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Content archived on 2024-04-16

EUROPEAN AERONAUTICAL TELECOMMUNICATION NETWORK

Objective

To contribute to the validation of the ATN concept and to the demonstration of its operability in the European context.
To provide the experimental ATN which is required for the experiments planned by Eurocontrol (PHARE), the EC states administrations and research centers, and industry to precisely define and demonstrate the validity of the Air Traffic Management concept developed by the European aviation community to face the air traffic requirements of the 21st century
To fulfill the above mentionned objectives, the EURATN project consists in the following:
- the development and procurement of all the necessary components of the ATN with the exception of all subnetworks up to layer 4 of the ISO-OSI basic reference model (ISO 7498), with the exception of the real air-ground subnetworks but including the necessary interfaces for these three candidate subnetworks, that are VHF (AVPAC), satellite (SATCOM) and SSR Mode-S; this covers mainly the development of the Intermediate Systems (IS) usually called ATN routers or, in the case of commercial aircraft, Communication Management Unit, and of the end systems (ES) to be connected to an ATN demonstrator to validate the ATN concept;
- the development and procurement of the software components, or the adaptation of the existing ones for the upper layers (session, presentation and application) and for the initial applications to be implemented in the end systems connected to the demonstrator and for the first experiments;
- the application of a network management standard and development of related tools to manage the experimental ATN and their integration in the demonstrator;
- the performance of specific studies to dimension and evaluate the performances of the EURATN system elements, to elaborate a performance measurement plan to validate the previous results;
- the integration and the performance of validation tests of all the above components; these validation tests may include flight tests with an experimental aircraft (as an option). It is expected that the required airborne equipment may be bought and implemented in the frame of an other related RTD project (e.g.PHARE) as it is the case for the commercial software and hardware required by the project;
- the definition of a plan of experiments to completely validate and experience the ATN capabilities, to be performed in a following phase of the EURATN project;
- the development of an EURATN Operation Manual for the CEC to provide to any organization whishing to connect its experimental facilities to the EURATN experimental network;
- during all the phases of the project, the participants will coordinate their work to provide reports and recommendations to international bodies concerned in ATM such as EUROCONTROL, ICAO and noticeably its AMSS, SICAS panels and the FANS 2 committee, IATA and airlines industry standards organizations. Coordination will be ensured also with ongoing related RTD projects e.g. PHARE, EASIE of EUROCONTROL, and the ATN project led by MITRE Corporation in the United States.
The main European aeronautical telecommunication network (EURATN) requirements are now defined. The topology of the demonstrator has been identified and approved, as well as the telecommunication architecture and the initial applications (including network management applications). The structure of the EURATN demonstrator will allow the validation of the major concepts of the aeronautical telecommunications network (ATN). On the other hand, the selected initial applications will be a good basis for the future Programme for Harmonized Air Traffic Management Research in Eurocontrol (PHARE) experiments.

The only questions still pending relate to the mobile subnetworks access for which a solution must be quickly identified and to the interdomain routing protocol for which two solutions will be specified in parallel (full off the shelf protocol and minimum protocol developed in house).
TASK 1.Network (up to layer 4)
1.1 Global requirements
1.2 General specifications
1.3 EURATN element specification
1.4 Development of mock-up systems

TASK 2. Upper layers and initial applications
2.1 Global requirements
2.2 General specifications
2.3 Test applications
2.4 Upper layers services and protocols
2.5 Development of upper layer services and protocols and demonstration applications
2.6 Integration into ES mock-ups

TASK 3.Network management
3.1 Network management architecture
3.2 Specification of functional elements
3.3 Specification of system elements 3.4 Development of mock-up

TASK 4.Specific studies
4.1 Dimensionning
4.2 Performance analysis
4.3 Performance measurement

TASK 5.Integration and tests
5.1 Definition of an integration and test plan
5.2 Specification of tests tools and environments
5.3 Development of tests tools
5.4 Implementation into testing environments
5.5 Integration of the mock-up systems into the EURATN demonstrator

TASK 6. Experiments
6.1 Plan of experiments and objectives
6.2 Definition of experimental environment (option)
6.3 Implementation of experimental environment (option)
6.4 Experiments

TASK 7.Operation
7.1 Rules of operation
7.2 Operation manual

TASK 8.Management and coordination

Topic(s)

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Call for proposal

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Funding Scheme

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Coordinator

SOFREAVIA
EU contribution
No data
Address
75 rue la Boetie
Paris
France

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Total cost
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Participants (7)