SRIA (Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda)

Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda

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Publisher Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2020 More information on the European Union is available on the internet (http://europa.eu)

Print 978-92-9216-156-9 doi:10.2829/49896 MG-03-20-397-EN-C PDF 978-92-9216-155-2 doi:10.2829/117092 MG-03-20-397-EN-N

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Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda Digital European Sky

As part of Horizon Europe - the next EU research and innovation programme (2021-2027) - the European Commission plans to establish a number of partnerships in several strategic industrial areas, including for air traffic management (ATM). The future partnership for ‘Integrated ATM’ will build on the success and the momentum generated by the SESAR Joint Undertaking to deliver the Digital European Sky, making air transport smarter, more sustainable, connected and accessible to all civil and military airspace users, including new entrants.

Complementing the European ATM Master Plan 2020 and the High-Level Partnership Proposal, this Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) details the research and innovation roadmaps to achieve the Digital European Sky, matching the ambitions of the “European Green Deal” and the “Europe fit for the digital age” initiative. The priorities outlined in this SRIA will also be critical for a post- COVID-19 recovery, enabling aviation to become more scalable, resilient, economically sustainable, environmentally efficient and predictable. Table of contents

1 Introduction...... 5 1.1 Purpose of this strategic research and innovation agenda...... 5 1.2 Basis and timeline...... 5 1.3 Organisation of this document...... 7 2 Vision, impact and synergies...... 8 2.1 Vision leading to the Digital European Sky...... 8 2.2 Challenges throughout the Horizon Europe timeframe and up to 2040...... 12 2.2.1 Supporting evolving demand for using the European sky...... 12 2.2.2 Increased expectations on the quality of ATM and U-space service provision...... 13 2.2.3 Transforming and optimising how ATM and U-space services are provided...... 15 2.2.4 Accelerating market uptake...... 16 2.3 Instruments for accelerating innovation...... 17 2.4 Impact and stakeholder contributions...... 18 2.5 Maximising impact by developing effective synergies...... 19

3 Digital European Sky portfolio...... 22 3.1 Connected and automated ATM...... 24 3.2 Air-ground integration and autonomy...... 30 3.3 Capacity-on-demand and dynamic airspace...... 36 3.4 U-space and urban air mobility...... 42 3.5 Virtualisation and cyber-secure data sharing...... 48 3.6 Multimodality and passenger experience...... 54 3.7 Aviation green deal...... 59 3.8 Artificial intelligence (AI) for aviation...... 64 3.9 Civil/military interoperability and coordination...... 68

4 Overall output performance and economic impact...... 72 4.1 Performance...... 73 4.2 Economic impact...... 76 4.2.1 What are the positive impacts for European citizens and the economy?...... 76 4.2.1.1 What benefits can this SRIA bring about?...... 76 4.2.1.2 What is the economic impact if the SRIA is not achieved?...... 77 4.2.1.3 COVID-19 crisis does not significantly change the need for and the benefits from Digital European Sky SRIA...... 78 5 References...... 79 6 Glossary...... 81 List of figures

Figure 1 - Horizon Europe...... 5 Figure 2 - Overview of flagship activities and Instruments...... 7 Figure 3 - Vision of the European ATM Master Plan – phases A to D...... 9 Figure 4 - Levels of automation...... 10 Figure 5 - Evolution of the European sky...... 11 Figure 6 - The four types of challenges to be addressed...... 12 Figure 7 - 2050 outlook of future increased use of the airspace by manned and unmanned operations...... 13 Figure 8 - Impact to be achieved by this SRIA...... 19 Figure 9 - Share of private and public contributions to execute SRIA up to its full deployment by 2040...... 20 Figure 10 - Target rollout of SESAR...... 22 Figure 11 - Disruptive automation for the Digital European Sky...... 23 Figure 12 - Key service delegation elements...... 48 Figure 13 - Benefits for 2021-2050 – cumulative values...... 76 Figure 14 - Value at risk without SRIA. 2021-2050 – cumulative values...... 77

List of roadmaps

Roadmap 1 - Connected and automated ATM...... 29 Roadmap 2 - Air-ground integration and autonomy...... 35 Roadmap 3 - Capacity on demand and dynamic airspace...... 41 Roadmap 4 - U-space and urban air mobility...... 47 Roadmap 5 - Virtualisation and cyber-secure data sharing...... 53 Roadmap 6 - Multimodality and passenger experience...... 58 Roadmap 7 - Aviation green deal...... 63 Roadmap 8 - Artificial Intelligence (AI) for aviation...... 67 Roadmap 9 - Civil/military interoperability and coordination...... 71

1 Introduction

1.1 Purpose of this strategic (defragmentation of European Sky through virtualisation) and D (Digital European Sky) up to research and innovation 2040+ (see [1]). agenda The SRIA roadmaps correspond to a number of This document describes the Strategic Re- smart and measurable objectives for this time search and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) to support period and the associated output measure- the delivery of the Digital European Sky. Togeth- ments in line with the metrics of the Europe- er with the proposal for an ”Integrated ATM” an ATM Master Plan performance chapter. The partnership [14], these documents present the SRIA shows the various benefits resulting from scope and approach to further modernisation of the implementation of the R&I. Europe’s air traffic management (ATM) capabilities and U-space within the second pillar of Ho- Once the new partnership has been agreed, this rizon Europe – Global Challenges and European SRIA will have to be adopted by its members as Industrial Competitiveness, more specifically the starting point for its work programme. within the Climate, Energy and Mobility cluster, but also linked to the Digital, Energy and Space 1.2 Basis and timeline cluster [13]. The SRIA has been developed by the members This SRIA presents the strategic research and of the existing SESAR Joint Undertaking (SESAR innovation (R&I) roadmaps for the years 2021 to JU), under the coordination of the SESAR Master 2027 in order to deliver on the implementation Planning project (PJ20). It has undergone exten- of the European ATM Master Plan 2020 edition sive consultation of the full range of ATM stake- longer-term vision for the strategic phases C

Figure 1 – HORIZON EUROPE

Pillar 1 Pillar 2 Pillar 3 Excellent Science Global Challenges and Innovative Europe European Industrial Competitiveness European Reasearch Council Clusters European Innovation Council - Health - Culture, creativity and inclusive society - Civil security for society Marie Skłodowska-Curie - Digital, industry and space European innovation Actions - Climate, energy and mobility ecosystems - Food, bioeconomy, natural resources, agriculture and environment European Institute Research infrastructures Joint Research Centre of Innovation and Technology

Widening participation and strengthening the european research area

Widening participation and spreading excellence Reforming and enhancing the European R&I system

Source: Orientations towards the first Strategic Plan implementing the research and innovation framework programme Horizon Europe[13]

Introduction 5 holders including those interested in high-level 3 Inputs from current SESAR JU and candidate operations and the use of unmanned aircraft future partnership members and other stake- systems (drones) and U-space. holders, taking into account the specific ATM priorities in light of the COVID-19 crisis. The SRIA and the roadmaps included herein have been developed on the basis of the follow- 3 A comprehensive consultation cycle using ing main inputs: the Eurocontrol Civil-Military Stakeholder Committee and involving U-space stakehold- 3 The recently adopted European ATM Master ers. Furthermore, through the SESAR JU, the Plan edition 2020 [1] Master Planning Committee’s advice was included. 3 The Airspace Architecture Study (AAS) [11] and its AAS Transition Plan [12] This SRIA benefits from the recent update of the European ATM Master Plan 2020 edition, which 3 The European Green Deal [3] has been developed through a comprehensive process involving all relevant ATM stakeholder 3 Flightpath 2050 [4], and the ACARE SRIA 2017 groups and consultations at expert and politi- Update Volume 1 and 2 [15] cal level. This made it possible to minimise the development time of this SRIA while ensuring a 3 Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) broad stakeholder buy-in. 2019/123 of 24 January 2019 laying down detailed rules for the implementation of air traffic management (ATM) network functions and repealing Commission Regulation (EU) No 677/2011 [19]

6 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA 1.3 Organisation of this generally span the three instruments, namely exploratory research, industrial research and document Digital Sky demonstrators, which will be developed (see 2.3). While there are many interde- This document is organised into three main pendencies between these flagship activities, chapters. three flagships, the so-called horizontal topics, connect with all the others. The roadmaps for Chapter 2 captures the Vision for the Digital Eu- each of the flagship activities are elaborated in ropean Sky as already expressed in the recently the corresponding section of chapter 3. published ATM Master Plan 2020 edition [1]. It also explains what the main challenges are in re- To implement the SRIA a number of further ac- alising this Vision that need to be addressed by tivities need to be carried out that are not further implementing this SRIA. It furthermore explains detailed in this SRIA. These are the so-called what the main instruments for implementing the transversal activities of architecting and master SRIA are and how synergies will be created with planning, and standardisation. other Horizon Europe and ATM-related initiatives. Chapter 4 concludes the document by presenting Chapter 3 presents the research and innovation information on the expected economic impact of roadmaps of this SRIA. As can be seen in Figure 2., implementing this SRIA and the foreseen impact nine flagship activities have been identified that on key ATM performance areas.

Figure 2 – OVERVIEW OF FLAGSHIP ACTIVITIES AND INSTRUMENTS

OPEN DATA SERVICES NETWORK MANAGER PLATFORM ADVANCED SERVICES

INDUSTRIAL DIGITAL SKY RESEARCH DEMONSTRATORS Architecting and master planning 3.1 Connected and automated ATM 3.2 Air-ground integration and autonomy 3.3 Capacity on demand and dynamic airspace 3.4 U-space and urban air mobility 3.5 Virtualisation and cyber-secure data-sharing 3.6 Multimodality and passenger experience

3.7 Aviation green deal 3.8 Artificial intelligence for aviation topics EXPLORATORY RESEARCH EXPLORATORY

Horizontal 3.9 Civil-military interoperability and coordination

Standardisation

Source: SESAR Joint Undertaking Source: own development

Introduction 7 2 Vision, impact and synergies

2.1. Vision leading to the Digital European Sky The vision pursued through this SRIA is to make the Digital Air traffic management (ATM) provides an es- European Sky the most efficient sential service for aviation. While the essence and most environmentally of ATM is and will always remain, to ensure friendly sky to fly in. the safe and orderly execution of all flights, it needs to do so in the most environmentally friendly and cost-efficient way. The provision of this ATM service follows the demand for air lenge is zero inefficiencies due to ATM by 2040. transport and other airborne operations. Since This means not only eliminating inefficiencies the beginning of aviation, this demand has gen- in the current system but also in the design and erally seen a pattern of growth. Whenever ATM execution of the future ATM and U-space archi- is not able to deliver capacity where and when tecture.. This commitment shown by aviation it is needed, measures are taken to continue to stakeholders confirms SESAR’s long-standing ensure safety, causing rapid increases in delays efforts to ensure that European citizens can and thereby a deterioration in environmental travel by air while leaving a minimal environ- efficiency, cost efficiency and the achievement mental footprint. of airspace user needs. With this goal in mind, ATM and aviation will While the vision expressed in this SRIA is based evolve to an integrated digital ecosystem char- on forecast growth in air traffic demand, not acterised by distributed data services. Leverag- only from traditional air transport and other ing digital technologies to transform the sector, types of users (such as state aircraft, business the aim is to deliver a fully scalable ATM system aviation and general aviation), but also from all for manned and unmanned aviation that is even types of drones, it is also strongly motivated by safer than today’s, and, based on higher air- the need to make ATM much more dynamic in ground integration. predicting and responding to spatial and tem- poral fluctuations in air traffic activity. Such The European Network Manager will be capa- fluctuations may arise from events such as sig- ble of building a very accurate picture of the nificant weather, system failure, volcanic activi- predicted traffic situation well in advance, using ty, or from pandemic disease outbreaks similar advanced analytics. In order to resolve capacity to SARS and COVID-19. bottlenecks and optimise the services offered, in coordination with the stakeholders involved, Moreover, European policies are seeking sig- the airspace and service provision allocation nificantly reduced emissions from aviation and will be dynamically reconfigured and capaci- in this context, accommodating growth for the ty will be made available where and when it is sake of growth is not the objective. Aviation needed by activating capacity-on-demand ser- growth does not originate from within, but has vices. external market considerations that cannot be overlooked. Indeed, as air traffic will have in- In the densest areas of Europe, however, de- creased significantly year on year, the same mand for ATM has started to exceed the ca- would hold true for environmental and health pacity that current best operational concepts impacts. This is why, with the delivery of the are able to provide. When the research of this Digital European Sky, positive action will be tak- strategic agenda starts to be implemented in en to contribute to an irreversible shift to low- operations, the core ATM system will reach a and ultimately no-emission mobility; the chal- high degree of automation in the air and on

8 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA Figure 3 – VISION OF THE EUROPEAN ATM MASTER PLAN – PHASES A TO D 2040

Today D Digital European sky

Defragmentation of European C skies through virtualisation

Efﬁcient services and B infrastructure delivery

Address known critical network A performance deﬁciencies Performance

A Countries/FIRs B Countries/FIRs C Countries/FIRs D ATC ATC ATC Operation Operation Operation

Services Services Services & infra. & infra. & infra.

NM NM NM

Airports Airports Airports

Introduction of common Cross-border Free Route & Network-wide dynamic Fully scalable services standards for deployment Operational excellence airspace conﬁgurations supported by a digital Network Manager balances Enabling framework for ATM ATM Data Service Providers ecosystem minimising capacity and supports Data Services and capacity and Virtual centres providing the environmental ANS/NM network tasks on demand, First ADSP capacity on demand footprint of aviation certiﬁed

Implementation of target architecture and transformation to trajectory-based operations

Advanced network operations Integrated & rationalised and services ATM infrastructure

Information exchange Optimisation of airport Airport fully integrated Highly resilient and enabling improved infrastructure use through into the ATM network and efﬁcient airport operations, passenger experience advanced collaborative airside-landside virtual passenger-centric, operations and planning integration multimodality Airport services Integration of UAS Automation levels (air and ground) Automation level 2/3 Automation level 4/5

Large certiﬁed UAS/RPAS in Integration of certiﬁed Single pilot operations, controlled airspace UAS/RPAS in all classes of delegation of separation airspace responsibility to systems Vehicle

New high altitude platforms Urban air mobility

Initial U-space services Advanced U-space services Full U-space services U-space

Source: ATM Master Plan 2020 edition the ground. The developments addressed in tially optimising operations and alleviating the this SRIA will advance the level of automation workload generated under these conditions at least to Level 4 (High automation) for some through digital assistants and the automation of the tasks (as depicted in Figure 4). Airborne of trajectory management. operations will experience a rise in complexity due to a combination of factors, including ad- Pilots are likely to count on digital assistants vanced flight profiles, digital communication powered by AI to automatically negotiate with and new airborne capabilities. Artificial intelli- the ground and manage any trajectory chang- gence (AI) will offer significant support to pilots, es. On the ground, in a joint cognitive system, controllers and other ATM personnel, substan- air traffic controllers (ATCOs) could delegate

Vision, impact and synergies 9 a large portion of their tasks to machines that connectivity between all stakeholders (ground- can help to provide operational services in a ground and air-ground) via high-bandwidth, safe and efficient manner. The system will pro- low-latency fixed and mobile networks (including pose the best possible options to the human satellite). Highly automated systems with (flows, sequences, separation assurance, etc.) numerous actors will interact with each other and will solve complex trajectory situations us- seamlessly. The scaling up and down of system ing machine-to-machine communication with performance will happen in quasi-real time, air vehicles. Automation and AI will also support as and when required. In this context, multiple air traffic safety electronics personnel (ATSEP) options can be envisaged for the reorganisation in identifying proactively any potential techni- of ATM services in relation to geography and cal degradations or cyber-security breaches, in flight execution (e.g. collaboration between ATM attaining a distributed-system-wide situation- service providers across Europe and seamless al awareness, and in sustaining service deliv- end-to-end ATM service provision). The evolution ery availability at the required quality levels of to this future ATM architecture is depicted in accuracy and integrity as well as continuity of Figure 5.. service. Also staff working on managing airport operations will benefit from advanced levels of Smart airports, fully part of the ATM network, from automation and AI, based on full and integrated smaller regional ones with easy local access, to information exchange with other actors. big hubs, will become a reality. They are nodes of an integrated European multimodal transport As a result, all demands would be accommodat- network, placing the service to the connected ed with little or no delays while maximising the passenger at the centre of their business. At the use of the available resources. same time these smart airports will contribute to further improving turn-around and take-off time The full implementation of ATM virtualisation compliance, addressing one of the main factors will enable the complete decoupling of ATM of uncertainty in making trajectory predictions. service provision from the physical location of the Advanced virtual technologies will enable all- personnel and equipment. This will rely on hyper- weather operations and reduced delays.

Figure 4 – LEVELS OF AUTOMATION

Deﬁnition of level of automation per task Automation level targets per MP phase (A,B,C,D)

Deﬁnition Information Information Decision and Action Autonomy Air trafﬁc control U-space acquisition and analysis action implementation services exchange selection

LEVEL 0 Automation supports the human operator in information LOW acquisition and exchange and information analysis AUTOMATION A

LEVEL 1 Automation supports the human operator in information acquisition DECISION and exchange and information analysis and action selection for B C SUPPORT some tasks/functions

Automation supports the human operator in information acquisition LEVEL 2 and exchange, information analysis, action selection and action TASK implementation for some tasks/functions. Actions are always EXECUTION initiated by Human Operator. Adaptable/adaptive automation Action can only be initiated by human be initiated only Action can SUPPORT concepts support optimal socio-technical system performance.

