Cooperative Air Traffic
Management:
A Mode of Operation for
Deployment from 2012
Cooperative Air Traffic Management (C-ATM) is a European Commission Air Traffic Management research project, targeting deployment of a validated operational concept from 2012.
C-ATM prime objectives are to contribute to improving safety, augmenting the use of available capacity in all weather conditions, creating additional capacity, the better management of uncertainty, and enhancing the efficiency of Air Traffic Management processes.
The EEC is the coordinator of work package one which includes the development of the operational concept, and initial safety assessment and performance evaluation. C-ATM is seen as an opportunity for the Experimental Centre to develop a research concept linked to the proposed European ATM Master Plan.
A doubling of traffic is predicted by 2020 at which time the major European airports are expected to be unable to cater for demand. Unchecked, this traffic forecast and the lack of integrated ATM processes will exacerbate system uncertainty, leading to increased delay and unacceptable cost.
Figure 1: C-ATM Integrating the Actors
The C-ATM concept focuses on increased collaboration in an integrated air and ground ATM system that is more predictable and coherent, aiming to deliver aircraft consistently according to user schedules and agreed traffic sequences, with predefined scenarios that cater for degraded situations. This approach is consistent with the Eurocontrol Operational Concept Document.
Airline partners in the project provided a process approach to the concept development.
The ATM system must disseminate high quality information, contained in a Network Operations Plan, to achieve the C-ATM concept goals. The ‘network plan’ will cover strategic planning, scheduling, flow, air traffic, airport, military, airline and aircraft information, and 4-dimensional flight data.
Figure 2: C-ATM Layered Planning
A layered planning process will integrate the air and ground partners’ strategic and tactical collaborative planning through a Network Operations Plan. This plan will be the backbone of the layered planning process, developed to cover all phases of flight with the objective of improving efficiency, predictability and timely notification of degraded performance.
The development of the Network Operations Plan, layered planning process and associated tactical traffic management incorporating work from the FAM/CAMES project, is coordinated by the NCD research area.
Figure 3: Airline/Airport focussed processes
Airport is a key resource in the ATM network and the concept integrates airport oriented procecesses that optimise the network plan e.g. managing collaborative arrival, departure, taxiway and runway processes, and incorporating the aircraft turnaround.
Airport concept activity is coordinated by the APT research area which ensures alignment with Eurocontrol activities and the European Commission’s (EMMA) project.
Figure 4: Air traffic Control - Synchronisation and Separation Management
Unit workload per aircraft will be reduced through improved separation management and traffic synchronisation processes underpinned by 4D traffic management planning, and controller decision support systems and data link communications (enhancing ground system performance through the provision of aircraft intent data).
Airborne separation assistance will be targeted at task sharing (e.g. creation of traffic sequences and managing spacing between aircraft) between the controller and flight crew, although separation management will remain a ground responsibility. Situation awareness in the cockpit is also expected to be improved though the use of airborne separation assistance systems, significantly enhancing safety.
The SSP research area coordinates the concept activities related to synchronisation and separation management, integrating the knowledge gained from the EEC’s experience on the ASAS, Gate to Gate and Sector Package 1 projects.
In summary, the main changes envisaged by the Cooperative Air Traffic Management concept include:
|
·
Layered
Planning |
·
Introduction
of reconciled 4D air and ground data |
|
·
Network
Operations Plan |
·
Increased
use of existing aircraft navigation capabilities |
|
·
Integration
of Airline Operating Centres and Military Airspace Management cells into ATM |
·
Change
in both pilot and controllers roles and perspective towards an integrated managed
ATM system |
The C-ATM concept provides the ability to further integrate the aircraft’s Flight Management System with ground based flight data processing systems through the use of data link.
The introduction of Airborne Separation Assistance procedures integrates the pilot into the ATM system permitting future increased pilot responsibility with regard to separation management.
C-ATM represents an opportunity to evolve towards a fully integrated and strategically managed and predictive ATM system exploiting the potential of human-system interaction in a closed loop system environment.
In February 2005, the C-ATM User Group endorsed the concept paving the way to validation and support to the future SESAME programme and European ATM master plan activities.
A recent problem arose when the European Commission’s independent (6th Framework) evaluation team rejected the proposal for the validation phase of the C-ATM project. Is this bad? NO! It provides an opportunity to re-evaluate the validation needs in terms of support to SESAME through classical validation activities such as analytical, fast time and real time simulation activities that can quickly provide decision makers in SESAME with the data they need to define the European ATM Master Plan.
The European Commission is currently reassessing validation options for the C-ATM concept and is expected to issue a new and amended call for tender in June 2005. This is expected to focus C-ATM concept validation on immediate needs of SESAME.
However, a European Commission validation programme is unlikely to start work until September 2006 at the earliest. As a consequence, Eurocontrol will evaluate the possibility to reorient its research activities to start early validation of C-ATM. This could be achieved trough a number of steps, and should include our main Air Traffic Management stakeholders.
Links
Cooperative Air Traffic Management (C-ATM) – High Level
Concept
Eurocontrol Operational Concept Document
Contacts
Further information can be obtained from: