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Greener Air Traffic Operations

Project description

Towards greener flights

The emissions of exhaust gases and water vapour creating contrails are major contributors to global warming. Reducing emissions from aviation is therefore vital, but in a way that maintains mobility. Changes in flight trajectory design and air traffic control operations are an appropriate way to reduce emissions in the short and medium term. With this in mind, the EU-funded GREAT project aims to decrease fuel consumption and gas emissions during gate-to-gate flight phases. It will do so by developing and evaluating an environmentally friendly air traffic management operational concept as well as adapted airspace designs and green trajectory optimisation technologies, and by supporting avionic systems. The project will demonstrate how aviation could significantly reduce its impact on climate change by following this approach.

Objective

The perception of environmental problems especially global warming is more than ever an issue, especially in this day and age when reaching agreements on today's climate targets is a challenge and a topic of concern among European citizens of all ages. Associated effects of global warming, like extreme weather events, are driven primarily by the emission of exhaust gases (especially CO2, nitrogen oxides and methane) and water vapour creating contrails. Hence, reducing emissions to preserve the environment, while keeping the mobility is a central society need now and in the future. To reduce the emissions in short and medium term, changes in flight trajectory design and ATC operations are an appropriate means. Thereby, the flight trajectories are influenced on one hand by environmental and aircraft parameters, and on the other by ATC driven parameters, like route length or usable altitudes. During flight execution, re-planning on board of an aircraft using the flight management system enables to consider dynamic effects on the tactical level, like changes in the weather situation. For the efficiency of such a greener trajectory, it is necessary that the trajectory can be flown in the planned way, even under the actual traffic situation controlled by ATC, which today is often not the case. The overall objective of the cooperation of Chinese and European partners in GreAT is to reduce the fuel consumption and gas emissions during “gate-to-gate” flight phases through developing and assessing environment-friendly air traffic operational concept, adaptive airspace and green trajectory optimization technologies, and supporting avionic systems. Evaluation campaigns between the European partners and in combination with the Chinese partners through cross evaluations are planned to validate the proposed concept and show a potential significant reduction of the aviation’s impact on climate change.

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Keywords

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

RIA - Research and Innovation action

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) H2020-MG-2018-2019-2020

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Coordinator

DEUTSCHES ZENTRUM FUR LUFT - UND RAUMFAHRT EV
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 839 983,75
Address
LINDER HOHE
51147 KOLN
Germany

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Region
Nordrhein-Westfalen Köln Köln, Kreisfreie Stadt
Activity type
Research Organisations
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 5 150 615,00

Participants (12)

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