Automation supports the human operator in information acquisition LEVEL 3 and exchange, information analysis, action selection and action implementation for most tasks/functions. Automation can initiate CONDITIONAL actions for some tasks. Adaptable/adaptive automation concepts AUTOMATION D B C support optimal socio-technical system performance.

Automation supports the human operator in information acquisition LEVEL 4 and exchange, information analysis, action selection and action HIGH implementation for all tasks/functions. Automation can initiate AUTOMATION actions for most tasks. Adaptable/adaptive automation concepts support optimal socio-technical system performance. D

LEVEL 5 Automation performs all tasks/functions in all conditions. FULL There is no human operator.

Action can be initiated by automation be initiated Action can AUTOMATION

Degree of automation support for each type of task

Source: ATM Master Plan 2020 edition

10 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA Figure 5 – EVOLUTION OF THE EUROPEAN SKY

Current architecture

Airspace layer Limited capacity Poor scalability Fixed routes Fixed national airspace structures Air trafﬁc service layer with vertical integration of applications and information (weather, surveillance…) Limited automation Low level of information sharing

Physical layer Fragmented ATM (sensors, infrastructure…) infrastructure

STATE X STATE Y

Future architecture

Higher airspace operations

Dynamic & cross FIR airspace conﬁguration & management Network operations Free routes High resilience

Automation support & virtualisation Air trafﬁc services Scalable capacity Data and application services Uniﬁed information U-space operations & interface

Integrated & rationalised ATM infrastructure Infrastructure

STATE X STATE Y

Source: Updated from ATM Master Plan 2020 edition

Vision, impact and synergies 11 This will offer passengers (and goods) a seam- 2.2 Challenges throughout the less and hassle-free travel experience, combining different modes of transport for door- Horizon Europe timeframe to-door journeys. Many types of airspace users and up to 2040 will be part of, or provide services to providers of mobility as a service. Autonomous vertical The vision that is outlined in the previous sec- take-off and landing-capable air taxis, fuelled tion implies a significant transformation of the by zero-carbon power sources, such as sus- ATM system as we know it today. In addition to tainable aviation fuels (SAF), green electricity the current challenges of acquiring real buy-in or hydrogen, will provide new ways to connect from states and crucial staff, key challenges airports with populated areas. For example, like environmental efficiency, scalability, resil- urban air mobility will feature flying taxis op- ience and interoperability must be addressed erating at low and very low levels in urban and and solved in the next few years. Figure 6 pre- suburban areas, evolving from today’s heli- sents the challenges of the SRIA that are cov- copters towards increasingly autonomous op- ered in the sections below. erations using alternative propulsion and new vehicle designs. Urban air mobility will be one 2.2.1 Supporting evolving demand for of the most demanding use cases for U-space, using the European sky while in addition to passenger transport it can also include new vehicles to provide missions addressing first responder services, emergen- While in the coming years, air traffic demand cy services, public services, and priority cargo may be significantly affected by the COVID-19 delivery to increase quality of life and deliver pandemic, it is anticipated that by 2050 air traf- societal benefits in a sustainable manner. fic will nevertheless consist of tens of millions of flights annually. As shown inFigure 7., the Delivery of the Digital European Sky by 2040 is vast majority of this traffic will originate from ambitious and will require, from 2020 onwards, new types of vehicles (e.g. drones) operating in a new way of working, combined with changes airspace that is so far less used: VLL airspace to the regulatory framework, to further shorten (initially below 150 m or 500 ft.) away from aero- innovation cycles and time to market. It is only dromes. The airspace at and above 500 ft., which by introducing these bold changes in a coordi- includes both controlled and uncontrolled air- nated and timely manner that the aviation in- space will be profoundly different from today due frastructure will be able to transform itself to to the increased density and diversity of air traf- effectively and sustainably cope with the entry fic. Also here, the interactions between the vari- into service of new types of vehicles and in- ous types of traffic will not necessarily be driven creasing air traffic demand expected to shape solely by humans (e.g. single pilot operations fundamental changes to aviation. (SPO), which come with an increased degree of airborne automation, unmanned cargo requiring

Figure 6 – THE FOUR TYPES OF CHALLENGES TO BE ADDRESSED

Supporting evolving demand for using the European sky (2.2.1)

Increased expectations Accelerating on the quality of ATM and Transforming and optimising market uptake U-space service provision how ATM and U-space (2.2.4) (2.2.2) services are provided (2.2.3)

12 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA Figure 7 – 2050 OUTLOOK OF FUTURE INCREASED USE OF THE AIRSPACE BY MANNED AND UNMANNED OPERATIONS

Controlled airspace Controlled + Uncontrolled Manned aviation Unmanned aviation in controlled airspace in controlled airspace Hrs ~33M Hrs ~ 7M Kms ~ 20B Kms ~ 4B

Manned aviation often Long endurance in uncontrolled airspace surveying & monitoring Hrs ~ 2M Hrs < 0.1M Kms ~ 0.6B Kms < 0.1B

Very low level “VLL” airspace (initially at 150m or 500ft) Densely populated Remote infrastructure & Leisure usage rural usage usage Protected sites Hrs ~ 250M Hrs ~ 20M Hrs ~ 80M Kms ~15B Kms ~1B Kms ~1B

Source: European drones outlook study, 2016

fully automated ATM interactions). The entry military traffic such as remotely-piloted aircraft into service of the most significant of these new systems and fifth generation fighter aircraft) types of aircraft is expected to scale up grad- with diverse communication technologies, flight ually from 2030, which is when the supporting and speed patterns, etc., will lead to unprece- infrastructure needs to be ready to accommo- dented levels of heterogeneity and complexity date this new air traffic. Demand for access to in vehicles, requiring further automation, con- lower-level airspace is already growing rapid- nectivity and interoperability. On both counts, ly as more and more drones are taking to the the uncertainty of the timing and magnitude of sky every day, for leisure but also increasingly the change requires the future ATM system to to deliver professional services (e.g. for inspec- be fully scalable and performance-based to en- tions and data collection, and for public safety sure a cost-efficient ATM system with safety at and security purposes, but soon also for parcel or above current levels. delivery and urban air mobility). In addition, by 2035, daily high-level operations (HLO) are ex- 2.2.2 Increased expectations on the pected and their transition from a segregated quality of ATM and U-space service and/or non-segregated airspace have to be well provision established with appropriate regulations. Two key implications follow. First, managing this While the benefits of continued growth in air level of air traffic at current productivity levels traffic for EU citizens are clear in terms of mo- will be unsustainable, given the cost implica- bility, connectivity and availability of new servic- tions and the limited gains in efficiency that es (e.g. those enabled by drones), this growth can be achieved by further splitting of sectors represents a significant environmental chal- (limited airspace elasticity). Second, increased lenge in the years to come. Concerns in this traffic levels and new forms of traffic (including

Vision, impact and synergies 13 regard in Europe and worldwide are prompting challenge in implementing the SRIA will be to the aviation industry to step up its efforts to ensure that system changes introduced by the address the environmental sustainability of air new solutions do not degrade today’s safety travel and reach the EU’s carbon neutral goal levels and where possible improve them, es- by 2050. While the Clean Aviation partnership pecially with the wider introduction of new ve- aims at reducing the actual emissions from air- hicle types. The disruptive nature of some in- craft, the Integrated ATM partnership will need novations may also require a redefinition of the to deliver quick results for the challenges al- safety management framework. ready targeted by the SESAR programme so far, of optimising traffic management procedures The resilience of the ATM system lies in its abil- such that they add minimal inefficiencies to the ity to adjust to expected and unexpected events “perfect trajectory” and of delivering sufficient (staffing problems, significant weather, system capacity, resilience and scalability in the system failures, cyberattacks, temporary surges in to allow such optimised procedures to be fol- needed capacity) in order to sustain required lowed at all times. operations and secure sufficient capacity, then return when the operational situation is again There is growing pressure on the aviation sec- normal. Today, whenever there is a local dis- tor to reduce its environmental footprint. Citi- ruption that temporarily reduces capacity be- zens in general and air passengers in particu- low demand, there are generally three options: lar increasingly expect eco-friendly, smart and personalised mobility options that allow them 3 Flights are delayed until capacity becomes to travel seamlessly and efficiently and expe- available. rience minimal noise discomfort from aviation. They want quick and reliable data to inform 3 Flights are re-routed through airspace with their travel choices, not only on schedules, spare capacity. prices and real-time punctuality, but increasingly also on environmental impacts. Coming 3 Flights are cancelled. out of the COVID-19 crisis, the ATM infrastructure has to be modernised at a rapid pace and The need for more resilient ATM operations will operational efficiency, at airports and terminal increase with higher traffic demand, placing areas, but also in en-route airspace, has to be pressure on the system to operate even closer increased rapidly to bring significant immedi- to its capacity limits. Not only will more flights ate environmental benefits by enabling all air- and more passengers be impacted if part of the craft to optimise their environmental footprint system is forced to operate at reduced capacity, from departure gate all the way to arrival gate. it will also take more time to recover to normal operations. This is where two of the previ- While some immediate relief can be brought by ously listed flagship topics of the SRIA (Figure existing best practices and better alignment of 2), namely “capacity-on-demand and dynamic the airspace with traffic, significant R&I effort is airspace” (see 3.3) and “virtualisation and cyber still needed to develop traffic management ca- secure data sharing” (see 3.5), need to be de- pacity, enabling “perfect flights by design” (in- livered. They aim to ensure the continuity of cluding for the next-generation aircraft, which efficient air traffic service provision despite dis- will be cleaner and quieter) from an emissions ruptions by enabling a temporary delegation of perspective. This shall eliminate to the maxi- the provision of air traffic services to an alter- mum extent possible the traffic management nate provider with spare capacity. effects that would result in generating unnecessary emissions. From a customer-centric perspective the resilience of the service is also closely related to the Historically, ATM-related accidents1 have been expectation of seamless connectivity between only a very small portion (< 1%) of the to- transport modalities. Airports and in-city vert- tal number of aviation accidents. With such a iports for urban air mobility will thus need to small room for further improvement, the main become integrated, efficient and sustainable

1 Where at least one ATM event or item was judged to be DIRECTLY in the causal chain of events leading to the accident (Performance Review Report definition)

14 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA multimodal transport nodes that support con- Increasing the performance of the ATM servic- nectivity across European society. The challenge es is not an easy challenge. With a strong reli- set in Flightpath 2050 [4] of 90% of European trav- ance on the cognitive skills of air traffic control- ellers being able to complete their door-to-door lers, pilots and other operational staff, trying to journey within four hours remains applicable and increase the performance beyond the current underpins the need for a multimodal approach. limits while maintaining the expected level of safety requires a very careful matching be- The urban air mobility providers and their cus- tween automation and human skills. Trajectory tomers as well as other new categories of air- management systems will have to reach a very space users, like very low level drone operators high level of sophistication and redundancy be- and medium to very high altitude long-endur- fore they will be sufficiently trusted by ATCOs to ance operators will bring a whole new set of give up their detailed awareness of the tactical expectations on the services provided by the separation situation. The increased complexity aviation infrastructure. Many of them are plan- of handling a wider variety of vehicles with very ning to operate without a human pilot involved, diverse performance characteristics adds to posing new challenges for air traffic manage- this challenge, as does the amount of data that ment personnel to interact with them and de- makes up the “digital twin” of each flight. liver their services. Nevertheless, these new airspace users expect to have access to the To achieve the very high levels of automation airspace where and when they plan to operate, that are targeted, the best possible use of arti- they also expect the highest levels of safety and ficial intelligence (AI) will need to be developed. even lower charges for the services provided. AI can identify patterns in complex real-world data that human and conventional comput- While sharing various quality of service expec- er-assisted analyses struggle to identify, can tations with civil users, military airspace users identify events and can provide support in de- have further expectations due to their specif- cision-making, even optimisation. A myriad of ic purpose. In particular the ability to improve ATM non-safety critical AI-based applications the flexibility of military missions, and thereby can already be developed today to improve all their effectiveness, is an important expectation. aviation/ATM areas. The SRIA is however fo- Another challenge will be to satisfy the military cused on research and innovation actions for need to have secure access to the increasing safety-critical applications, notably for systems amount of aviation (and other) data that allows that are aiming for high levels of automation. them to improve the maintenance of their rec- Indeed safety demonstration, explainability of ognised air picture (RAP) and to distinguish real AI, joint human system partnership and ethi- security threats from false positives. cal aspects are challenges for which aviation/ ATM must be ready to fast track appropriate and 2.2.3 transforming and optimising how robust responses. Any developments on AI will ATM and U-space services are need to be synchronised with the recently pub- provided lished EASA AI roadmap [17].

While the current European ATM system is a Despite the successful deployment of technol- patchwork of bespoke systems and networks ogies already developed under the SESAR pro- connected by a complex array of different in- ject, Europe’s ATM infrastructure remains large- terfaces, often utilising national and proprie- ly fragmented and operates with a low level of tary standards, it is clear that the target open automation support and data exchange intensity architecture of the European ATM system, (the primary communication technology in ATM including for the provision of U-space ser- today is still analogue radio through which deci- vices (see Figure 5.) will rely on increasingly sions are exchanged by voice between air traffic interconnected systems that utilise modern controllers and pilots). The SRIA aims to deliver technologies (including internet of things - innovations that are not “business as usual” or IoT) and interoperability to deliver operation- incremental but breakthrough solutions as the al improvements through a shared view of all overall system is getting ever closer to its lim- aeronautical information. its in terms of capacity and its ability to manage traffic safely and environmentally efficiently.

Vision, impact and synergies 15 Two key challenges threaten these benefits: immediate benefits will be very challenging. Nevertheless, if these do not take place, there 3 Increased interconnectivity and integration is a significant risk that when demand does re- both in terms of interactions between actors cover, the ATM infrastructure operations will not (ANSPs, U-space service providers, airlines, be able to handle it with the expected quality of airports, aircraft, drone operators) and CNS service. systems expand the attack surface and create new vulnerabilities, for example through 2.2.4 Accelerating market uptake third-party access to networks and systems. Tackling the aforementioned challenges is not 3 Interoperability implies an increased use of just a matter of technology alone; it also re- common components and/or standardised in- quires a rethink of how these developments are terfaces and service definitions, and a possible to be brought into operational use. Historically, loss of diversity and robustness. This increases changes in technology and operations in air traf- the likelihood of introducing common vulnera- fic management take a long time from an initial bilities into the systems and so needs great- idea to operational use. The safety critical nature er attention and the involvement of expertise and the need for global standards play an im- from other critical infrastructure sectors. portant part in that. They do not, however, fully explain why some solutions do not progress to In particular, the principles of system-wide infor- implementation after the research is considered mation management (SWIM) on which the ser- complete, or why there are gridlocks between vice interfaces are built, presents opportunities complementary airborne and ground deploy- to establish the necessary IT service manage- ments. Recent European Court of Auditors re- ment principles and cybersecurity architecture ports ([23],[24]) found that the current policy, at an early stage of development, before the costs R&I and deployment initiatives have generated a of retrofitting access control, intrusion detection change process, but that more efforts are need- and forensics become prohibitive. ed in order to realise the full benefits of ATM modernisation: “It is therefore necessary to accel- For ATM and U-space services, a number of erate and better focus efforts on transforming the guiding principles will have to been defined European ATM system into a digital, scalable and for the organisational and technical measures resilient network, through an approach coordinat- that are needed to encourage cyber resilience. ed at EU level” In general, cybersecurity practices in ATM will need to be adapted to comply with the relevant Therefore, the cycle of change has to be made European regulatory framework, which is not al- more efficient, thus shortened, identifying ways aviation specific: GDPR, NIS Directive, EC more quickly the most promising solutions and 373/2017. There is a need to define and agree promoting early movers, inside and outside the acceptable means of compliance, guidance, partnership, through networks of digital labs manual, standard and training requirements. and demonstrators close to operations. Though needed, the current State-based approach is neither sufficient, nor sustainable in a The new ways of working would involve the fol- domain like aviation where by definition activities lowing: are international and with such a level of interoperable connections and interfaces. For exam- More agility: creating solutions ple, it is essential to address the requirements through prototypes and demos de- for cross-border collaboration in the context of veloped in smaller teams with cybersecurity, as well as sharing of information shorter time frames; developing about cyber threats and vulnerabilities. solutions by addressing service-related challenges without prejudging This whole transformation challenge is further upfront what the optimal technical complicated by the effects of the COVID-19 cri- solution is; creating digital innova- sis. During the initial years of implementing this tion labs to fast-track R&I, perform SRIA many aviation stakeholders may be strug- quick prototyping, incubate new gling to survive and will prioritise their efforts on ideas, and validate early against op- containing investment and operating costs and erational scenarios exploiting re- on ensuring business recovery. Investing effort al-world actor-induced uncertainty. and budget in transformations that will not bring

