Flight Object Interoperability VLD Demonstration

Project Information

PJ27 IOPVLD

Grant agreement ID: 734140

DOI

10.3030/734140

Project terminated on 19 January 2018

EC signature date 31 October 2016

Start date 1 November 2016

End date 31 December 2019

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Smart, Green And Integrated Transport

Total cost

€ 9 693 962,50

EU contribution

€ 1 233 047,49

Coordinated by

DFS DEUTSCHE FLUGSICHERUNG GMBH
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - PJ27 IOPVLD (Flight Object Interoperability VLD Demonstration)

Reporting period: 2018-01-01 to 2018-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

"One essential goal of the Single European Sky is to improve the Interoperability of the Air Traffic Management (ATM) network. The SESAR approach towards this goal is the introduction of a 4D-trajectory, which is common across all ATM stakeholders, called Reference Business Trajectory (RBT). The Flight Object Interoperability concept is seen as a key enabler for implementing the RBT for Air Navigation Service Provider stakeholders.

The main objective of PJ27 is the demonstration that Flight Object Interoperability works in a real world upper En-route airspace environment of Air Traffic Control Centres (ACCs) from DFS, DSNA, ENAV and EUROCONTROL/MUAC over spanning a large area of European core airspace.

The demonstration will be executed as a set of Shadow Mode trials during which Air Traffic Controllers (ATCOs) will use Flight Object and SWIM equipped systems and perform flight coordination and transfer operations on the current air traffic as well as fall back operations. The only difference to real operations is that the ATCOs clearances will not be sent to the real aircraft.

The project will assess the benefits of the Flight Object to improve ATM Network performance and situational awareness between and within the participating ACCs. The demonstration is expected to provide a proof that the Flight Object Concept is ready for deployment as required in the AF#5 of the PCP Regulation (EU) No 716/2014. This demonstration is an important milestone for Air Navigation Service Providers, because it will constitute an ultimate step of validation before these stakeholders will start PCP AF#5 deployment activities.

This demonstration is the next step of FO-evolution with the platforms as these are developed and validated by PJ18-02b. A proven TRL6-maturity by PJ18-02b is an essential pre-requisite for the continuation of these demonstrations.

Finally, the demonstration will provide valuable input into the SESAR Deployment Programme, which will facilitate the coordination of PCP AF#5 deployment roadmaps and deployment scenarios
"

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

PJ27 started in November 2016 with planning activities in order to draft and agree a Demonstration Plan based on the Grant Agreement and based on a common IOP Roadmap that is shared with PJ18-02b. At the begin of December 2016, there was a meeting of the SESAR IOP Decision Team during which a revised IOP Roadmap was proposed by the Coflight members DSNA, ENAV, LEONARDO and THALES. Main reason for this proposal was that the IOP work planned in SESAR 1 programme needs to be finalised in SESAR 2020. PJ27 received an action from the IOP Decision Team to provide an updated Project Plan until March 31, 2017.

During a PJ27 PMB Meeting in January 2017, a revised IOP Roadmap was agreed. This new roadmap considered the changed dependencies between PJ27 and PJ18-02b and defined a completion of the PJ27 Shadow Mode Demonstration until the end of 2019. This was corresponding to a completion of the PJ18-02b IOPEXE1 validation exercise until the end of 2018, which was already 6 months later compared to the IOP Roadmap from the Grant Agreement.

In February 2017, the Project started to work on the requirements work packages needed for non-functional requirements, AIM SWIM Service Requirements and MET SWIM Service Requirements. Due to the decision to terminate PJ27, these work packages could not be completed.

During a Meeting of the IOP Analysis Team in March 2017, the IOP Roadmap was again updated due to the need to shift the PJ18-02b IOPEXE1 validation exercise by 4 months.

During a meeting of the SESAR Programme Committee at March 29, the PC tasked the projects PJ27 and PJ18-02b to propose a revised IOP Roadmap and revised Project Plans, which anticipate the new completion date for the IOP1EXE validation exercise end of April 2019. The PC granted up to 6 months more time for the completion of the PJ27 Demonstration. The revised Project Plans due date was end of May 2017, providing an extension of 2 months for the project planning phase.

At May 31 2017, PJ27 submitted an updated Demonstration Plan for SJU and IOP Decision Team review. The Demonstration Plan included an embedded Safety Plan and an embedded Security Plan. Together with the Demonstraion Plan all the required Ethics Plans were submitted.

At June 13, the IOP Decision Team reviewed the proposed IOP Roadmap together with the updated 18-02b Validation Plan and PJ27 Demonstration Plan. One conclusion from this review was to recommend to the Programme Committee PJ27 for termination, because the resource needs for 18-02b and PJ27 could not be covered anymore and higher priority was given to 18-02b.

At July 12, the Programme Committee reviewed the recommendations of the IOP Decision Team and decided to follow the recommendation for PJ27 Termination. The SJU Executive Director decided to coordinate with the EC before taking a final decision. PJ27 entered into an idle mode and awaiting the confirmation for termination from the SJU Executive Director.

At October 27 2017, the SJU Executive Director confirmed the PJ27 Termination by sending a pre-termination notification to the Project coordinator. The pre-termination was answered by PJ27 in December 2017.

At December 18, 2017 the SJU Executive Director send the Termination confirmation to the PJ27 Project coordinator. The Project Termination is effective at December 31, 2017.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

In current operations, each ACC builds their own 4D trajectory of a flight within their Area of Responsibility (AoR) based on the Flight Plan as received from the CFMU before the flight enters into the execution phase. Once the flight becomes airborne, each tactical intervention due to sector congestions, conflicts, delays, weather, etc. typically are not shared with all downstream ACCs. This causes inconsistent 4D trajectories of the flight. This will lead to an increased workload of the operational staff within the downstream ACCs, because they need to apply the changes they have missed during the coordination of the affected flight.

The Flight Object will enable to build a common understanding of the 4D trajectory across all ACCs involved in a flight within the entire airspace of those ACCs, and each change to it will be shared in real time between all ACCs. This will solve the problem of inconsistent 4D trajectories and it will avoid the associated additional workload on the operational staff. These expected positive effects from using a Flight Object will be demonstrated in the ACCs of Karlsruhe, Maastricht, Reims and Padua, by using FO equipped pre-operational ATS systems during a number of Shadow Mode trials.