Final Report Summary - RESILIENCE2050.EU (New design principles fostering safety, agility and resilience for ATM)
Executive Summary:
Resilience2050 is a European collaborative research project on new design principles fostering safety, agility and resilience for ATM. It was launched on the 1st of June, 2012 under FP7-Transport sub-programme area AAT.2012.6.2-4 with a duration of 43 months. The project research consolidates an innovative approach beyond SESAR.
The following are the high-level project objectives and key research areas:
to analytically define the concept of "resilience", within the context of Air Traffic Management (ATM).
to define a resilience metric which enables an innovative quantitative approach in measuring this property.
to calculate resilience metrics with current traffic levels and its ulterior assessment.
to derive, model and validate the resilience design principles that would improve the resilience of the European ATM system's elements in future scenarios.
The project website (www.resilience2050.eu) gives accurate and updated information of the project, including detailed objectives, events and specific partner roles.
Project Context and Objectives:
The following are the key research areas and objectives covered in the project:
to analytically define the concept of "resilience", within the context of Air Traffic Management (ATM).
to define a resilience metric which enables an innovative quantitative approach in measuring this property.
to calculate resilience metrics with current traffic levels and its ulterior assessment.
to derive, model and validate the resilience design principles that would improve the resilience of the European ATM system's elements in future scenarios.
The project focused on researching aviation disturbances and their perturbations within delay propagation scenarios. Significant effort was allocated to the data-driven analyses and modelling exercises to determine the impact disturbances (weather, staffing, operational) had according to the resilience metrics of the ATM elements (sectors, airports etc). The project also examined how the human role impacts ATM in the context of the resilience property. The consortium, formed by seven participants from five different countries, included a variety of European research entities operating in the fields of resilience, aviation operations, complex systems, big data and data science domains. The consortium also included an Air Navigation Service Provider and Airport operator. In sum, the following entities made up the consortium:
The Innaxis Foundation and Research Institute: Project Coordinator – Spain (Also referred to as "Innaxis" or "INX")
DLR: Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V./ The German Aerospace Centre – Germany
NLR: Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium/ The National Aerospace Laboratory – The Netherlands
ITU: Istanbul Teknik Universitesi/ Istanbul Technical University – Turkey
DHMI: Devlet Hava Meydanlari Isletmesi/The General Directorate of State Airports Authority of Turkey – Turkey
UPM: Universidad Politécnica de Madrid/Technical University of Madrid – Spain
KCL: King’s College London – United Kingdom
The project website (www.resilience2050.eu) gives accurate and updated information of the project, including detailed objectives, events and specific partner roles.
Project Results:
The main goal of the project was to achieve a deeper knowledge of the resilience concept in ATM, which was largely non-existent in ATM before 2011, only incorporating safety management aspects. Resilience, which describes the ability of a system to recover under abnormal conditions to a given state, is investigated thoroughly within the socio-ecological domains. Resilience2050 transfers this external knowledge to field of ATM by applying it as a new property of the system which can be furthermore optimised.
At its inception the project consolidated a theoretical ATM-Resilience framework agreed upon by all aviation stakeholders, both internal and external to the project. Thereafter, the consortium used the latest innovative data science techniques to mine different datasets to extract information to analyse the resiliency of the ATM system to the different disturbances. Design principles were then derived by taking into account the quantitative assessments made through the data mining process, the operational knowledge of the consortium, and the necessary balance with other properties such as agility and efficiency of the ATM system.
The work performed per work-package (WP) and the main results achieved are summarised as follows:
The first WP provided the theoretical framework, which led to a definition of Resilience within the ATM domain. Other novel ideas such as the human role factor in the ATM resilience was also explored. In addition, some learnings about the proper terminology (resilience, robustness, disturbances, perturbations) were taken from other socio-technical domains such as Biology or Geology and explored in the context of ATM.
WP2 tackled the data sets and data mining analyses that enabled, along with WP1, a deep study at a microscale, of the "Resilience level" in the current European ATM system for a particular disturbance. Also included in this work package were insights into the delay propagation patterns in the European ATM system, with a macro-analysis approach.
The WP3 built a structure in which the resilience concept could be realistically represented through a multilayer approach. Essentially WP3 provided a way to measure the system's resilience, including a full list of Resilience Metrics of the current ATM elements. WP3 then finishes with the Resilience design principles presented in D3.3.