16 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA People: encouraging a shift away to enable quick deployment as full benefit is from a traditional product-centric generally only achieved by deployment across strategy to one that focuses on the the industry. end user, stimulating entrepre- neurship, recognising low risk areas of change, putting in place a 2.3 Instruments for more risk-taking culture and cre- accelerating innovation ating the buy-in from operational staff. The implementation of this SRIA requires the delivery of a wide range of technological and Focus: on disruptive innovations operational solutions that are currently at vari- that can reduce innovation cycles ous maturity levels. Three instruments that are from about 30 years to about 5-10 described in more detail in the Integrated ATM years. To achieve this, the devel- partnership proposal are foreseen as principal opment and deployment of the in- means to deliver the necessary R&I in an ac- tegration of drones into the air- celerated way. space, and in particular the development and implementation Exploratory Research drives the development of U-space services, may be used and evaluation of innovative or unconvention- as a ‘laboratory’ that can support al ideas, concepts, methods and technologies faster life cycles in the manned that can define and deliver the performance re- aviation environment; in addition, quired for the next generation of European ATM ‘sandboxing’ between organisa- system. Activities cover low technology readi- tions may allow faster times to ness level (TRL) research, but by using e.g. digi- market. tal lab incubators, they may more quickly evolve to higher levels of maturity. Standards & certification: To Industrial Research & Validation develops, as- keep pace with technological ad- sesses and validates technical and operation- vances, the demonstrator network al concepts in simulated and real operational will closely involve the relevant environments according to a set of key perfor- authorities and bodies to finalise mance areas. In order to achieve faster inno- the development of the next gen- vation cycles, SRIA implementation will need a eration standards that are respon- more agile management approach, shifting the sive to policy needs, agile, open focus to the next generation of enabling plat- and joined up. forms and their end-user ecosystems. It is also crucial to confront and challenge concepts and Better regulations: that will sup- solutions as from this stage with the behaviour port innovation — through market of ATM actors as observed in recordings of real take-up, incentives for early mov- ATM operations. This will stimulate rapid deci- ers and focus on delivery of ser- sion and learning cycles, a risk-taking culture vices — with an emphasis on what and will create buy-in from operational staff. services should be provided and how, rather than on what technol- The Digital Sky Demonstrator instrument will ogies should be implemented. be closely connected to the standardisation and This innovative approach would regulatory framework, and will provide a plat- allow better connections and syn- form for a critical mass of “early movers” rep- chronisation between ground- resenting at least 20% of the targeted operating based developments and the air- environment to accelerate market uptake. borne industry. A coordinated approach between Member States The innovation pipeline makes it possible to and European-wide rulemaking transition more rapidly from exploration (low will be essential. TRL) to demonstration (high TRL) and to the market. Demonstrators will take place in live These new ways of working will need to be operational environments and put to the test the connected to industrialisation that needs to be concepts, services and technologies necessary efficient, short and closely linked to operations

Vision, impact and synergies 17 Instrument Maturity levels Effort share

Exploratory research Pre-TRL1 Scientific Research 3.5% TRL 1 Basic principles observed and reported TRL 2 Technology concept and/or application formulated

Industrial research TRL 3 Analytical and experimental critical 44.75% function and/or characteristic proof-of concept TRL 4 Component/subsystem validation in laboratory environment TRL 5 System/subsystem/component validation in relevant environment TRL 6 System/subsystem model or prototyping demonstration in a relevant end-to end environment (ground or space)

Digital Sky demonstrator TRL 7 System demonstration in an operational 51.75% environment TRL 8 Actual system completed and “mission qualified” through test and demonstration in an operational environment

Source: SESAR Joint Undertaking

to deliver the Digital European Sky. This will help 2.4 Impact and stakeholder ensure buy-in from the supervisory authorities and operational staff, providing tangible contributions evidence of the performance benefits in terms of environment, capacity, safety, security and The vision, objective and expected impact of affordability. Typically, these activities address the SRIA can only be achieved by coordination up to TRL8. with all stakeholders that develop, supply, operate, use and regulate the Integrated ATM In the roadmaps in Chapter 3 the various actions services and infrastructure supporting aviation each correlate with one of these instruments. in Europe, covering all technology readiness Furthermore they provide complementary levels (TRL). information on foreseen deployment actions that would follow on from previous research and The implementation of this SRIA will thus re- from the proposed research and innovation in quire the establishment of a strong implement- this SRIA. ing body for R&I that closely cooperates with industrial, operational, staff representation, institutional, national, standardisation and certification actors active in different phases of the SESAR innovation cycle including the SESAR

18 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA Figure 8 – IMPACT TO BE ACHIEVED BY THIS SRIA

Digital ecosystem More autonomous aircraft enabling free Higher airspace connected with each other ﬂow of data operations and the infrastructure among trusted users accross borders

4D Fully exploits the potential offered by the next generation aircraft for cleaner and quieter ﬂights

Digital & connected airports

Urban air mobility and drones

Fully scalable ATC system with strong air-ground integration

Source: SESAR Joint Undertaking

deployment phase, mandated by Commission effort to support this SRIA, EUR 0.5 billion of Regulation and supported financially by the effort will come from EUROCONTROL, while Connecting Europe Facility Programme. To that the remaining is foreseen to be evenly split be- end, Member States will be closely associated tween EUR 1.2 billion from the European Un- to discuss priorities and synergies, which is ion and EUR 1.2 billion from public and private critical to the success of the initiative. partners, thus establishing an appropriate risk sharing partnership. We estimate that it will take a total investment of EUR 38.3 billion to complete the deployment of the Digital European Sky between 2021 and 2.5 Maximising impact by 2040, EUR 14.6 billion of which will need to be developing effective spent during the Horizon Europe multiannual synergies financial framework (MFF). Of these investments needed during the MFF, EUR 2.9 billion will be needed to execute the flagship activities The SRIA aims to contribute to Pillar II of Hori- defined in this SRIA. Approximately half of this zon Europe, where it fits in the Climate, Energy investment will be dedicated to accelerating the and Mobility cluster. The SRIA implementation deployment of SESAR 2020 solutions, mainly will be coordinated with other mobility solutions through the creation of a Digital European Sky with the aim to build consolidated roadmaps demonstrator network. The rest will be ded- and action plans for climate-neutral mobility icated to research and innovation on further solutions. This will also address common sec- solutions needed for phase D of the European torial issues such as transport multimodality, ATM Master Plan. Within the EUR 2.9 billion

Vision, impact and synergies 19 Figure 9 – SHARE OF PRIVATE AND PUBLIC CONTRIBUTIONS TO EXECUTE SRIA UP TO ITS FULL DEPLOYMENT BY 2040

Total development and deployment Investments needed Digital investment needs to realise the during the next MFF 2021 European Digital European Sky vision: € 38.34 bn to 2027: € 14.6 bn Sky Exploratory research € 0.1 bn

Industrial Investments research EUROCONTROL 2021 to 2027: € 1.3 bn € 0.5 bn € 14.6 bn Investments by implementating European Investments stakeholders Private Union € 11.7 bn Digital Sky € 1.2 bn beyond 2027: demonstrators partners € 23.7 bn € 1.5 bn € 1.2bn

Digital European Sky vision 2021-27 Exploratory research Private partners Digital European Sky vision 2028-40 Industrial Research European Union Digital Sky Demonstrators EUROCONTROL MP2020 Business View 2021-2040

Source: SESAR 2020 PJ.20 (W2) project partners

automated vehicles and the decarbonisation solutions, for example, in the measurement of of the sector. In particular, a specific and close the aggregated effect of green operations and coordination between the European partner- green aircraft on the achievement of the overall ships for Integrated ATM and Clean Aviation is decarbonisation goal. believed to be essential for the aviation sector. A first set of potential areas to demonstrate the Both aviation-related partnerships proposed synergy effects has been identified (this list is under the Horizon Europe programme will play not exhaustive): an essential role in making the aviation sector successful in achieving the environmental and 3 Combined simulations mobility goals set out by their common vision for Europe’s aviation, while contributing to the 3 Joint performance and impact assessments objectives of the European Commission, in particular to the Green Deal. These goals will be 3 Autonomous airborne operations attained through the research and development of key innovative technologies for the decar- 3 Airport turn around processes for new vehicles bonisation, energy transition and digital transformation of the aviation area. 3 Sharing of performance profiles of new Clean Aviation aircraft configurations for use Opportunities will be actively sought for run- in fast-time ATM simulations ning joint demonstration activities. This would enable the two programmes to show in prac- The implementation of these joint demonstra- tice that the anticipated changing performance tion activities should be further elaborated characteristics of new aircraft configurations once the two programmes are up and running with more sustainable propulsion systems can under Horizon Europe. be accommodated in the best possible way by the changes in ATM operations. It could in par- Considering that the digital transformation ticular allow the programmes to evaluate the of aviation is at the core of the SRIA goals, it combined benefits and impact of particular strongly echoes the ambition of the Digital,

20 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA Industry and Space cluster. It is in many ways European Sky, the SRIA execution will also need complementing this cluster by addressing avia- to connect closely to GALILEO, IRIS and other tion-critical applications. Therefore, it is essen- European space developments, and to build on tial to put in place synergies with all relevant the achievement of SESAR 2020 in the space digital initiatives outside the Climate, Energy domain to engage further with the space actors and Mobility cluster. For example, artificial in- in the innovation ecosystem. telligence, cybersecurity and high performance computing are cross-sectorial issues that re- Finally, subject to the progress made in devel- quire deep coordination, especially for the de- oping hydrogen applications for aviation pro- velopment of use cases and the application of pulsion, synergies may need to be sought with European standards. In addition, a connection the proposed European Partnership for Clean will need to be made to the achievements of Hydrogen to optimise the connection between the European space policy and its associated the processes for hydrogen storage, transport research agenda [7]. With satellite commu- and fuelling with the turn-around processes of nication, navigation and surveillance services airborne vehicles (manned and unmanned). considered as essential enablers to the Digital

Vision, impact and synergies 21 3 Digital European Sky portfolio

The portfolio of the Digital European Sky SRIA For the sake of completeness, the different is presented in this document through its flag- roadmaps in the following sections cover the ac- ship activities. tions within the blue frame in Figure 10., while the actual R&I actions in this SRIA match with As can be seen in Figure 10. the activities the green frame and thus with phases C and D of taking place during the Horizon Europe the European ATM Master Plan (see Figure 3.). MFF timeframe cover more than research and innovation (R&I) alone. Solutions pre- The implementation of phase D of the Europe- viously developed by SESAR and other pro- an ATM Master Plan aims to prepare the Digital grammes will be implemented, which are, European Sky. In the ATM Master Plan we find for example, covered in the operational ex- Figure 11., which provides an insight into the cellence programme executed by the Net- disruptive automation to be addressed in this work Manager. phase.

Figure 10 – TARGET ROLLOUT OF SESAR

Years 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040 2050

Phase A Adress known critical network performance deﬁciencies Phase B Deliver efﬁcient SESAR services and solutions infrastructure deployment Phase C Defragmentation of European skies through virtualisation

Phase D Option 1 Achieve Digital European R&D sky with a fully scalable, highly automated ATM system leading to a safety level ator above current Option2 levels (incl. performance R&D based ops.)

U-space U-space is deployed Gradual deployment of U-space services deployment with shorter lifecycles. Technologies are deployed when mature

Key changes compared R&D readiness Start of Full operational capability Standardisation Implementation to 2015 Master Plan (end of V3) deployment (full deployment) and industrialisation

Source: Based on ATM Master Plan 2020 edition

22 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA Figure 11 – DISRUPTIVE AUTOMATION FOR THE DIGITAL EUROPEAN SKY

SESAR innovations Coming next New standards for safety Airborne automation and security Cockpit Augmented 4D Trajectory Self evolution approaches separation Wake vortex Video-based Future collision  Urban air mobility detection & navigation Avoidance avoidance system (ACAS-X)  Single pilot operations

U-space Atomic gyros Tracking Emergency Dynamic Detect &  Autonomous cargo inertial navigation recovery geofencing avoid  Autonomous large passenger Ground automation aircraft

Evolution Wake 4D Trajectory Complex digital Speech  Digital cockpit assistant of the separation clearances recognition ground Trafﬁc Assistance for system Role of the Safety nets  Digital ground assistant complexity surface human resolution movement  Emulating U-space Runway status Advanced Intelligent & surface Separation queue  AI powered ATC environment guidance Management management

U-space Trafﬁc Flight Dynamic capacity Automatic deconﬂiction information planning management (multiprovider)

Automation Decision Task Execution Conditional High Full levels 1 Support 2 Support 3 Automation 4 Automation 5 Automation

Virtualisation  Defragmented European sky Virtual & Approach & landing Visual aids for augmented aids for the cockpit tower control  All weather operations reality  Pan-European service Virtual Rationalisation Contingency Dynamic cross Delegation provision capability centres border of services  Pan-European mobility of staff Remote Single airport Multi-source Multiple & large airports tower surveillance data fusion  Fully dynamic airspace  Resilient operations Connectivity  Hyper connectivity Cockpit  Multilink  Broadband  Broadband  Broadband  Cellular for high automation evolution management satellite comm. airport comm. ground Comm. link for (ESA-Iris) (Aeromacs) (LDACS) GA/RC  Next generation links

 Internet of Things for aviation U-space  Command  Tracking &  Vehicle to  Vehicle to & control telemetry vehicle infrastructure  CNS as a service  Future data services Data sharing and applications  Interconnected network  Collaborative  Digital aeronautical  Flight object  Cloud-based drone airport and network information (AIM-MET) sharing (IOP) information management  Passenger-centric ATM

System-wide  Yellow profile  Blue profile  Purple profile  Open data information for web services for ﬂight services for air/ground advisory management information sharing  Multimodality

 Advanced analytics for decision making

Source: ATM Master Plan 2020 edition

Digital European Sky portfolio 23 3.1 CONNECTED AND AUTOMATED ATM

PROBLEM STATEMENT

Europe’s ATM infrastructure operates with low levels of automation support and data exchange, leading to rigidity, lack of scalability and resilience, and an inability to exploit emerging digital technologies, including in support of new airspace users. The future architecture of the European sky requires increased automation in air traffic control and an infrastructure commensurate with the performance required by each airspace user type and environment, including those in the transition areas between Europe and neighbouring ICAO regions which may have specific regulations and challenges.

DESCRIPTION OF HIGH-LEVEL R&I NEEDS/ Secure data-sharing between all the components CHALLENGES of the ATM infrastructure and the relevant non ATM stakeholders is a key part of the Digital The Digital European Sky vision recognises that European Sky, together with automation using the the future ATM environment will be increasingly shared data to improve ATM performance. This complex, with new airspace vehicles flying at section identifies the specific research needed to different speeds and altitudes compared to realise the automation and connectivity vision of conventional aircraft. Moreover, there will be the European ATM Master Plan for the future ATM increasing pressure to reduce the costs of the ground system. ATM infrastructure while improving performance.

24 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA Enabling the deployment of a performance- enabling aircraft to fly continuous descent ap- based communications, navigation and proaches from en-route through the TMA. This surveillance (CNS) service offer area, including relaying of instructions from air traffic control (ATC) to pilots, is a promising one Industrial research and demonstration of an inte- for higher levels of automation as it can be car- grated performance-based CNS service offer will ried out under ATC supervision without impacting be required building on the industrial research on separation and sector team management. The selected technologies (e.g. SATCOM, AeroMACS, efficient strategy and resolution of simultaneous LDACS, etc.) carried out in SESAR 2020. This uni- constraints (brokerage function) related to mul- fied framework, made up of a backbone infrastruc- tiple extended AMAN advisories also requires ture, supported by a backup minimum operational further research. Furthermore, research should network, will maximise cross-domain opportunities consider how larger unmanned aircraft, such as and synergies and will support various airspace cargo drones, could fit into airport arrival queues, concepts. The development of non-safety-of-life and whether arrival management automation ATM applications using commercially available ser- could be extended to possible queues of air taxis vices (e.g. 5G, open SATCOM) will be required in or- approaching a congested air taxi hub. Research der to contribute to a hyper-connected ATM system. into departure queue management automation will also contribute to improvements in uninter- Advanced separation management (U-space rupted aircraft climb profiles from airport to free integration and new separation modes) route airspace. As with arrivals, departure queue Research is required to understand how different management automation is dependent on the ex- modes of separation provision enable inter-op- change of highly accurate trajectory information erable ATM and U-space services to co-exist, between all actors (i.e. airport, ANSP, aircraft op- considering the diversity of aircraft performance erator); such techniques are likely to also apply characteristics and detect-and-avoid capabilities. to drones, air taxis and larger unmanned aircraft. For separation provided by air navigation service providers (ANSPs), full sharing of all relevant in- Runway use optimisation through integrated formation between all actors, and fully harmo- use of arrival and departure time-based nised trajectory prediction capabilities will allow separation (TBS) tools advanced separation support to be provided to The most modern time-based separation tools controllers in terms of resolution advisories for are already good examples of the value of au- human or automatic implementation. Research tomation in ATM. Research is required to fur- that will consider predictive modelling and ma- ther improve the whole runway usage process, chine learning will contribute to develop advanced combining arrival and departure capabilities. modes of separation (e.g. dynamic separation) Data-sharing between airport collaborative de- benefiting from automation and improved connec- cision-making parties, arrival and departure tivity. Formation flying, self-separation between managers and time-based separation tools will drones themselves or with manned aviation (stay allow the dynamic optimisation of the runway(s) well clear) and pair-wise separation are some of based on prevailing operational needs. Such solu- the areas of research to be considered in order tions will, for example, choose the most appro- to adapt to the diversity of traffic in all phases of priate departing aircraft to make use of an arrival flight and in all classes of airspace. gap, sharing data with the airport systems to ensure the departing aircraft is loaded and taxies to Intelligent queue management be in the right place at the right time. Research into additional extended arrival management (AMAN) capabilities is required so that Airport automation including runway and current procedures, focused on transferring pre- surface movement assistance for more dicted arrival holding times from the terminal predictable ground operations manoeuvring area (TMA) to the upstream air- Airport ATC will also benefit from further auto- space to reduce holding, can evolve towards in- mation support to manage increasing complexity. dividual target times for each aircraft. This can Further research is required into the automation be achieved through arrival metering points that of stand planning, taxi routing and ground de-con- take into account the cross impact of multiple ar- fliction, and runway use optimisation, based upon rival sequences sharing the same airspace (over- improved and increasingly accurate data-sharing all network impacts) and ensure optimum use between applications. A holistic view, beyond the in- of performance-based navigation arrival routes, tegration of airport operations plan (AOP) and net-

