long-haul revenue flights within and possibly outside of Europe.

• Once flight crews receive the taxi clearance information from ATC via radio communication means, they will manually insert the taxi clearance information into the on-board surface routing and guidance system EFB application.

• The system will depict the taxi clearance on the EFB display layered over an airport moving map.

• Flight crews will use the display during all airport surface operations as needed, and will have a better awareness of the taxi situation on the airport, allowing safety and operational improvements.

• Flight crews will be required to use the EFB application when taxiing on the airport surface, e.g. before taxiing for take-off as well as after landing. In cooperation with the parallel demonstration project, operational feedback will be periodically retrieved from flight crews to evaluate and confirm the system’s performance and benefits.

AUs shall perform the demonstrations in collaboration with parallel demonstration projects dealing with the same subject to develop the concept of the demonstrations, participation in activities preparing the trials, participation in periodic follow-up meetings, production of all the documentation related to the demonstration as well as results dissemination and communication activities. Output from the demonstration shall include a report by each participating AU containing a full analysis of the impact of the procedures on AU performance.

Participating AUs will not need to dispatch any flights for the sole purpose of the demonstrations, i.e. participation shall always be through revenue flights. Participating AUs shall make available data from their revenue flights for the operational evaluation of the performance of the concepts under demonstration. These data may include, among others, questionnaires or other feedback by airline staff (flight-crews and/or Airline Operations Centre (AOC) personnel), fuel burn data (potentially including suitably aggregated and de-identified FDR data), and scheduling and punctuality data. Applicants shall demonstrate how the scale and nature of their proposed flying programme will provide the benefits expected to be derived from the project.

Expected Impact:

This demonstration project aims to form a bridge between SESAR 1 industrial research and the deployment phase by deploying demonstration platforms in a close-to operational environment in order to demonstrate the advantages of the new functionalities and to serve as a de-risking activity for the large-scale deployment of PCP-related functionalities.

Therefore, the ambition of the demonstration is to minimize the risk of the Airport Safety Nets concept deployment as well as of the on-board traffic alerting system and the Manual Taxi Clearance insertion function. Results of the demonstration should quantify performance improvements resulting from the demonstration flights, using, as a minimum, relevant KPAs from the performance framework defined in the ATM Master Plan.