Exploitable results
The IFATS project proposed to study a revolutionary concept for a future air transportation system by adding as much onboard automation and autonomy to the aircraft as necessary to fulfill the overall requirements of improved efficiency, capacity and safety of air transportation.
The enhancement of the efficiency is achieved through a network centric architecture of the overall system. All the various air and ground components of the system communicate permanently with one other:
- aircraft fly autonomously pre-programmed flight plans using sophisticated onboard computing and sensor systems. Ground operators are responsible for the overall situation, location of aircraft, and tracking of their intentions;
- functionalities of the system are flexibly distributed between the ground and aircraft, relying on intensive data communication capabilities between aircraft, and between aircraft and the network of ground stations.
In order to improve the safety and the security of the system, current pilots and controllers tasks are deeply modified to lower both the risk of human errors and direct terrorist threat. The elements of the system communicate digitally: pilots can be removed from the cockpit and the controller's work is transformed into system monitoring actions.
Additional features are added like direct assistance from the aircraft manufacturer for in flight aircraft diagnosis and remote maintenance.
The key result of the project is a comprehensive view of what could be this extreme fully automated air transportation system (ATS). A clear understanding of its benefits and drawbacks has been obtained.
From this assessment, recommendations have been made for future research and development aiming at making possible an evolution of the present air transport system towards a future one able to withstand the forecast traffic growth without any compromise on safety and security.
Nevertheless, beyond the IFATS project results, the need to go deeper in the concept analysis has been identified to prove the performance of a highly automated air transport system. This can be obtained through the modeling and the simulation of the worldwide operation of such a system. To this end, a follow-on phase of the project has been submitted to the Commission in 2007.
The IFATS project has demonstrated that looking far into the future is worthwhile to progress in the definition of the future of the air transport system. Such a methodology enables the avoidance of any show stoppers that may be temporary or only based on unjustified reluctance (cultural and social issues are a good illustration).
Prospective research is a must in Europe; advanced prospective research projects really gives a vision of the potential long term future, which is a driver to building our industrial strategy.
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