Digital European Sky portfolio 25 work operations plan (NOP), integrating different management for the evolving roles as per the rec- technologies and data sources combined with ar- ommendations provided by the Expert Group on the tificial intelligence/machine learning will bring im- Human Dimension of the Single European Sky [29]. provements to ground operations and enable more collaborative decision-making between stakehold- Speech recognition for increased safety and ers, thus improving predictability and the network reduced workload performance as a whole. Voice communications between air traffic controllers (ATCOs) and pilots are still not digitalised and Integration of safety nets (ground and airborne) are therefore not readily accessible for machine with the separation management function analysis other than through analogue voice record- The separation assurance of the future aviation ing analyses. While data communication or text- ecosystem will require close conformance monitor- based transmission of data between ATCOs and ing of the negotiated and authorised flight trajecto- pilots is envisioned to supplement radio communi- ries throughout the execution phase, to be coupled cations in future operating environments, this ca- with the advanced defences provided by independ- pability is unlikely to replace radio communications ent ground-based and airborne safety nets. The completely in the near term. Therefore, research use of those trajectories in the progressively more and development of a data-driven (machine learn- automated detection, classification, resolution and ing oriented), reliable, error-resilient, affordable monitoring of conflicting profiles in the planning and adaptable solution to transcribe automatically and tactical phases of ATM will minimise the op- the voice commands issued by air traffic controllers portunity for separation to be eroded. However, and its read-back confirmation provided by pilots consideration as to the level of independence of the is of high importance. The digitisation of controller safety nets from the other aspects of control will and pilot voice utterances can be used for a wide be critical as the levels of autonomy of those other variety of safety and performance-related benefits, systems increase. such as pilot read-back error detection, pre-popu- lating electronic flight strips and other tools using Role of the human automatic speech recognition, estimating controller workload using digitised voice recordings, or The goal of automation is not to replace the human anticipating ATCO actions and behaviour. This will but to optimise the overall performance of the so- greatly improve safety and reduce controller and pi- cio-technical ATM system and maximise human lot workload. Other potential uses of speech recog- 2 performance . This will require the development nition could include the adaptation of ATM systems. of the role of the human in parallel with ATM con- Further pilot-centric applications are also identified cepts and technological developments. New tools in section 3.2. are needed to support continuous, system-wide monitoring of all critical processing, including dur- Network-wide synchronisation of trajectory ing degraded modes of operation or, for example, information cyberattacks. New tools must also enable humans to make effective decisions, including where collab- Providing trajectory advice (including uncertainty orative, co-adaptive and joint intelligence modes of considerations and improved weather forecasts) to decision-making are used. A move from executive ATCOs for human confirmation or automatic imple- control to supervisory control will require a thor- mentation is essential for the realisation of the vi- ough understanding of the implications for the hu- sion. While optimising cost and minimising environ- mans and their interaction with the systems. The mental impact, this trajectory advice will not only human-to-technology balance is likely to vary be- assure separation but also address all other opera- tween domains, where some problems might be tional constraints, considering ad-hoc downstream solved by automation with little human intervention, and pilot requests or non-conformance, continuous while other areas might require a human, mon- descent and arrival management demands, down- itored by an automated safety capability to solve stream airspace availability and workload, AO busi- the problem. Research will need to address all the ness needs and equity, the evolution of certainty roles, responsibilities and tasks of the different ac- over the prediction horizon, ATCO preferences and tors (airborne and ground, ATM and U-space, op- ensuring workflow integration and redundancy and erating and technical), training needs and change safe degradation.

2 See also [1] European ATM Master Plan, Edition 2020, Chapter 4.5

26 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA An implementation-ready maturity gate is fore- System-wide information management (SWIM) seen for 2023 to verify whether full deployment of SWIM implementation will be a key enabler in the the currently researched interoperability solution is achievement of global interoperability for data-shar- realistic in the Horizon Europe timeframe. Integra- ing and leveraging hyper-connectivity in conjunction tion of this solution, if mature enough, in the Digital with the future communications infrastructure (FCI). Sky demonstrator network will make it possible to Implementation activities will focus on completing accelerate its deployment. Alternatively, R&I activi- the development, standardisation and implemen- ties could be required to find alternative solutions tation of the various SWIM profiles, in addition to a to support the pressing need for synchronised tra- constant monitoring of stakeholder needs to ensure jectory information in the network. The applicability the appropriate definition of new SWIM services to of the current solution, or of any alternative, with further speed up their deployment based on clear the foreseen introduction of ATM data service pro- use-cases in line with the ADSP requirements. Ad- viders (ADSP) will also need to be investigated to ditionally, future seamless integration of ATM and ensure a service-based and cost-efficient way for- U-space domains via SWIM (e.g. through the yel- ward. Additional research is needed concerning the low profile) requires R&I actions in support of the network-centric flight data exchanges to ensure the provision of different services like registration and Network synchronisation of trajectory data and pro- identification, dynamic airspace information and vision of required flight data by different stakehold- geo-fencing, flight planning and surveillance data. ers during the flight planning and execution phases.

DEPENDENCIES WITH OTHER INITIATIVES IF REQUIRED

Implementation of the Pilot Common Project (and CP1)[25] for queue management, flexible use of airspace and free route, initial SWIM and trajectory sharing will form the basis for more complex tools and increased automation, as described in this section. Connected and automated ATM R&I initiatives will build on mature solutions described in the European ATM Master Plan as part of the airport and TMA performance and trajectory-based operations essential operational changes (EOCs). The U-space initial services will build on the foundation services defined as part of the U-space services EOC.

EXPECTED HIGH-LEVEL OUTCOMES AND PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES

These activities will boost the level of automation that can be achieved for the relevant areas (see Figure 4). This will contribute to achieving the European ATM Master Plan vision to reach at least Level 2 (task execution support) for all ATC tasks and up to Level 4 (high automation) for some of the tasks. The impact for U-space services will be even higher, where the aspiration is between Level 4 and Level 5 (full automation) for all the relevant tasks. Higher levels of automation are considered an essential enabler for increasing the performance of the socio-technical ATM system. An affordable and service-oriented way of sharing trajectories across ATM actors will be available, enabling the capacity, cost efficiency, operational efficiency and environmental performance ambitions of the European ATM Master Plan for controlled airspace and airports. Unmanned traffic will have been integrated with manned traffic where required and will utilise additional airspace resources where available in an efficient and safe manner. The future ATM system will deliver hyper connectivity between all stakeholders (vehicle-to-vehicle, vehicle-to-infrastructure) via high bandwidth, low-latency ground-based and satellite networks. Highly automated systems with numerous actors will interact with each other seamlessly, with fewer errors making the system scalable and even safer than today. The following European ATM Master Plan Key performance areas are relevant to the Connected and automated ATM agenda where the following qualitative impacts will be enabled:

Digital European Sky portfolio 27 EXPECTED HIGH-LEVEL OUTCOMES AND PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES (CONT’D)

In addition to the environmental benefits of the operational Environment efficiency improvements, intelligent queue management will (+) enable more continuous descent and climb profiles.

The safe use of less restrictive separation modes, combined with increased level of automation support to ATC, will optimise the use of the airspace. Improvements in ground operations

predictability and integration of advanced tools for arrival and Capacity departure will help to optimise runway use. Better connectivity (+) between stakeholders, the use of shared 4D trajectories, interoperability and higher predictability brought about by increased automation will increase capacity.

Increasing automation requires a significant investment before it can be used operationally, which could outweigh the capacity

increases that can be achieved. It is expected that automation, Cost when adopted consistently, will contribute to operational efficiency harmonisation and eventually to cost efficiency. A service-based (+) approach and a well-defined required service level (e.g. for CNS services) will also help to achieve cost efficiencies.

Shared 4D trajectories and interoperability will increase Operational predictability, enabling the preferred trajectories to be flown with efficiency fewer tactical interventions. (+)

The performance of the system (human and automation) in an environment with increased automation includes safety, which will be maintained if not improved. The automation of some Safety procedures shall ultimately lead to improved safety and fewer (+) errors, which tend to be human-triggered. Additionally, the increase in data sharing will also foster the early detection of potential safety issues and their mitigation.

The increased connectivity between stakeholders could have

a negative impact on the security of the system. This will be Security compensated for by research initiatives included in other (-) sections of this SRIA.

28 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA ROADMAP 1 – CONNECTED AND AUTOMATED ATM Connected and automated ATM

2020 2025 2030

State of the art Implementation activities Vision State of the art AMAN/DMAN Vision Implement arrival management extended to en-route integration Basic queue management tools, Time-based separation in final approach Unmanned vehicles are not perceived improved flexible use of airspace as a threat to orderly and efficient flow procedures and free route airspace are Assistance to surface movement of air traffic. Drones and other being deployed around Europe Advanced FUA Implement free route airspace unmanned aircraft systems, super high altitude, supersonic and electrically SWIM standards exist Implement initial SWIM propelled aircraft are fully integrated Functionally limited flight information Implement initial trajectory information sharing with traditional aircraft, where required, synchronisation between ACCs and with and utilise additional airspace NM based on online data interchange resources where available. (OLDI) Investigate performance of CNS services required for implementation of key SESAR operational concepts Demonstrate unified performance based CNS framework Service oriented trajectory-based Integration of drones in all airspaces is operations enabled by a highly being researched Develop ATM applications using commercially available services interconnected air and ground platform Investigate novel separation modes (e.g. dynamic separation) allow civil and military users to plan and execute their business and advanced separation mgmt. Develop advanced separation management Demonstrate advanced separation management mission trajectories based on free

Automation levels 0-1 are widely programme Demonstrate Intelligent queue management (network wide and U-space impacts) Implement Intelligent queue management route principles and minimising implemented constraints. Develop integrated arrival and departure TBS tools Implement runway use Initial AI implementations for non-safety optimisation Develop increased predictability for ground operations High automation maximises capacity, critical support functions nership cost and environmental efficiency Develop integration of advanced safety nets with separation management functions while maintaining safety. part Flight object based interoperability works Demonstrate operational uses of speech recognition

EU Human performance is maximised

with limited numbers of flights in industrial prototypes r and the overall performance of the o Implement trajectory advisories

f Investigate trajectory advisories Develop trajectory advisories Demonstrate trajectory advisories socio-technical ATM system is Demonstrate cost effective interoperability service interoperability as a service optimised. Role Investigate alternative interoperability implementations Develop advanced applications of SWIM technical infrastructure (ADSP requirements)

State of the art Exploratory research Industrial research Demonstrator Implementation

Source: SESAR 2020 PJ.20 (W2) project partners

Digital European Sky portfolio 29 3.2 AIR-GROUND INTEGRATION AND AUTONOMY

PROBLEM STATEMENT

Current ATM systems and technologies are not designed to allow the accommodation or full integration of an increasing number of new forms of mobility and air vehicles which have a high degree of autonomy and use digital means of communication and navigation. The future ATM needs to evolve, exploiting existing technologies as much as possible, and developing new ones in order to increase global ATM performance in terms of capacity, operational efficiency and accommodation of new and/or more autonomous air vehicles, i.e. supporting the evolving demand in terms of diversity, complexity from very low-level airspace to high level operations. This progressive move towards autonomous flying, enabled by self-piloting technologies, requires closer integration and advanced means of communication between vehicle and infrastructure capabilities so that the infrastructure can act as a digital twin of the aircraft. Ultimately, manned and unmanned aerial vehicles should operate in a seamless and safe environment using common infrastructure and services supporting a common concept of trajectory-based operations. Future operations should therefore rely on direct interactions between air and ground automation, with the human role focused on strategic decision-making while monitoring automation.

30 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA DESCRIPTION OF HIGH-LEVEL R&I NEEDS/ CHALLENGES By 2030, full IP-based A/G and A/A communications and the use of higher bandwidth mo- Enabling greater ground and airborne bile networks, including satellite-based solu- integration and wider performance tions, are introduced and adopted, resulting in hyper-connectivity and rationalisation at net- Greater air-ground integration will require solid, work level, while A/G VHF voice and data are safe and secure means of communication and phased down with legacy fleet. networking to transform, in a stepped approach, the current way to communicate. By 2035/2040, advanced and flexible means of communication are available: From gate to gate, air to ground automation (A/G) will ensure the use of automatic selection of the 3 Seamless air-ground communication in link and frequency for communications by the support of human-to-human and/or ma- pilot and ATC. This will support single-pilot and chine-to-machine communications. cross-border operations. 3 Air-air communication in the context of Air to air communication (A/A) will enable new ATM/U-space, in particular for the safe co- operations (formation flights, etc.) and will habitation of these diverse aerial vehicles. support advanced separation management and 3 Ground to ground (G/G) communication en- safety nets in the context of the safe cohabitation hanced via SWIM services among all stake- of different types of air vehicles (High altitude, holders, i.e. Uspace, flight operations cen- drones, airplanes, helicopters, etc.). tre/wing operations centre (FOC/WOC) and Satellite-based technologies can speed-up ATM, in a safe, secure and resilient environ- global deployment for other technologies through ment. virtualisation of infrastructures and synchronised 3 By 2040, this will contribute to the develop- deployments for all stakeholders. Research ment of a system of systems, possibly with is required to integrate these technologies elements based on artificial intelligence, into a multilink environment that supports the with appropriate end-to-end safety assur- interoperability and hyper-connectivity of air- ance compliant with certification standards. ground communication as well as the transition to IP-based communications.

Integrated 4D trajectory automation in support Implementation of the TBO concept and FF-ICE of trajectory-based operations (TBO) needs to consider all the different parts that in a A common 4D trajectory, shared between every synchronised way have to be developed and, as application that needs to process each flight, soon as integrated, can offer the relevant services and updated by every application acting upon to the airspace users. that flight, underpins ground-provided ATM. The Besides controller-pilot datalink communications accuracy of the trajectory is likely to improve at (CPDLC) and human-to-human communication, every stage of flight planning and execution. This datalink will also support machine-to-machine requires earlier access to/sharing of detailed communication enabling the integration of extended flight planning information, and all subsequent projected profile (EPP) within the Network Manager updates, publication of planning adjustments to system and further steps in 4D trajectory operations the trajectory, and subsequently ATM trajectory on the path towards ATM/U-space convergence. adjustments, correlated with the aircraft’s actual trajectory. These principles also apply to new Complex digital clearances airspace users, including drones, air taxis and high- Industrial research activities will finalise the altitude vehicles. development of ground systems to enable complex The integration/revisions of 4D trajectories will be digital clearances, taking into account traffic based on the extended flight plan (eFPL) exchanges synchronisation, demand and capacity balancing and require different flight and flow – information and conflict management. In particular, after for a collaborative environment (FF-ICE) services having implemented the initial concept of 4D in pre-departure and post-departure phase of trajectories via the sharing of trajectory (air to flight, including the exchanges of planned 4D ground), there will be a need to go a step further trajectory. The eFPL revisions during the planning on a larger scale thanks to CPDLC exchanges (ATN and execution phase requires further research. Baseline 2 improved clearances and instructions).

