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Airspace User supporting Demonstrations of Integrated Airport Operations

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - AUDIO (Airspace User supporting Demonstrations of Integrated Airport Operations)

Reporting period: 2020-05-01 to 2021-10-31

Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) applications are widely used by airlines to support cockpit crews with information and tools optimizing day to day operations. With the integration of airport moving maps,
crews where supported with digital layouts of airports and a graphical representation of their own position. Due to digitalisation of aircraft cockpits, increased complexity of traffic situations on the ground during taxi phase and the need to increase situational awareness for crews, additional information like surrounding traffic situation on the ground or planned taxi routes for the own aircraft are expected to be an additional layer to safe operations.

The main goal of the project is the connection of ground and innovative on-board systems and the sharing of information available according to open standards and scalable IT capabilities at the EFB. The demonstration will take place in the scope of the following SESAR solutions:
• #22 (Automated Surface Routing and Planning),
• #PJ03a-01 (Enhanced Guidance Assistance to Aircraft and Vehicles on the Airport Surface Combined with Routing)
Based on demonstrations in the SESAR2020 project Integrated Airport Operations the project will use the information from solution #22 to support the Connected Moving Map Application (CMM) on Lufthansa (LH) EFB systems and evaluate possible benefits also for the SESAR1 solution used in combination with on-board functionalities.

As dissemination is a very important aspect of VLD projects a detailed description of communication objectives and the strategy to reach them is outlined in The Demoplan. A wide variety of communication tools such as a website, flyers, Social Media and videos will be used to reach the defined target audience and to disseminate the project results in the best possible way.
In the first period of the project, the partners have been working on the preparation of the Demonstration Plan (D1.1) of AUDIO which is the main deliverable of the reporting period.
The technical work had been started by conducting different meetings and WebExes on the demonstration setup and the connection between the different parts of the platform. This included the usage of the new standardized AIXM and AMXM data in the ARIF platform in Hamburg as well as the interface to transfer data from ARIF Hamburg to the cockpit. Based on the ICD delivered by LH, DLR implemented the provision of traffic information to the Connected Moving map application. Tests have been successfully conducted to display the Hamburg traffic information based on recorded ARIF data. Dissemination activities had been carried out in the first reporting period. The AUDIO Website (https://www.audio-project.eu ) has been set up in cooperation between ARTTIC and DLR. In addition social media accounts (Twitter @AUDIO_projectEU and LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/audio-project ) have been prepared. The Logo for the project was decided and dissemination material (flyer) was prepared.

The outbreak of the COVID pandemic had already a significant influence to the last months of the 1st reporting period. As the situation had intensified during the 2nd reporting period, activities have been stopped and only minimal management actions in coordinating the status and project continuation have been conducted.
The project duration has been extended with a Grant amendment to keep the project alive until a decision on further steps could be taken. With the extension, the end of the project has been shifted from April 30th 2021 to October 31st 2021.

Due to the continuing COVID situation in 2020 and 2021 no work could be done in the project. Finally project partners decided to stop the project, as a successfull continuation and finalisation of the project could not been guaranteed.
The project has been terminated. As no results from the demonstrations are available, no Demoreport has been generated.
The demonstration is expected to show the benefit of providing local airport data to the flight crew. By providing the planned taxi route and time calculated by the A-SMGCS routing function to the cockpit, benefits are expected in terms of safety and predictability, as well as an increase in situational awareness. The safety and predictability gain is clearly relevant for passengers. For the public at large, environmental benefits are also expected. The optimised surface routing means optimised aircraft movements on the ground, with reduced fuel burn (fewer carbon emissions, less noise and less cost).

Exchanging ground traffic information results in common situational awareness between all stakeholders. The overall safety guaranteed by Air Traffic Controllers is enhanced by pilots’ better awareness. Visualization of the taxi route will improve operations (reduced route deviations, enhanced predictability, reduction of potential conflicts) for Airport Operators.
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