WP4 and WP5 design, deploy and run a complete ATM simulation environment. In the context of this platform, and using the operational insights from the resilience design principles extracted in WP3, a future ATM system is designed, including the most effective Resilience measures. A balance between resilience, efficiency and safety is also maintained while the model is optimised. In order to validate the results and compare it with current situation, different simulations were run, including among other inputs: expected future traffic levels and/or stress testing techniques.
Potential Impact:
The Resilience2050 project presents a cutting edge concept for an efficient and resilient future ATM system. Resilience, as a new property of the system, needs to be assessed and properly managed in order to allow the system behaviour to be "controlled" under severe disturbances. The potential socio–economic impact of the project is remarkable: by efficiently managing disruptions and disturbances, smoother and seamless movement of air transport flights and passengers is envisaged in Europe.
In order to achieve this, theoretical work was required to attain agreements on several concepts in the context of ATM operations. Those concepts were defined and the properties were consolidated among academia, research and aviation operators (airports, ANSPs, airlines). The theoretical work proposed proper definitions for relevant concepts: resilience, robustness, stress, reference state, delay propagation, degradation, agility and recovery. The definitions were analysed and agreed among all partners and stakeholders. Following this theoretical ground work, a new resilience metric was defined. This metric allows a quantitative classification surrounding various resilience levels of the ATM system for any traffic situation, under any disturbance level. This metric helps with the identification of the most critical ("less resilient") scenarios, that would need to be improved to globally increase the system resilience.
In parallel, other performance variables (cost, agility, efficiency, human role) should be taken into account as they may be hindered by the increase in resilience. A complete performance model needs to simultaneously take into account different properties and the necessary balance among them. Results extracted from simulation exercises, under the proper resilience design principles, are a key milestone in paving the way for a resilience-driven ATM system in the future.
Regarding dissemination, the results have been accepted and disseminated in international conferences, workshops and symposiums such as the 2013 ATOS (Air Traffic Operations Symposium), Toulouse-France; the USA-Europe Air Traffic Conference at Chicago (USA-2013), European Conference on Complex Sytems (ECCS 2013, Barcelona), The International Conference Research in Air Transportation (ICRAT 2014, Istanbul), the SESAR Innovation Days (SIDs 2014), Madrid and the SESAR Innovation Days (SIDs 2015), Bologne.
List of Websites:
www.resilience2050.eu
Innaxis Research Institute
innovation@innaxis.org
Resilience2050 is a European collaborative research project on new design principles fostering safety, agility and resilience for ATM. It was launched on the 1st of June, 2012 under FP7-Transport sub-programme area AAT.2012.6.2-4 with a duration of 43 months. The project research consolidates an innovative approach beyond SESAR.
The following are the high-level project objectives and key research areas:
to analytically define the concept of "resilience", within the context of Air Traffic Management (ATM).
to define a resilience metric which enables an innovative quantitative approach in measuring this property.
to calculate resilience metrics with current traffic levels and its ulterior assessment.
to derive, model and validate the resilience design principles that would improve the resilience of the European ATM system's elements in future scenarios.
The project website (www.resilience2050.eu) gives accurate and updated information of the project, including detailed objectives, events and specific partner roles.
Project Context and Objectives:
The following are the key research areas and objectives covered in the project:
to analytically define the concept of "resilience", within the context of Air Traffic Management (ATM).
to define a resilience metric which enables an innovative quantitative approach in measuring this property.
to calculate resilience metrics with current traffic levels and its ulterior assessment.
to derive, model and validate the resilience design principles that would improve the resilience of the European ATM system's elements in future scenarios.
The project focused on researching aviation disturbances and their perturbations within delay propagation scenarios. Significant effort was allocated to the data-driven analyses and modelling exercises to determine the impact disturbances (weather, staffing, operational) had according to the resilience metrics of the ATM elements (sectors, airports etc). The project also examined how the human role impacts ATM in the context of the resilience property. The consortium, formed by seven participants from five different countries, included a variety of European research entities operating in the fields of resilience, aviation operations, complex systems, big data and data science domains. The consortium also included an Air Navigation Service Provider and Airport operator. In sum, the following entities made up the consortium:
The Innaxis Foundation and Research Institute: Project Coordinator – Spain (Also referred to as "Innaxis" or "INX")
DLR: Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V./ The German Aerospace Centre – Germany
NLR: Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium/ The National Aerospace Laboratory – The Netherlands
ITU: Istanbul Teknik Universitesi/ Istanbul Technical University – Turkey
DHMI: Devlet Hava Meydanlari Isletmesi/The General Directorate of State Airports Authority of Turkey – Turkey
UPM: Universidad Politécnica de Madrid/Technical University of Madrid – Spain
KCL: King’s College London – United Kingdom
The project website (www.resilience2050.eu) gives accurate and updated information of the project, including detailed objectives, events and specific partner roles.