Digital European Sky portfolio 31 ATM/U-space convergence In order to operate safely with a reduced crew, safety systems and crew health monitoring systems The goal here is to define the TBO concept and re- will be a key enabler to trigger the back-up modes quirements for drones to operate in U-space, inter- in case of incapacitation, stress or exhaustion of operable with TBO in ATM. This concept is necessary crew members. This is of paramount importance to facilitate their access and operations in controlled in order to be able to recognise possible dangerous airspace, and requires the development of sepa- situations, forgotten steps of procedures or check ration standards for drones/drones and drones/ lists, inappropriate or non-executed actions by the manned aircraft, supported by procedures and per- pilot. formance-based requirements. In addition, there is a need to identify requirements for a U-space se- There is a need to demonstrate the integration of a cured digital backbone interoperable with SWIM. safety-critical autonomy platform, with an extended The specificity of drones on account of their remote high-integrity flight control platform hosting time control has to be explored, identifying both for nom- and safety critical functions, as well as flight control inal and emergency conditions the way in which TBO utilities and autonomous back-up mode, which and appropriate connectivity to SWIM can be safely will be developed outside of this SRIA (e.g. Clean assured, also taking into account the ground system Aviation, CORAC, etc.). and associated operational procedures. Following an assessment of the roles of ground and air actors, both in normal and abnormal conditions, in the context of SPO supported by a digital By 2025, enhanced integration/revisions of assistant, the following topics should be addressed: 4D trajectory in the execution phase are developed to support the implementation of 3 Safe return to land: conditions under which pi- the concept of TBOat global level. lot incapacitation is declared and how it is han- dled by the various actors involved, definition of By 2025, EPP elements are integrated into ground assistant role when the pilot is in com- the Network Manager systems for improve- mand, the definition of incapacitation decla- ment of post-departure trajectory prediction. ration and management procedures, between aircraft, the airline operation centre and ATM. By 2030, integrated 4D trajectory automation is developed to support ATM/U-space 3 FOC-WOC/ATC connectivity: the expected role of FOC/WOC in the case of SPO abnormal situ- convergence towards the TBO concept. By ations requires their connection to ATC centres 2030, enhanced integration/revisions of 4D to support safe return to land even in a con- trajectory in the execution phase is demon- gested traffic environment. strated to support the full concept of TBO. Integration of drones in all classes of airspace (IFR and VFR) Single-pilot operations (SPO) The Digital European Sky builds on the evolution of A significant move from current aircraft with two ATM towards the integration of drones, from small pilots to a single crew in the cockpit, i.e. single-pilot vehicles that are mainly operating at very low level operations is being investigated. SPO as opposed (VLL) close to urban areas and airports, up to large to fully automated flight respects the societal vehicles, such as remotely-piloted aircraft systems expectations to have a human in the cockpit (RPAS), used both for civil and military applications, for strategic decision making while increased which will routinely operate safely using ATM automation enables automatic flight phases. services: manned and unmanned should be able to use the same airport infrastructure; they will both communicate with ATC using datalink; rules By 2035, the SPO with a limited level of and procedures will be applied to both, with some autonomy are deployed for short range adaptations for drones as the pilot is on the ground. aircraft categories (e.g. category C), while progressive autonomy functions and aircraft categories extension are By 2040, the integration of cargo drones envisaged a few years later. into all classes of airspace will significantly improve the cost efficiency of the transpor- A precondition for success is the ability to have tation of goods within Europe and overseas. a demonstrator by the end of 2027 in close cooperation with EASA.

32 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA The research will look at: integration into the traditional ATM operation is both a technical and operational challenge. 3 How to enable drones to operate in controlled/ uncontrolled airspace, both under IFR or VFR, and safely integrate with cooperative and By 2035, daily high level operations (HLO) non-cooperative traffic are expected and their transition from a seg- 3 How to ensure that airborne safety nets will re- regated and/or non-segregated airspace main effective and independent from separation have to be well established with appropriate provision while possibly adapting ground-based regulations (with EASA involvement), clear safety nets to these new modes of separation. technological capabilities and suitable performances for such air platforms. Super-high-altitude operating aerial vehicles These vehicles, which can be viewed as drones, will also need to be integrated, with entry and Moreover, airborne surveillance and the safety nets exit procedures through segregated or non- (terrain, weather, traffic) and evasive manoeuvres segregated airspace. As a result, new airspace will certainly be impacted by the introduction of users include highly autonomous vehicles. Safe new vehicles, such as drones (evolving in lower separation management of this traffic and efficient airspace below 500 ft.).

DEPENDENCIES WITH OTHER INITIATIVES IF REQUIRED

3 The French Conseil pour la Recherche Aéronautique Civile (CORAC) has launched work on the route to autonomy. 3 The ICAO Global Air Navigation Plan calls for 4D TBO worldwide and FF-ICE for all classes of airspace and types of aircraft. 3 SESAR exploratory research project for SPO (SafeLand) 3 NASA has launched research on autonomous flight rules (AFR)

EXPECTED HIGH-LEVEL OUTCOMES AND PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES

The air-ground integration supported by automation levels 2/3 then 4/5 (see Figure 4) will enable the implementation of target architecture and transformation to TBO (phases C&D). In particular, the integration of certified drones into all classes of airspace will be achieved thanks to increased automation and delegation of separation responsibility to systems. In addition to full U-space services, single pilot operations will be rendered possible. The qualitative assessment below is to be read as the contribution of the air-ground integration and autonomy elements to the overall performance benefits brought about by the related enablers/capabilities.

Digital European Sky portfolio 33 EXPECTED HIGH-LEVEL OUTCOMES AND PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES (CONT’D)

Optimised operations due to integrated 4D trajectory Environment operations contribute to the related optimisation of fuel-burn (+) and therefore of CO2 emissions per flight.

The main objective of the integration is to maintain capacity Capacity even with important changes in the respective fleets, i.e., (=) manned versus unmanned, HLO impacting the density of crossed airspace below.

Airspace users: SPO can be seen as a significant benefit for Cost airspace users. efficiency Ground ANSPs: With the new services supported by ground- (+) ground and air-ground connectivity, cost efficiency is expected to be improved.

Operational efficiency will be improved thanks to advanced communication means (including agile frequency transfer, system to system dialogues) and increased automation Operational (reduced workload for ATCOs and flight crews/remote pilots) efficiency (+) Horizontal flight efficiency will be improved in SESAR2020. Trajectory management will provide further improvements in vertical flight efficiency and cruising/taxiing fuel consumption when flights are subject to queuing.

Operational safety is positively impacted by the design of new operations providing advanced separation management and Safety collision avoidance for all aircraft. (+) Autonomy enables the human actors to be discharged from routine tasks and to focus on strategic tasks, including safety oversight of the operations.

The increased connectivity between stakeholders could have Security a negative impact on the security of the system including (=) multi-threats. This will be compensated for by the research initiatives included in other sections of the agenda.

The integration of 4D trajectories either civil (business) Civil-military or military (mission) via the coordination of sharable data coordination among stakeholders (NM, FOC, WOC, ATC) will enable to (+) accommodate all types of aircraft in the TBO concept.

34 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA

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Digital European Sky portf partners (W2) project SESAR 2020 PJ.20 Source: olio 35 3.3 CAPACITY-ON-DEMAND AND DYNAMIC AIRSPACE

PROBLEM STATEMENT

For the last decades, capacity has not been available when and where needed and it has often been available when and where not needed. New airspace users including RPAS/HAO traffic will increase by 2030 and will require an increased level of capacity and its variability. Integrated Air Traffic Management- requires agility and flexibility in providing capacity where and when it is needed, particularly for maximising the use and performance of limited resources, i.e. airspace and ATCOs. It will require the dynamic reconfiguration of resources and new capacity- on-demand services to maintain safe, resilient, smooth and efficient air transport operations while allowing for the optimisation of trajectories even at busy periods.

Offering airspace users at all times the most DESCRIPTION OF HIGH-LEVEL R&I NEEDS/ 3 environmentally friendly options when there is CHALLENGES the need to constrain traffic, particularly when queueing aircraft at the arrival or departing On-demand air traffic services runways - so that holding no longer exists as part of normal operations and, if and when In the future, the increasing number of flights there is the need for conflict resolutions, offer- and emerging new technologies will lead to a ing real-time options to airspace users so that structural transformation of the way air traffic they can select the least penalising trajectory. services are provided. Delivering the capacity 3 Establishing a network performance cockpit needed across the network, improving cost and for “network minded” decision-making includ- flight efficiency while maintaining safety and ing support to enhanced connectivity both for resilience requires the supply to be optimised on identifying unattended business opportunities demand in a dynamic, agile and resilient manner. and for managing disruptive crises. The challenges of providing capacity on demand The capacity-on-demand concept aims at are: flexibly allocating resources to where they are required due to traffic demand, irrespective Ensuring that automation using artificial in- 3 of the controller’s physical location in Europe, telligence supports ATCOs and is under their supervision. while taking into account network optimisation needs. It also requires standardised data sharing 3 Adapting training programmes for ATCOs and between air traffic service providers using a highly other ATM personnel in order to manage an in- interconnected and resilient network. creased level of automation. The management style should ensure the transparency of auto- 3 Dynamic airspace management and airspace mated processes to humans and the capability configurations (DAC): Improvement of airspace of human interventions only when necessary. utilisation is obtained through flexibility in air- 3 Addressing legislation, certification and social space organisation and design, and flexibility dialogue issues. and agility in airspace management. DACs are used to accommodate specific civil and mili- 3 Offering an increased level of capacity, while tary demands. DACs integration into air traffic accepting a much higher level of complexity so flow and capacity management (ATFCM) will that optimised flight efficient trajectories do contribute to the collaborative optimisation of not result in structural limitations on capacity. traffic flows. Airspace management configu- 3 Offering increased levels of capacity and flex- ration should accommodate traffic demand ibility to allow capacity variations in time and and military operations, resolving complexity space to meet levels of demand. issues and balancing workload and optimising

36 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA resources, using digital services (e.g. Machine plemented to optimise the flow management learning to identify and exploit information pat- process. Digital platforms would aim to expand terns, and artificial intelligence to identify and the what-else concept e.g. the system suggests design new elementary basic sector volumes). alternatives or refinements based on the initial Potential changes to ATCO licences and train- solution proposal by the operator. AI and auto- ing will need to be researched, including the mation is still to be researched while the INAP use of conflict detection and resolution sup- CONOPS is already clear now. Within INAP port tools by ATCOs in order to ensure capac- there is also the need to research spot man- ity growth, against a trend of creating smaller agement, which uses traffic monitoring values sectors where capacity benefits reach a finite (TMV), standing for different objectives (safety, limit. The challenge for DAC is to join airspace rate optimisation, critical and crisis situations, management (ASM) and ATFCM into a single etc.) to define and address different types of “rolling” planning process, while optimising spots (regions of interest). For instance, local airspace resource utilisation and fully linking spots need to be integrated (in terms of infor- to performance targets. mation-sharing and operational procedures) with the Network Manager’s NetSpot. 3 Dynamic mobile areas (DMA2 and 3): DMAs will support the dynamic configuration of seg- 3 The network integration of higher airspace regated airspace and management of mission operations (HAO) (FL500 and above): There is trajectories, thus contributing to the efficiency a need to ensure the integration of these op- of both civil and military operations. The areas erations as they transit through the classic will have a potential to “roll up” following use European ATM Network. Indeed the current over time, distance and volume as a mission Network and higher airspace should be seen progresses allowing for the early release of as a continuum requiring research and even- airspace for other users. tually demonstrations to confirm the services required by new airspace users, notably high Dynamic extended TMA (including procedures 3 altitude long endurance (HALEs) platforms, and systems to enable continuous climb op- sub-orbital and commercial space operations, erations - CCO and continuous descent op- supersonic and eventually hypersonic pas- erations - CDO): TMA operations will benefit senger transport. Challenges exist in how to from the capability to dynamically extend the integrate new entrants with their diverse per- scope of terminal airspace, bringing improved formance transiting through the classical ATM flight efficiency. This will further optimise the network as well as determining services re- application of advanced continuous climb and quired in HAO. Moreover, these HAO challenges descent operations and will improve descent and services’ definition require extra-European and climb and the synchronisation of arrival/ coordination. Some examples: departure flows. To transform some European airports into Flow-centric approach including the full rec- 3 3 spaceports (designated and authorised site onciliation of ATFCM measures with other for launch/take-off and/or re-entry/landing measures/advisory and multiple constraint of sub-orbital vehicles). manager: Network operations will be further enhanced by the optimisation of multiple 3 The use of non-cooperative tracking of a ATFCM demand measures while reducing the high-altitude vehicle: it could be continuous- adverse impact of multiple regulations affect- ly carried out in real time in order to moni- ing the same flight or flows. Indeed, for the tor the vehicle’s status, the flight path and to provision of common network situation aware- enable the prediction of the vehicle’s position ness and enhanced demand and capacity bal- or debris excursion in case of a mishap. ancing, network management will gradually RPAS demonstration for RPAS accommoda- evolve towards flow-centric operations. This 3 tion in controlled airspace (Airspace Class A to will enable a collaborative approach in the con- C): This key R&I activity is aimed at accommo- text of flow and network management for in- dating IFR RPAS in non-segregated airspace creased dynamic capabilities and predictability, in accordance with the drone roadmap in the leading to the capacity-on-demand concept. European ATM Master Plan. The objective is to 3 Digital integrated network management and enable IFR RPAS operating from dedicated air- ATC planning (INAP): In order to cover the plan- fields to routinely operate in airspace classes ning gap between ATFCM and ATC processes A-C as general air traffic (GAT) without a chase and facilitate layered ATM planning in the exe- plane escort. The scope includes development cution phase, integrated network management of adaptations to the flight planning processes, and ATC Planning (INAP) will be gradually im- DCB developments, contingency, etc.

Digital European Sky portfolio 37 ATM continuity of service despite disruption 3 Training and licensing of ATCOs: An assessment is required of the level of new training and In case of disruption, the new airspace architecture licencing needed for new cross-border should enable solutions allowing for continuity of dynamic sectors and remote ATS operations service. For example, it should enable resources where sector families or traffic flows may be (including data) to be shared across the network new to ATCOs. supporting flexible and seamless civil/military coordination allowing for more scalable and 3 Training and competency requirements for resilient service delivery to all airspace users. ATM personnel contributing to the cross border ATM/ANS service delivery as enablers Resilient ATM systems would continue to provide of technical reconfiguration for remote ATS services despite disruption, e.g. during capacity operations. bottlenecks, adverse weather, national system breakdowns or disruptive social actions. Future data services and applications for airport 3 Reconfiguration/Consolidation of x-border and network dynamic and remote air traffic services (ATS): Future data services and applications commence Operational plans need to include flexible with User-driven prioritisation process (UDPP), and dynamic sectorisation by taking into which provides airspace users with more control account basic complexity indicators based over the selection of flights which are delayed in on specific shapes of demand, network flight order to prioritise them based on business needs, efficiency needs plus existing ATC technology enabled capabilities and the application of the and which can gradually be extended to new virtual centre concept. A new notion of area ATFCM rules and queueing techniques. control centres (ACCs) with multiple areas of responsibility (AoRs) will provide remote ATS 3 Integrated UDPP (including links with ATFCM capability. This can lead to the need for local/ slot swapping) will demonstrate the application regional plans for cross-border sectorisation of airspace user priorities and preferences and consolidation/reconfiguration, in particular in the establishment of ATFCM measures for the upper airspace sectors, in a dynamic and support to airspace users to ensure manner. the maximum throughput of payload factor

38 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA when subject to heavy flow management 3 The integration of connectivity within the loop restrictions and in a crisis period (e.g. terminal of ATM operations, the new data sets available overloaded with passengers during periods of through A-CDM, UDPP, AOP/NOP data, TTO/ dramatic airport capacity reduction). Also, the TTA and extended AMAN demand further demonstration of UDPP concept applicability to development of the rules for ATFCM and other operational environments in the planning queuing priorities. This will require further phase (en-route constraints, use in nominal exploratory research. situations, etc.…) is required. Demonstrations are expected to play a critical 3 In terms of development, support to airspace users is required on the definition and validation role in closing the industrialisation gap, as they of new operational and social indicators. can potentially act as a platform that accelerates These should be integrated into the overall the creation of a critical mass of early movers to R&I performance framework, building on the complete pre-implementation activities, maximising results of SESAR validations, identification of the chances of speeding up the time to market and gaps and development of steps from research operational uptake throughout the Network. to pre-industrialisation and deployment (full integration of operational processes and systems’ interoperability).

DEPENDENCIES WITH OTHER INITIATIVES IF REQUIRED

3 Connected and automated ATM are the basic elements to ensure the operational capacity changes described in this section. 3 A high-level of ATCO productivity and the scaling up or down of capacity does not depend solely on DAC and INAP, but also on the virtualisation and availability of ADSP and TBO data. 3 Air-ground and ground-ground integration is fundamental to delivering TBO and taxi-routing optimisation. 3 Green operations of the European Partnership for Clean Aviation. 3 Airport operating environment and multimodal transport concepts will also influence capacity- on-demand.

EXPECTED HIGH-LEVEL OUTCOMES AND PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES

By providing capacity dynamically where and when it is needed and re-configuring the airspace to match the traffic flows, overall system resilience and flexibility are increased significantly. Predictability (from an airline and airport scheduling perspective) is ensured by a more stable and predictable level of capacity in all-weather operations. Peak runway throughput increases could deliver improved exploitation of the airport in terms of both airport slot increases (in the scheduling phase) and on-time operations. The optimisation of trajectories helps to reduce fuel burn and increases predictability, contributing as such to flight efficiency, reducing the environmental impact and enhancing the passenger experience. The establishment of the common network performance cockpit, following the definition of appropriate key performance areas (KPAs) for the performance of the airspace, will allow an increased level of connectivity providing new opportunities for revenue generation and the creation of new opportunities for business between European regions. An increased level of ATCO productivity will make it possible to manage traffic growth with the current level of resources, thus improving cost efficiency.

Digital European Sky portfolio 39 EXPECTED HIGH-LEVEL OUTCOMES AND PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES (CONT’D)

More precise trajectories in arrival and departure will Environment reduce the noise impact and so airline costs in terms of (+) paying noise penalties.

Capacity is measured in terms of either ATFM delays (lack of capacity) or throughput. The en-route capacity aims to maintain ATFM delays at 0.5 min/flight or less. TMA and peak runway throughput shall be increased according Capacity to traffic forecasts. A more stable and predictable level (+) of capacity will be achieved in all-weather operations. In addition, by providing capacity dynamically where and when it is needed and re-configuring the airspace to match the traffic flows, overall system resilience will be significantly increased.

