Periodic Reporting for period 1 - IFAV3 (INCREASED FLEXIBILITY OF ATCO VALIDATIONS – V3)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2023-07-01 do 2024-12-31
The IFAV3 project aims to decrease barriers that limit and prevent air traffic controllers (ATCOs) from holding more unit endorsements (e.g. effort for currency). The introduction of new tools on the one hand, and procedural means one the other hand, is used to define strategies for more flexible unit endorsements. Their benefit is to mitigate, e.g. ATCO experience or knowledge deficits that might arise when decreasing barriers and that currently justifies the current training and endorsement requirements.
On this basis, IFAV3 will increase the cost efficiency of air traffic control and the productivity of controllers while maintaining at least the same level of safety. In the same way, this research will make air traffic control more robust against lack of personnel or other disruptions.
The objectives of IFAV3 can be summarised as following:
• Continue research of increased flexibility in ATCO validations (IFAV) in the upper airspace; in detail the development, and validation of new training and endorsement concepts, as well as procedural and technical means, towards a V3 / TRL6 maturity;
• Continue research on increased ATC task automation to enable generic controller validations in a separate task, corresponding to a large-scale study;
• Transfer, and refinement of IFAV concepts and means to a remote tower centre (RTC) environment, as very similar challenges exist there as well: the same ATCO staff needs to be deployed with highest possible flexibility to different remote-controlled airports.
On this basis, IFAV3 will increase the cost efficiency of air traffic control and the productivity of controllers while maintaining at least the same level of safety. In the same way, this research will make air traffic control more robust against lack of personnel or other disruptions.
The objectives of IFAV3 can be summarised as following:
• Continue research of increased flexibility in ATCO validations (IFAV) in the upper airspace; in detail the development, and validation of new training and endorsement concepts, as well as procedural and technical means, towards a V3 / TRL6 maturity;
• Continue research on increased ATC task automation to enable generic controller validations in a separate task, corresponding to a large-scale study;
• Transfer, and refinement of IFAV concepts and means to a remote tower centre (RTC) environment, as very similar challenges exist there as well: the same ATCO staff needs to be deployed with highest possible flexibility to different remote-controlled airports.
For both main topics (corresponding to solutions) of the project, which are 1) IFAV applied in upper airspace area control centres, and 2) IFAV applied in remote tower centres, basically the same progress can be reported:
• The conceptual work has been almost completed,
• Strategies, technical enablers and procedures were defined in detail,
• The actual design / construction of selected technical enablers started and is still ongoing,
• The preparation of the validation exercises started and is still ongoing,
• Corresponding deliverables were created and submitted according to the project schedule.
The main difference between both project topics (solutions) are the target maturity level, which is V3 / TRL6 for IFAV applied in upper airspace area control centres, and V1 / TRL2 for IFAV applied in remote tower centres.
• The conceptual work has been almost completed,
• Strategies, technical enablers and procedures were defined in detail,
• The actual design / construction of selected technical enablers started and is still ongoing,
• The preparation of the validation exercises started and is still ongoing,
• Corresponding deliverables were created and submitted according to the project schedule.
The main difference between both project topics (solutions) are the target maturity level, which is V3 / TRL6 for IFAV applied in upper airspace area control centres, and V1 / TRL2 for IFAV applied in remote tower centres.
The IFAV strategies for both solutions were worked out in detail, together with detailed descriptions / blueprints of the needed procedural and technical enablers. A detailed analysis of affected standards and regulations was performed, highlighting the recommended changes on one hand, but also revealing no blocking issues on the other hand.