Project Results:
The main goal of the project was to achieve a deeper knowledge of the resilience concept in ATM, which was largely non-existent in ATM before 2011, only incorporating safety management aspects. Resilience, which describes the ability of a system to recover under abnormal conditions to a given state, is investigated thoroughly within the socio-ecological domains. Resilience2050 transfers this external knowledge to field of ATM by applying it as a new property of the system which can be furthermore optimised.
At its inception the project consolidated a theoretical ATM-Resilience framework agreed upon by all aviation stakeholders, both internal and external to the project. Thereafter, the consortium used the latest innovative data science techniques to mine different datasets to extract information to analyse the resiliency of the ATM system to the different disturbances. Design principles were then derived by taking into account the quantitative assessments made through the data mining process, the operational knowledge of the consortium, and the necessary balance with other properties such as agility and efficiency of the ATM system.
The work performed per work-package (WP) and the main results achieved are summarised as follows:
The first WP provided the theoretical framework, which led to a definition of Resilience within the ATM domain. Other novel ideas such as the human role factor in the ATM resilience was also explored. In addition, some learnings about the proper terminology (resilience, robustness, disturbances, perturbations) were taken from other socio-technical domains such as Biology or Geology and explored in the context of ATM.
WP2 tackled the data sets and data mining analyses that enabled, along with WP1, a deep study at a microscale, of the "Resilience level" in the current European ATM system for a particular disturbance. Also included in this work package were insights into the delay propagation patterns in the European ATM system, with a macro-analysis approach.
The WP3 built a structure in which the resilience concept could be realistically represented through a multilayer approach. Essentially WP3 provided a way to measure the system's resilience, including a full list of Resilience Metrics of the current ATM elements. WP3 then finishes with the Resilience design principles presented in D3.3.
WP4 and WP5 design, deploy and run a complete ATM simulation environment. In the context of this platform, and using the operational insights from the resilience design principles extracted in WP3, a future ATM system is designed, including the most effective Resilience measures. A balance between resilience, efficiency and safety is also maintained while the model is optimised. In order to validate the results and compare it with current situation, different simulations were run, including among other inputs: expected future traffic levels and/or stress testing techniques.
Potential Impact:
The Resilience2050 project presents a cutting edge concept for an efficient and resilient future ATM system. Resilience, as a new property of the system, needs to be assessed and properly managed in order to allow the system behaviour to be "controlled" under severe disturbances. The potential socio–economic impact of the project is remarkable: by efficiently managing disruptions and disturbances, smoother and seamless movement of air transport flights and passengers is envisaged in Europe.
In order to achieve this, theoretical work was required to attain agreements on several concepts in the context of ATM operations. Those concepts were defined and the properties were consolidated among academia, research and aviation operators (airports, ANSPs, airlines). The theoretical work proposed proper definitions for relevant concepts: resilience, robustness, stress, reference state, delay propagation, degradation, agility and recovery. The definitions were analysed and agreed among all partners and stakeholders. Following this theoretical ground work, a new resilience metric was defined. This metric allows a quantitative classification surrounding various resilience levels of the ATM system for any traffic situation, under any disturbance level. This metric helps with the identification of the most critical ("less resilient") scenarios, that would need to be improved to globally increase the system resilience.
In parallel, other performance variables (cost, agility, efficiency, human role) should be taken into account as they may be hindered by the increase in resilience. A complete performance model needs to simultaneously take into account different properties and the necessary balance among them. Results extracted from simulation exercises, under the proper resilience design principles, are a key milestone in paving the way for a resilience-driven ATM system in the future.
Regarding dissemination, the results have been accepted and disseminated in international conferences, workshops and symposiums such as the 2013 ATOS (Air Traffic Operations Symposium), Toulouse-France; the USA-Europe Air Traffic Conference at Chicago (USA-2013), European Conference on Complex Sytems (ECCS 2013, Barcelona), The International Conference Research in Air Transportation (ICRAT 2014, Istanbul), the SESAR Innovation Days (SIDs 2014), Madrid and the SESAR Innovation Days (SIDs 2015), Bologne.
List of Websites:
www.resilience2050.eu
Innaxis Research Institute
innovation@innaxis.org