Cost DAC, capacity-on-demand, ATCO training programmes efficiency will provide scalability. ATCO productivity is expected to (+) increase significantly.

Trajectory management and DAC will provide further improvements in vertical flight efficiency and cruising/ Operational taxiing fuel consumption when flights are subject to efficiency queueing. (+) Overall improvements in capacity and trajectory management and DAC are expected to reduce the average delay in block to block times by 4 minutes per flight.

Safety Safety levels are maintained. (=)

40 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA 41

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PROBLEM STATEMENT

Over the next 10 years, the implementation of this SRIA aims to unlock the potential of the drone economy and enable urban air mobility (UAM) on a wide scale. To that end, a new air traffic management concept for low-altitude operations needs to be put in place to cater safely for the unprecedented complexity and high volume of the operations that are expected. This concept, referred to as U-space, will include new digital services and operational procedures and its development has already started within the SESAR 2020 programme. U-space is expected to provide the means to manage safely and efficiently high-density traffic at low altitudes involving heterogeneous vehicles (small unmanned aerial vehicles, electric vertical take-off and landing – eVTOLs - and conventional manned aircraft), including operations over populated areas and within controlled airspace. U-space will have to integrate seamlessly with the ATM system to ensure safe and fair access to airspace for all airspace users, including UAM flights departing from airports.

DESCRIPTION OF HIGH-LEVEL R&I NEEDS/ opening the way to the safe integration of new ve- CHALLENGES hicles into the airspace. UAM is expected to be the most challenging type of operations supported by The development of U-space will have to over- U-space. UAM will enable on demand highly auto- come extraordinary challenges. A new regulatory mated operations of drones and larger eVTOL vehi- framework, supported by a comprehensive set of cles over urban areas, providing cargo, emergency standards, has to be established to provide a solid and passenger transportation. Plans are afoot to framework for safety and interoperability without deploy UAM in many European cities, with small- hindering innovation. U-space will have to integrate scale cargo operations already taking place and ini- seamlessly with the ATM system to ensure safe and tial passenger services expected to launch by 2025. fair access to airspace for all airspace users. This UAM will involve new types of vehicles with hetero- integration will not be straightforward since the re- geneous performances and high levels of autonomy, quirements on U-space services may not be com- which will have to coexist with conventional manned patible with those imposed on ATM. To cater for the traffic and will need to be accommodated by the anticipated volume of operations, U-space will need U-space and ATM ecosystems. to rely heavily on automation and to take advan- tage effectively of emerging on-board capabilities Considering the above, the main research and and advanced digital technologies on the ground. innovation challenges required to deploy U-space In addition, U-space is expected to have a profound will include the following: socio-economic impact, enabling the creation of a Mature, validate and deploy across Europe the new marketplace for U-space service provision and 3 basic U-space services: The set of U-space ser- accelerating the advent of the drone and urban air vices has been divided into 4 levels (U1 – U4) of mobility economy. Ultimately, the development and increasing sophistication and complexity [27]: deployment of U-space will help position Europe as U1, which includes services such as registra- the global leader in UAM and drone-based services, tion, remote identification and geo-fencing; U2, accelerating the development and adoption of new which encompasses services such as flight plan- technologies (AI, cloud, digital services, big data) ning, flight approval, tracking, and the interface and fostering the creation of high quality jobs. with conventional air traffic control; U3, with ad- U-space provides an unparalleled opportunity to vanced services supporting more complex operations in dense areas, such as traffic prediction experiment, test and validate some of the key ar- and capacity management as well as assistance chitectural principles and technology enablers of for conflict detection and resolution (automat- the future Digital European Sky before incorporat- ed detect and avoid functionalities); and U4, ing them into the broader ATM ecosystem. It can with services still to be defined that will support potentially help de-risk and accelerate the digital high levels of autonomy and connectivity as well transformation of the European ATM system while as integration with manned aviation and ATM.

42 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA Although descriptions of many services exist at EASA AI Regulatory Roadmap[17]). The evolution U1, U2 and even U3 levels, and a concept of op- of U-space together with its associated regula- erations (ConOps) shows how they can fit togeth- tory framework and standards will need to be er, work is still needed on validation, cost benefit synchronised and coordinated with the develop- analysis and standardisation. Although differ- ment of the future UAM ConOps, its associated ent U-space architectures have been proposed, UAM services and the certification of UAM vehi- work is still required to assess different options cles. Special consideration should be given to the and identify those that meet the full range of re- operational limitations of these new vehicles and quirements by the different types of operations how U-space can contribute to operational safe- and guarantee safe and secure interoperability, ty by protecting their operation in contingency thereby enabling a pan-European competitive and non-nominal situations. In addition, mech- environment for the provision of U-space servic- anisms and protocols to enable Collaborative es. One of the challenges is to enable the simul- Decision Making in the context of UAM, involving taneous operations of multiple U-space service ATM, U-space and city stakeholders, will need to providers (USSP) in the same airspace. In addi- be explored. tion to the definition of potential U-space archi- ATM/U-space integration: U-space services tectures, preliminary implementations of U1 and 3 shall enable safe and efficient operations of un- U2 services have already been demonstrated in manned aircraft without negatively impacting the the SESAR 2020 programme. Eurocontrol is col- operations of other airspace users. The seam- lecting data from States to assess their progress less integration of U-space and ATM services towards deployment (as part of the EU Network is expected to contribute to the fairness, safety, of U-space demonstrators initiative, led by the efficiency and environmental impact of the over- EC), which has so far been limited. Many ques- all air traffic system. The capacity benefits and tions still need to be answered before full-scale flexibility of an airspace without segregation re- deployment is feasible, particularly in the areas quires the full integration of U-space and ATM. of interoperability, certification and performance For U-space and ATM environments to be inte- requirements, safety and security, fairness, con- grated, it does not necessarily mean they oper- tingency management, financing and liability. ate in the same way. They could be very different 3 Develop advanced U-space services: In parallel indeed, but with suitable interfaces to allow safe to the full validation, industrialisation and deploy- and effective coexistence. Standard operating ment of the basic U-space services, work needs procedures will need to be defined (for example to start on the definition, design and develop- rules of the air and airspace management) to ment of advanced services. The most advanced allow manned and unmanned aircraft to share U-space services (U3/U4) will enable UAM mis- the same airspace safely, as well as the simul- sions in high-density and high-complexity are- taneous provision of U-space and ATM servic- as. The required technologies to enable perfor- es). The safety, security, certification and regu- mance-based CNS services in U-space need to latory challenges arising from the provision of be identified and assessed in operational envi- U-space services to manned aircraft should be ronments. For example, the use of mobile com- studied. Information exchange will be critical to munication technology, such as 5G, and other enable a safe convergence of U-space and ATM. emerging technologies for connectivity should be Challenges include cybersecurity, data compati- studied, as well as data link solutions to enable bility and the reconciliation of different standards electronic conspicuity and surveillance. Different and certification requirements. Another critical solutions for separation management for all aspect of the integration will be the role of the types of vehicles in all types of airspace (includ- human, particularly regarding the high level of ing airborne detect and avoid (DAA) as well as automation that will be delivered by U-space ser- ground-based and hybrid solutions) should also vices and the automation disparity between ATM be considered. and U-space. 3 Enable urban air mobility (UAM): The require- In addition to the key challenges described above, ments of UAM operations are expected to be the the following transversal research areas will be crit- most challenging for the U-space ecosystem. ical to the successful development and deployment One of the key research questions is how to inte- of U-space. grate the airspace autonomous operations over populated areas safely into complex and con- 3 Financial and legal aspects: Research needs to gested airspace environments, with operations be conducted on potential U-space and drone op- involving vehicles interacting with U-space and erator business models, focusing on the mecha- conventional ATM services. Research should in- nisms required to create a fair and competitive vestigate how U-space can support the transition U-space market across Europe. The available from piloted to autonomous operations (linked to alternatives for the financing of a sustainable

Digital European Sky portfolio 43 U-space ecosystem should be analysed, includ- ent deployment options and support their indus- ing how to optimise public and private invest- trialisation and deployment. Create U-space test ments and the implications for the financial centres offering an environment for stakeholders model of European ANSPs. The insurance mod- to conduct reproducible and interoperable tests els required for U-space should also be analysed. in conditions comparable to live operational scenarios, with the objective of validating standards Social acceptance: Work is required to ensure 3 and regulations in representative environments. that the new operations enabled by U-space are Such centres can also support the certification of acceptable to the public. Specific areas of con- new U-space service providers, services or tech- cern will be UAM noise, visual pollution, privacy, nologies, making it possible to increase flexibili- etc. In addition, a consensus must be reached on ty for rapid and agile increments of the U-space the acceptable target level of safety of the differ- ecosystem. ent types of operations under U-space. The impact on general and leisure aviation should also 3 Transfer of U-space automation technology to be considered. ATM: Explore whether U-space can be an accel- erator of the ATM innovation life cycle, facilitating CNS and separation minima: Definition and vali- 3 faster, lower risk adoption of new technologies or dation of performance-driven CNS requirements approaches (automation, AI, cloud, etc.). for operations under U-space, together with the applicable separation minima. The separation 3 U-space performance framework: A perfor- minima will be related to the CNS performance, mance framework for U-space needs to be de- available separation management services and fined in concordance with the overall SES per- other relevant criteria – ground risk, vehicle performance framework, so as to assess and guide formance, etc. Validation of CNS technologies the deployment process based on objective and against the performance criteria. quantifiable performance measurements. 3 Support the development of the U-space reg- 3 Safety assurance: New safety modelling and as- ulatory framework and required standards: sessment methodologies applicable to U-space Leverage extensive modelling, simulation and are needed. Tools are required to analyse and experimentation to assess the maturity and in- quantify the level of safety of U-space operations teroperability of U-space services, assess differ- involving high levels of automation and autono-

44 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA my, where multiple actors automatically make for this purpose include greater use of simula- complex, interrelated decisions under uncertain- tion and machine learning applications such as ty (e.g. weather-related uncertainty). Research stress-testing. is needed to ensure that the distributed deci- Applications above VLL airspace: Explore po- sion-making protocols implemented in U-space 3 tential applications and extensions of U-space achieve the required level of safety while catering concepts beyond VLL airspace, for example to for differing levels of experience of participants. support manned traffic in uncontrolled airspace Examples of approaches that could be leveraged or to enable high altitude operations.

DEPENDENCIES WITH OTHER INITIATIVES IF REQUIRED

3 Clean Aviation partnership 3 EASA certification of UAM vehicles (airborne / ground requirements) - EASA AI Roadmap 3 EASA U-space Regulatory Framework development (EASA opinion 01/2020 and its successors) 3 AW-Drones (https://www.aw-drones.eu/). Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme to provide guidance for the harmonisation of standards to support future EU drone regulation 3 ICAO GANP and ICAO UTM Framework Document 3 European Network of U-space Demonstrators 3 SESAR 2020 Project PJ34 on ATM-U-space integration 3 SESAR 2020 exploratory research projects on U-space services (DACUS, BUBBLES, etc.) and SESAR 2020 VLDs on U-space for UAM 3 Initiatives addressing UAM ConOps definition and implementation, such as the research projects in response to the call H2020-MG-2020 “Towards sustainable UAM” 3 NASA National Campaign on Advanced Air Mobility 3 UAM OEM’s development and certification activities 3 National and international U-space/UTM/UAM implementation programmes 3 Ongoing work by standardisation bodies, such as ASD-STAN, EUROCAE and ASTM. 3 European innovation partnership on smart cities and communities (EIP-SCC) 3 Multimodality and passenger experience activities within iATM

EXPECTED HIGH-LEVEL OUTCOMES AND PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES

The assumption made in the European ATM Master Plan 2020 edition is that the coordinated development and deployment of U-space is key to realising in a timely manner the economic benefits anticipated in the 2016 Drones Outlook Study. In addition, the assumption is that U-space will not have a negative effect on the Master Plan performance ambitions for the European ATM system. This holds specifically true for the ambitions relating safety, security, and capacity (notably, at airports) and cost efficiency. Specific performance metrics for measuring the efficiency of U-space service provision need to be developed as part of the U-space R&I and will result in a specific U-space performance framework. This will not only ensure that U-space service provisions can be properly evaluated but will also enable an assessment of the additional benefits obtained through the coordinated development of such services. An initial qualitative assessment of the expected impact of the deployment of U-space in some of the KPAs is outlined in the table below.

Digital European Sky portfolio 45 EXPECTED HIGH-LEVEL OUTCOMES AND PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES (CONT’D)

U-space shall not increase the environmental footprint of the air transportation system. Specific metrics will be defined, tailored to the U-space environment and the types of vehicles operating within it (most of them are expected to be zero Environment emissions aircraft). Special consideration should be given to (=) the noise impact of low-level operations enabled by U-space. The growing use of zero-emission UAVs enabled by U-space may also contribute to reducing the environmental footprint of the overall transportation system, for example by reducing road traffic levels.

In terms of passenger experience and overall socio-economic contribution, U-space will enable and accelerate the drone economy, opening the way to new services (delivery, inspection, Passenger security, UAM, etc.) that will increase the wellbeing of experience European citizens. U-space will foster the development of a (+) new high-tech economic sector in Europe, leading to wealth and job creation. Particular attention must, however, be paid to safeguarding privacy and ensuring social acceptance.

U-space shall not negatively affect the capacity of the ATM system and will enable additional system capacity by enabling Capacity large volumes of unmanned aircraft to access the airspace. (+) Specific capacity metrics shall be defined for U-space defined in terms of safety or other concerns such as noise.

Cost U-space shall not negatively affect the cost of providing ATM efficiency services. Specific cost-efficiency metrics shall be defined for U-space, focusing on the cost of delivering U-space (=) services.

U-space shall substantially reduce the costs of operating Operational unmanned aircraft in the European airspace and will not efficiency negatively affect the operating costs of other airspace users. (+) Specific operational efficiency metrics shall be defined for U-space, including fairness aspects.

Safety U-space shall not negatively affect the safety of the ATM system. Specific safety metrics shall be defined for (=) U-space.

U-space shall not negatively affect the security of the ATM Security system. Cybersecurity will be a key area to consider in (=) U-space, especially regarding the interaction (data exchange) between U-space services and ATM systems.

46 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA 47

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Digital European Sky portfolio partners (W2) project SESAR 2020 PJ.20 Source: 47 3.5 VIRTUALISATION AND CYBER-SECURE DATA SHARING

PROBLEM STATEMENT

The Airspace Architecture Study (AAS)[11] clearly highlighted the lack of flexibility in the sector configuration capabilities at pan-European level. This is caused by the close coupling of ATM service provision to the ATS systems and operational procedures, preventing air traffic from making use of cloud-based data service provision. A more flexible use of external data services, considering data properties and access rights, would allow the infrastructure to be rationalised, reducing the related costs. It will enable data- sharing, foster a more dynamic airspace management and ATM service provision, allowing air traffic service units (ATSU) to improve capacity in portions of airspace where traffic demand exceeds the available capacity. It furthermore offers options for the contingency of operations and the resilience of ATM service provision.

48 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA DESCRIPTION OF HIGH-LEVEL R&I NEEDS/ CHALLENGES 1. Initial data service delivery between the ADSP and the ATSU is defined and im- The particular challenges can be linked to the plemented in 2026. (IOC) following key elements for delegating service provision throughout Europe: 2. The full data services between ADSPs and ATSUs or between ADSPs are fully defined and in operation by 2028. (FOC) Future data-sharing service delivery model 3. MET and aeronautical information (AIS) Data-sharing supports the progressive shift to a services developed and implemented new service delivery model for ATM data, through over SWIM IWXXM and AIXM standards. the establishment of dedicated ADSPs. A common EU-wide ATM data service layer, will enable all ATM service providers to benefit from the cross- border sharing of data. The ADSP would provide Infrastructure as a service the data and specific applications (e.g. STCA, Through a service-oriented architecture (SOA), Correlation, etc.) required to provide ATM services. the infrastructure services (e.g. communication, On the data side, the ADSP will convey CNS (e.g. navigation and surveillance) will be specified radar data, flight data processing information), through contractual relationships between cus- ATM, voice data, AIM data (static, semi-static and tomers and providers with clearly defined Euro- dynamic data) and also meteorology (MET) data. pean-wide harmonised service-level agreements. The data can be delivered in raw format or be This approach will create business opportunities processed to allow the delivery of services such for affordable services with a strong incentive for as flight correlation, trajectory prediction, conflict service providers to rationalise and harmonise detection and conflict resolution and arrival their own infrastructure in support of nominal and management planning and will extend to the contingency operations and more generally the provision of safety-net services (e.g. short-term provision of safe, efficient, cost-efficient, interop- conflict alerts - STCA, minimum safe altitude erable and standardised ATM and CNS services. warning - MSAW, area proximity warning - APW) A large part of the CNS services will be provided and on decision-making support tools as a service through applications using space-based sensors. (providing the what-if and the what-else functions, With regard to communications, the transition to- attention guidance, etc.). At a detailed operational wards an IP-based environment will enable the and technical level, the question of drawing a location-independent transmission of data and/or clear boundary between ATM services and ADS is voice. Possibly, a dynamic allocation of IP connec- open and will be tested through simulations and tions will reduce the need for VHF channels on the impact assessments as the concepts mature. ground side and the need for the airborne side to switch frequencies several times during the flight.

Figure 12 – KEY SERVICE DELEGATION ELEMENTS

Future data sharing service delivery model

Infrastructure as a service

Airspace delegation, Free ﬂow of data among trusted users across borders scalability, contingency

Regulations & standards

Cyber resilience

Source: SESAR 2020 PJ.20 (W2) project partners

Digital European Sky portfolio 49 R&I needs to deliver solutions utilising infrastruc- In relation to section 3.3 Capacity-on-demand and ture (CNS, IT, U-space, etc.) as a service, enabling dynamic airspace: new combined services.

1. The relationship between the NM, the 1. Satellite-based navigation and surveil- ADSPs and the ATSUs are defined by lance functionalities are fully deployed 2026. and in service in 2026. 2. ATCO licensing for dynamic location in- 2. Satellite-based communications as a dependent operations are available in service with FOC in 2028. 2028. 3. IP-based environment is established 3. The Dynamic airspace management to supplement the VHF communication and DAC can be applied in one ATSUs, networks. in neighbouring ATSUs or in a grouping of non-adjoining ATSUs to allow for capacity balancing. Scalability and resilience Open architecture guarantees the long-term Free flow of data among trusted users across upgradability and scalability of ATM service provision borders and the agility required to enhance services. With the delivery of ATM services irrespective of physical The sharing of data through interoperable infrastructure or geographical location, the platforms and, the exchange of open data between defragmentation of European skies can be realised trusted partners, combined with open architecture through virtualisation: i.e. decoupling the provision policies, will allow improved collaboration of ATM data services from ATS, allowing them to be between the different actors and the optimisation provided from geographically decoupled locations. of services and processes for all partners in the Airspace capacity can be offered on demand through aviation value chain. Such data exchange shall horizontal collaboration between the Network occur on established concepts such as SWIM and Manager and the ATSU. The Digital European consider the associated cyber-resilience aspects. Sky will allow for more efficient and flexible use Data will be even more critical in future and not of resources, substantially improving the cost- only data-sharing but also proper data structure efficiency of service provision and delivering the and storage will have to be provided. On the capacity needed. Ultimately, the virtualisation of Air Network level and on the local ATM side, this will Traffic Management services will allow the creation allow for big data analytics, which will pave the of new business models and the emergence of new way for future more efficient ATM operations, ATM players, which will foster competition in the thereby optimising the network at strategic level. sector. Importantly, this will enable ANSPs to make By applying business intelligence (BI), the network implementation choices on how new ATM services could be organised in a more efficient and stable are provided. On the other hand, virtualisation will manner. increase the need for a robust and well-proven approach to cyber resilience, including the skills and means for all human actors in the value chain to detect, respond to, and recover from complex 1. A Europe-based cloud infrastructure degradation situations. The increased flexibility is available to support the secure of the European airspace through a Dynamic exchange of data between ADSPs/ Airspace Configuration makes it possible for an ADSPs and ADSPs/ATSUs in 2026. ATSP to cover multiple areas of responsibility 2. The Europe-based cloud infrastructure (AOR) through remote ATSU provision. provides services to adjoining ATSUs beyond the EU remit by 2028.

50 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA Regulations and standards disrupt or destroy critical infrastructure, presents a significant challenge for increasingly interconnected The implementation of a SOA will have an impact on and data-reliant industries such as ATM. the management of performance, while potentially The need for the efficient application of standards significantly improving capacity and cost efficiency. addressing safety, privacy and cyber resilience risks For this reason, the regulatory environment will is obvious to ensure the protection of information need to be adapted to make way for the new ATM and information systems, manage cyber-resilience Service environment and must facilitate greater risks, implement appropriate safeguards to ensure consideration of operating expense (OPEX) and the delivery of services, identify the occurrence and lower capital expense (CAPEX) requirements. The continuous monitoring of cyber-resilience events, charging and cost-recovery mechanisms will need and respond to and recover from potential cyber- to be more flexible and, on the standardisation side, attacks with a proper level of reactivity. common formats and exchange profiles will need to be identified to allow a supplier-independent It will also be necessary to further develop cyber- service provision scheme resilience guidelines and procedures for ATM, based on existing on existing guidelines and procedures from other domains (e.g. system 1. The changes in the regulatory environ- design principles, cryptography, block chain, ment are enacted by the beginning of the software-defined networking). Inclusion of specific RP/4 (2025-2029) techniques already established in other domains . should be included (e.g. Blockchain). The context of the cyber-resilience needs to be focussed on a pro-active approach to the network. If the resilience Cyber resilience remains reactive, any successful attack could lay The increase in the number of connected devices, down large parts of the EU airspace. data-sharing and common standards will lead to an increase in vulnerabilities, threats, emerging risks and the possibility of cyber-attacks. Furthermore, 1. Cyber-resilience guidelines and proce- the threat landscape is continually changing, dures tailored to ATM are available for and new attack vectors are created at an equally IOC in 2026. fast pace. The emergence of new actors, able to

DEPENDENCIES WITH OTHER INITIATIVES IF REQUIRED

The interoperability criteria on the flight object (i.e. sharing of flight data in a consistent, widely and easily available manner, subject to appropriate access controls) will need to have reached a sufficient level of maturity to allow all parties involved access to the data at any time during all the flight phases, from pre-departure to on-block. Additional connectivity relying on controller – pilot datalink communication are available to be considered to provide a solid alternative to the VHF voice communication channels. The establishment of a fully virtualised environment will need to be coordinated with the ATCO licensing scheme and will therefore also be people-centric. The active inclusion of the ATCO and ATSEP communities in the development phase is a prerequisite for successful implementation. Close collaboration in and input into the EU regulatory process is required so that, where necessary, the regulations can be adapted in a timely manner to allow for deployment. The standardisation processes conducted by the European standardisation organisations (ESOs), including EUROCAE, must be launched to ensure a set of common standards. The activities performed at European level must become a building block for the global ATM environment, hence close collaboration with ICAO is needed.

Digital European Sky portfolio 51 EXPECTED HIGH-LEVEL OUTCOMES AND PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES

The maximum scope of service delivery by ADSPs covers the ATM data services (such as flight data processing) needed to realise the virtual de-fragmentation of European skies and includes the provision of AIS, MET and CNS services. Future ATM services will rely on enhanced provision of shared data and will allow ATSU to select one or more ADSP for the data required to guarantee a safe and efficient flow of traffic. By rationalising and harmonising the ATM infrastructure, the ATM service costs will be reduced significantly. Data will no longer be produced at every ATSU and information will be shared throughout the ATM value chain and can be made available more widely to the aviation value chain, thus improving collaborative decision making (CDM) capabilities at local, regional and network level. Data will be the key asset for future ATM service provision and will be transmitted on dedicated and secured network services. The transition towards defragmentation will have positive impacts on the performance areas:

Improved sectorisation will ensure more efficient flight routes and more optimal profiles and the reduction of delay Environment at network level. (+) At local level, requirements in respect of equipment and therefore power supply and cooling will be reduced.

Flexibility of sector-shifting to adapt to traffic demand and Capacity make best use of capacity at network level. (+)

Cost Potential reduction in infrastructure and the possible efficiency creation of competition between future data suppliers will (+) reduce costs.

Safety levels will be maintained – no impact through Safety virtualisation. (=)

52 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA 53 . o l io Vision Vision By 2030, ATM will rely largely largely will rely ATM 2030, By on shared data and related services,providing more flexibility, scalability and reduce ground based need ofthe infrastructure significantly. Air navigation services will be be provided fromable to anywhere to everywhere n Sky por tf Sky Eu ropea n a l D igi t 2030

strategy Implementation EU Digital Data dynamic ATCOteam FOC A SHARI N G A st FOC available 1 T ) Demonstrator EU cloud cloud EU forEU+ OPS IOC IOC Conditions of use EU+ EGNOS-Galileo Data sharing of flightDatasharingobject of 2025 RE DA CU RE BER-SE CY A N D Industrial research Interaction with NM on dynamicsectorisation on InteractionNM with –allocation flow T IO N Environmental data servicea as (staticand semi-static data service)a as ATCO environmentATCOdynamic location preparedindependentfor operation Dataservice definition implementationand SESAR DemosVC ImplementationiCNS of (IRIS,AIREON, scale large at research iCNS preparing CNS as a service Exploratory research VIR TU A L ISA –

Cyber Cyber security guidelines and procedures for ADSPs ADSP ADSP Development & Implementation SESAR exploratory European Infrastructurecloud operations ADSP EU-wide available for State of the art SWIM: AIM data (AIXM) and MET dataAIMSWIM:data (IWXXM) METand services(AIXM) implementation availabilityand EU regulatory framework EU assessment and adaptation StatesMember for ROADMAP 5 ROADMAP Implementationactivities 2020 State of theState of art State of the art the of State Formal recognitionconcept ADSP Formal in of futurestudies varioustheEU on airspace architecture, legal and economicand aspects of ADSP The ATM surveillance tracker and server (ARTAS) is a European-wide distributed surveillance dataprocessing system (SDPS). capable It is of processing surveillance data reports from classical radar, Mode-S, wide-area multilateration ADS,and (WAM)providing system its users with the best possible real-time air trafficsituation, higha with level of accuracy reliabilityand Successful demonstrationstechnical in SESAR 2020 in and SESAR 1 Development of ATM as a service in projects, such as Coflight Cloud Services (CCS) and iTec 3.5 Virtualisation & cybersecure Virtualisation 3.5 sharing data

Digital European Sky portfolio partners (W2) project SESAR 2020 PJ.20 Source: 53 3.6 MULTIMODALITY AND PASSENGER EXPERIENCE

PROBLEM STATEMENT

Flightpath 2050 [4], Europe’s long-term vision document on aviation research, has set the goal that 90% of travellers within Europe should be able to complete their journey, door-to-door (D2D), within 4 hours by 2050. Optimising D2D mobility for people and goods is essential in meeting citizens’ expectations for increasingly seamless mobility, where they can rely on the predictability of every planned door-to-door journey and can choose how to optimise it (shortest travel time, least cost, minimal environmental impact, etc.). The role of ATM in the door-to-door chain of a passenger’s journey may seem small, but the punctuality of flights, and passengers’ perception of flying, is highly dependent on the smooth functioning of the entire journey. This SRIA will, therefore, lead to an improved passenger experience by supporting an integrated transport system.

DESCRIPTION OF HIGH-LEVEL R&I NEEDS/ identifying potential access issues that could affect CHALLENGES the punctuality of operations, alleviating congestion, mitigating regulatory constraints, etc. This, with the A significant portion of the planned D2D journey extended integration of ATM network planning (mul- time is taken up by the buffers needed to absorb un- ti-slot swapping, aircraft operator-driven prioritisa- certainties associated with the performance of the tion processes etc.) and cooperation on enhanced various modes contributing to a journey (including collaborative airport performance planning and within the airports). Mobility providers need access monitoring, will enable passengers to have a full to reliable planning and real-time information on picture of their journey and optimise their D2D time. schedules to give more accurate forecasts of arrival The concept of airport collaborative decision mak- and transfer times. The need to sometimes travel ing (A-CDM) has proven the benefits of sharing in- via a distant hub rather than fly from the nearest formation and procedures between airport stake- airport can cause a major increase in journey times holders and the wider ATM network. The A-CDM and the feasibility of more point-to-point flights concept will be extended to encompass specific should be investigated, in particular the notion of stakeholder information requirements relating to thin haul (miniliners, microfeeders) as a comple- elements of the multimodal journey and fully in- mentary service to regional air traffic and a viable cluded in the AOP and NOP collaborative processes. accessibility option to outreach areas as a direct enabler of 4-hour D2D travel times inside the EU. Understanding passenger origin-destinations will Connections through hubs obviously eliminate the ensure easy access/egress for all passengers (not possibility of 4-hour D2D travel. only those from the nearby city) and optimal landside and airside design. Use of AI will help optimise Considering ATM to be an integrated part of an in- pre-screening of passengers and departure / arriv- termodal transport system will make it possible to al queues /sequences in order to accommodate as share data between modes and to collaborate bet- much door-to-door journeys as possible. Single ter to optimise the performance of both the overall ticketing and remote check-in/bag-drop will enable transport system and the D2D journey. smooth transit and easier planning of the passenger These questions translate into R&I priorities asso- journey. Mobility as a service (MaaS) will help with ciated with: this planning and provide alternative routings in case of disruption. This will require seamless integration between ATM, UAM (see section 3.4), and surface Access to /exit from the airport: Airports are transport. The integration of vertiports into airport obvious multimodal nodes for aviation operations and city surface transport networks will Real-time information exchange giving stakehold- allow the rapid transfer of some passengers’ right to ers (including mobility providers) an increased the heart of an airport using UAS/UAM and facilitate knowledge of the entire multimodal journey will en- the introduction of point-to-point inter-urban UAS/ hance the reliability of multimodal journey planning, UAM flights. This SRIA targets demonstrating such

54 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA integration through at least one operational imple- users’ trajectory definitions and ATM NM processes. mentation in a European city before 2027. The target is to have two pilot implementations of fully integrated multimodal smart airports with the Passenger experience at the airport ATM Network before 2027. Smart airports, with landside and groundside ful- An integrated transport network performance ly integrated into the ATM network, will be based cockpit around connectivity and other technologies to improve operations and the user experience. The in- The aviation network performance cockpit intro- tegration of airport and network planning and the duced in Section 3.3 will be further developed into timely exchange of surface network, airport and ATM an overall transport network performance cockpit network information will bring common situational to improve passenger experience and planning. awareness and improved mobility planning activi- This will require collaboration between different ties, notably arrival and departure predictability for modes of transport, a detailed analysis of existing both airports and the network. Information-shar- data and processes for their integration, and the ing and collaborative decision-making will allow specification of needs for additional data collection the inclusion of outputs from landside processes and analysis. Data from various sources, aligned (passenger and baggage) to be used to improve the with powerful analytics, will allow the creation of accuracy and predictability of airside operations. data-based services supporting journey optimisa- Business intelligence and machine learning will tion and personalisation of offers to customers. EU help airport stakeholders collaborate to align pro- General Data Protection Rules will be respected to cess and resource capacity with predicted demand protect personal data. For aviation, the Network to reduce queues. Airport design should favour op- Manager’s data collection and processes will be timised intra-airport flow, reduced queuing for air- enhanced to support the multi-model dimension. port services (check-in, bag scan, immigration, bag Enhanced transport performance indicators will reclaim, etc.) and reduced walking distance for pas- be developed to support the analysis of passenger sengers, fast and efficient boarding and disembar- experience based on the current SES performance kation, and should allow passengers to spend buffer scheme, ICAO, EU connectivity indicators and indica- time usefully, enjoyably and comfortably, for either tors used in other modes of transport. Prospective leisure or work. socio-economic studies will provide insight into the challenges of the evolution of air transport within the Drivers for this will include the digital evolution of general transport system. The target is to support integrated surface movement, multimodal airport the implementation of the ATM network perfor- collaborative decision-making and flow optimisa- mance cockpit by 2023 and, on this basis, develop tion, next-generation arrival manager in a 4D con- the detailed integrated transport network perfor- text, and enhanced integration between airspace mance cockpit concept and requirements by 2027.

Digital European Sky portfolio 55 An integrated transport network crisis to increase overall transport system resilience and management process provide a better service to the customers. The target is to develop, starting from the Network Manager crisis Recent events (e.g. terrorist attacks) demonstrated the management process, the detailed requirements need to coordinate – when managing a crisis - between and concept for the integrated transport system different modes of transport and a multitude of actors, crisis management process, before 2027. including local and national authorities’ representatives

DEPENDENCIES WITH OTHER INITIATIVES IF REQUIRED

3 European Institute of Innovation and Technology Urban Mobility The Urban Mobility partnership will integrate user-focused mobility services and products by accelerating the development and deployment of novel and data-driven mobility services and products to provide synergies and complementarities in tackling questions related to data-sharing (ownership, privacy, security, technical solutions for data supply and consolidation, etc.). 3 European Partnership for transforming Europe’s rail system One of this partnership’s aims is to integrate rail into digital multimodal mobility and logistics, starting from the achievements of Shift2Rail. As airports are multimodal nodes for aviation, cooperation on enhanced collaborative airport multimodal performance planning and monitoring could prove beneficial for both partnerships. Moreover, the enhancement of air-rail co-modality (e.g. through single-ticketing) will help overcome airport congestion and support optimisation of passenger flows in areas up to 500 km around the aviation hubs. 3 European Partnership for Clean Aviation (EPCA) The proposed European Partnership for Clean Aviation aims to develop and demonstrate disruptive “clean sheet” aircraft concepts for the regional, short and medium range segments of the air transport system. Key enabling technologies to be investigated include (hybrid) electric architectures, ultra-advanced propulsion, system and airframe concepts, and the potential use of hydrogen based energy systems. In order to ensure that aircraft deploying these solutions are safe, reliable, affordable and globally competitive, a strong increase in the integration of digital design and operating systems and in the deployment of automation and autonomy in aircraft systems and air operations will be essential. Developing and validating digital capabilities for aircraft design and for the aircraft flight control and operation will be a key driver of the transformation and will be integral to the EPCA efforts. The insertion of these low- to net zero emissions aircraft will also depend on the implementation of the Digital European Sky with its connectivity and autonomy flagship activities. This digital transformation along with the potential for new operating concepts will be important areas for collaboration and synergies with the Integrated ATM Partnership. Joint technology roadmaps, shared and collaborative pathways and joint integrated large scale demonstration efforts are foreseen. 3 Connected, Cooperative and Automated Mobility (CCAM) The CCAM partnership will demonstrate inclusive, user-oriented and well-integrated mobility concepts that bring a reduced carbon footprint and reliable predicted travel times, enabling congestion management using real-time information. Integrating such concepts with collaborative constraints management around airports, as ultimately targeted by the ATM Network Performance Cockpit, could potentially significantly improve the performance of the Integrated Transport System and the overall journey experience for passengers. 3 There would be strong dependencies and potential synergies with any consolidated R&I actions dealing with the optimisation of (road) infrastructure development at and around airports and its integration within the regional networks, as well as the advent of performant inter-city or inter-airports road transport services. Throughout its lifetime, the partnership will monitor such developments with a view of engaging in cooperation if the opportunity arises. 3 Internal to this SRIA, this section has dependencies with sections 3.3, 3.4, 3.7, 3.8 and 4.1.

56 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA EXPECTED HIGH-LEVEL OUTCOMES AND PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES

The qualitative assessment below is to be read as the contribution of the multimodal elements to the overall performance benefits brought by the related enablers/capabilities.

Optimised operations due to improved gate-to-gate planning

contribute to the optimisation of fuel-burn and therefore of CO2 emissions per flight. Additional environmental benefits will come Environment from alleviating congestion at and around airports by improving (+) passenger flows (through predictability and single-ticketing), from helping access/egress to/from airports, using environmentally-friendly means, and from integrating vertiports for electric UAM vehicles.

Sharing data on air transport with travel service providers will help passengers plan intermodal journeys that include air segments. Passenger During the journey, complete integration of airports as multimodal experience nodes into the ATM network will enable full and seamless interoperability between the surface transport network, airports, AO (+) and NM systems, contributing to increasing network resilience and the reliability and predictability of journey parameters, enhancing punctuality and passenger experience overall.

Fully integrating the most congested airports into the ATM planning process, introducing tools that allow user-driven prioritisation based Capacity on real-time multimodal passenger constraint information, monitored (+) and shared accurately at Network level, will help reduce departure delay, while improving IFR movement numbers at these airports and ultimately IFR network throughput.

The data-sharing-powered network performance cockpit will enable Cost increased predictability of traffic flows coupled with increased network efficiency flexibility and resilience. This would in turn help reduce en-route congestion and air navigation service (ANS) costs. New data-sharing (+) standards and systems will allow new ‘as a service’ businesses, creating more value for aviation, within an integrated transport-system.

Improved, accurate, customer-focused planning, including user-driven prioritisation, allows operators to customise and optimise every flight, balancing their individual constraints against those of the Network, with Operational a direct positive impact on additional gate-to-gate flight time, fuel burn efficiency per flight, and operational costs from congestion and disruption. (+) There will be also a positive impact on resilience from data-sharing, increase knowledge and integrated network crisis management processes.

Better integration of UAS, UAM and GA operations at airports and Safety within TMAs will directly contribute to increased, seamless, and hassle- free mobility while enhancing operational safety. Similarly, punctual, (+) predictable, integrated ground transport to/from the airport will reduce passenger stress and contribute to reducing stress-related accidents.

Digital European Sky portfolio 57 58 o l io Vision Key metrics, Key processes tools and fordoor-to-door mobility intelligence (journey planning, performance information,data communication) and and sharing, resilience journey and system (disruption avoidanceand will management) been have developed and implemented. will airports European largest The as operated smart, be integrated, multi-modal optimisedhubs for experience. passenger into integrated be will Vertiports airport city and operations surface the infrastructure, allowing seamless inter-urban and urban mobility. access to have will Passengers personalisedmobility services from multi-modal mobility providers. to airports consider will Passengers fast, be efficientfriendly and hubs formulti-modal travel. n Sky por tf Sky Eu ropea n a l 2030 D igi t

Implementation passengers door-to-doorjourney Dashboard available Integrated transport network performance network Optimalsingle-ticket bag-free cockpit – implementation Transport crisis mgmt. tool available surfacetransport Passenger-centred concept D2D agreed Multimodal Multimodal datasharing platform for fully fully integrated into the ATMnetwork SmartAirports, withlandside groundsideand Demonstrator Seamless Seamless integration between ATM,U-space,and management Crisis management concept agreed Next generation AMAN environmentfor4D Transport crisis management tool door networks capabilitiesand GER EXPERIE NC E N GER PASSE A N D Digital evolution of integratedevolutionDigitalof surface 2025 Development of passenger-centredDevelopment door-to- of Industrial research Integrated transport network performance dashboard Real-time informationexchange andmonitoring L I TY I M ODA MULT – Exploratory research on arrivals Interoperable multi-modal real-timeperformance datasharing platform Multimodal Multimodal collaborative decision making at airports Integrated transport network crisis management process crisis network Integrated transport network management network processes Extended integration of ATM network planning Inclusion Inclusion of outputs from landside processes in airside operations feasibilitydatasharing ofbetween modes Interoperable multi-modal planning datasharing platform Enhanced integrationtrajectory AU definitionof and Collaborative framework managing delay constraintsCollaborativemanaging delay framework ECAC-wide ECAC-wide prospective study andsimulation related to Cooperation on enhanced Cooperationcollaborativeperformance on airportplanning Single-ticketing and remote check-in/bag-drop ATM network performance cockpit Integration of airport & network planning; timely exchange of surface, airport & ATM network information ROADMAP 6 6 ROADMAP Improvedmobility activities;planning arrival departure and predictability for airportsboth network the and Integratebusinesscapacityintelligence learning into machine processand alignment and Understandingorigin-destinations passenger point-to-point and State of the art Implementationactivities Role for EU partnership partnership EU for Role programme 2020 State of the art the of State Connectivityperformance indicators and frompassenger experience metrics DATASET2050 otherand projects available Aviation’s interactions with othertransport rudimentary. no still Theremodes isis exchange of data between modes The passenger’s experience inside an airport is sub-optimal and involves much queuing andwalking takenboarddisembarkand to Time causes flightsincreasesand todelay turnaround co- air-rail of implementations Initial modality Real-time ATM Network performance monitoring 3.6 Multimodality 3.6 experience Multimodality and passenger Airport collaborative decision making (A- making decision collaborative Airport at hubs major European CDM) implemented Source: SESAR 2020 PJ.20 (W2) project partners (W2) project SESAR 2020 PJ.20 Source: ROADMAP 4 - U-SPACE AND URBAN AIR MOBILITY AIR URBAN AND U-SPACE - 4 ROADMAP 58 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA 3.7 AVIATION GREEN DEAL

PROBLEM STATEMENT

The objective of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 set by the European Green Deal[3], in line with the EU’s commitment to global climate action under the Paris Agreement, requires accelerating the shift to smarter and more sustainable mobility. This implies the need for aviation to intensify its efforts to reduce emissions, in line with the targets set in Flightpath 2050[4]. To this end, a set of operational measures to improve the fuel efficiency of flights will have to be put in place. At the same time, to ensure sustainable air traffic growth, it is necessary to speed up the modernisation of the air infrastructure to offer more capability and capacity, making it more resilient to future traffic demand and adaptable through more flexible air traffic management procedures and a charging scheme that does not make it interesting to fly unnecessary distance. Furthermore, reducing aircraft noise impacts and improving air quality will remain a priority around airports.

DESCRIPTION OF HIGH-LEVEL R&I NEEDS/ that reduce the environmental impact of aviation CHALLENGES (both emissions and noise) without compromising safety, for example more efficient ATFCM services Optimum green trajectories or the application of short-term ATFCM measures (STAM) to flight paths, limiting the need to apply The objective is to enable aircraft to fly their horizontal and vertical re-routings. optimum fuel-efficient 4D trajectory (cross- border, where applicable). ATC actions should Formation Flight1 preserve as much as possible this optimum green trajectory from any potential degradation and from Using the principle of wake-energy retrieval the associated additional emissions. Thanks to like migrating birds, formation flight tests have data sharing between all the actors (e.g. airlines, demonstrated that significant fuel savings (between airports at departure and arrival, Network Manager 5-10% per trip) could be achieved when two aircraft and often multiple national air navigation and data fly approximately 3 kilometres apart, without service providers) involved in the execution of a given compromising passenger comfort and safety. R&I flight, monitoring tools and appropriate measures activities will develop the required avionics and the have to be defined to remove or reduce any gap necessary ATM procedures to develop demonstrators between the optimal 4D trajectory and the planned and prepare for market uptake. or in execution trajectory. In terminal areas, it will be necessary to find the best possible compromise Advanced RNP green approaches between maintaining the optimum fuel-efficient 4D and minimising the noise impact. Optimal green New procedures design will allow to define trajectories should also include and anticipate the shorter horizontal path of arrivals while insuring challenges and performance characteristics of new low noise impact over populated areas. For aircraft types and propulsion that the European instance by using the most advanced RNP aircraft Partnership for Clean Aviation will deliver. capabilities and by sharing precise 4D trajectories, further optimisation of arrival trajectories can be achieved with shorter downwind legs, shorter New ways of flying final legs and optimal transition from cruise This includes the exploration of innovative flight phase. The integration of each improvement into operations based either on existing or future avionics an optimal arrival trajectory will shorten flight

1 First step: Initial Operational Capability could be envisaged from around 2025: targeted over the North Atlantic with the relevant ANSPs and probably one airline flying (maybe two). On Airbus side, the first certified aircraft type would be the A350. Second step: around 2027/2028, extend to more airlines with the associated business model to organise the flights and the aircraft pairs (leader/follower) on Oceanic North Atlantic routes, extending to Pacific routes as well as low-density continental routes (Canada, Russia, etc.). Other certified aircraft types may join.

Digital European Sky portfolio 59 times and emissions while maintaining the noise 3 Emission-free taxiing traffic management: impact at the most acceptable levels. Using a turbofan engine for taxi movements results in extended use and wear of aircraft Environmentally optimised climb and descent wheel brakes as well as high emissions of car- operations (OCO and ODO) bon monoxide, unburned hydrocarbons and particulate matter, impacting local air quality. While a major collaborative effort is needed for the The use of emission free taxiing, without com- deployment of OCO and ODO procedures in many prising punctuality, could make a fuel saving European TMAs and airports, with most promising of around 2%, and as such should be further environmental benefits, further studies will explore studied and generalised. the potential of additional optimisation (e.g. delaying 3 Environmental dashboard: The collaborative the deceleration phase closer to the airport). The management of environmental impacts and the potential for improvement will depend on both the implementation of strategies to reduce them baseline standard speed management strategy of requires the development of indicators/met- each TMA and the sequencing method used, and rics that will enable on one hand all ATM de- needs to be further assessed in terms of benefits cision-makers to make informed decisions at and applicability to European TMAs. strategic, pre-tactical or tactical level and on the other hand to communicate on ATM community efforts towards environmental sustainability. Non-CO2 impacts of aviation 3 Environmental impact assessment toolset: The impact on the climate of non-CO2 emissions (NOx, SOx, H O, particulate matter, etc.), such as There is a need to develop further the set of 2 European environmental impact assessment contrails and induced cloudiness, is potentially tools, in order to analyse, inter alia, the inte- large. In particular, the trade-off between avoiding gration of new entrants into the future ATM areas where aircraft-induced clouds form and system and the overall environmental benefits reducing CO should be studied further2. 2 and impacts they will have. Due to the complexity and diversity of environmental impacts, Impact of new entrants particular attention needs to be paid to the analysis of trade-offs, between environmental The introduction of new types of air vehicles3, such impacts, but also possibly with other perfor- as hybrid-electric/ hydrogen/electric aircraft, drones/ mance areas. UAVs or super/hyper-sonic aircraft will offer new opportunities for the development of the air transport 3 Environmental impact assessment method- of freight and passengers, adding to the flexibility of ology and new metrics: It is necessary to de- the system, reducing door-to-door journeys and, with velop further the methodology used in SESAR the use of non-fossil fuels, reducing or eliminating 2020 not only to cover the research phase, but associated emissions. At the same time, however, also the deployment and implementation phas- they could create new annoyances and fears among es. As part of this methodology, the use of big the population overflown (noise; visual pollution, data analysis and machine-learning should be extended to the development of new environ- particularly at night; intrusion into privacy; risks mental metrics that will be used to monitor to third parties, etc.) and even risk to wildlife (e.g. environmental impacts and incentivise actors migrating birds, nesting areas), notably in locations to promote compliance with environmental tar- where no nuisance from aviation existed before. These gets and regulations. These metrics will also be impacts need to be studied further, and the operations integrated into the Environmental Dashboard, of these new entrants adjusted to minimise them. and into the Environment Impact Assessments toolset. Accelerating decarbonisation through 3 Climate resilience and adaptation: All future operational and business incentivisation ATM solutions must demonstrate their resil- Optimisation of flight operations (including taxiing ience to projected future meteorological and at the airport) from an environmental perspective atmospheric conditions, which could become in the context of a full door-to-door green mobility. increasingly extreme.

2 It should be noted that technological changes to improve propulsion efficiency may increase condensation trails as exhaust fumes at low temperatures may be more likely to form ice crystals. 3 While the deployment of drones/UAVs and supersonic could take place in the short term, the deployment of hybrid electric, hydrogen, or fully electric aircraft is likely to take place in the medium to long term.

60 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA DEPENDENCIES WITH OTHER INITIATIVES IF REQUIRED

3 Capacity-on-demand and dynamic airspace: An aviation infrastructure that is resilient to changes in traffic demand and capable of adapting, through more flexible air traffic management procedures, will result in better environmental performance. 3 Multimodality and passenger experience: Today, minimising environmental impact is an essential element in guiding the choices of passengers on the most appropriate modes of transport for their journey. 3 Artificial intelligence (AI) for aviation: The use of AI will enable the development of new environmental metrics and assessment models. 3 European Partnership for Clean Aviation: will provide new technologies and new air vehicles that are more climate and noise efficient. Interface and synchronisation with Clean Aviation must be ensured, in particular to know more about the capabilities (altitude, speed, frequency) of future air vehicles in order to analyse their impact and integration into the future ATM system.

3 Climate science: A better understanding of the climate impacts of aviation, especially non-CO2, will enable the introduction of sound, globally harmonised policies and regulations to support climate-friendly flight operations. This will make it possible to anticipate climate impacts on aviation and take adaptation measures. 3 Programme for Environment and Climate Action (LIFE): will support the development, testing or demonstration of suitable technologies or methodologies for implementation of EU environment and climate policy. 3 EIT Urban Mobility-KIC: The impact of drones/UAVs on urban citizens needs to be investigated. 3 EIT-Climate KIC: To ensure that good ideas are turned into positive climate action. 3 European Partnership on Clean Hydrogen: Enabler for new hydrogen air vehicles. 3 European Partnership for Clean Energy Transition: Enabler for the provision of renewable fuels for sustainable transport.

Digital European Sky portfolio 61 EXPECTED HIGH-LEVEL OUTCOMES AND PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES

Not splitting sectors further and increasing capacity will Environment enable to optimal flight trajectories, providing important fuel

(+) efficiencies and thus CO2 reductions. Innovative approaches such as formation flight will bring additional fuel savings.

A high level of automation will make it possible to go beyond Capacity the current limits of sector capacity due to controller (+) workload which will allow optimal and environmentally- friendly flight trajectories.

Very high benefits in productivity gain. No limitation to sector Cost and controller workload. Saving fuel for airspace users efficiency will reduce CO emissions and related costs for emission (+) 2 allowances.

Safety levels are maintained or improved in case of a high level of automation. The greatest benefit would be at the highest level of automation. At intermediate level, keeping Safety the human in the loop might be delicate and would not (= /+) necessarily bring the best safety benefit. It is suggested to initially start automation at night, in oceanic or low-density airspace, in order to gain experience.

62 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA 63 o l io . Vision friendly sky in which toin fly efficient and environmentally efficientenvironmentally and The European most European The the airspaceis Flights are plannedefficiency. ATC to actions preserve, maximiseas as safety far fuel permits,“green this optimal trajectory” planned degradation. from any potential However, inimpact order of flightsmanoeuvres to on may, minimise thelead from climate, the time ATC toconsumption. to In time, a theflight vicinity of slight operations airports, arethe increase designed toemissions in offer and best noise impact. fuel compromiseAt airportsminimise operations between are fuel/emissions;emissions tailored free. to taxiinghave All been integrated new seamlessly is ATM in air the system, vehicles noise with or emissions minimal pollution. additional Environmentalincorporate dashboards, newthrough metrics which providing machine developed incentivestake for all decisions learning,operational actors and to solutionsenvironmental actions impacts are that to find minimise n Sky por tf Sky Eu ropea n a l 2030 D igi t

Implementation DEA L formation avoidance Demonstrator Formationmultipleflight: airspaceusers Emission free taxiing trafficmanagement impacts of aviation:aviation induced cloudiness (AIC) 2 GREE N Environmentally optimiseddescentand climb operations Non-CO T IO N 2025 Environmental dashboard Industrial researchIndustrial Impact of new entrants:Impactnew of super/-hyper-sonic flights AVIA Optimum green trajectories Climateresilience adaptationand Impact of new entrants:Impactnew of drones/UAVs –

Environmental impact assessment toolset More robust network and resilient airports Additional ATM services supporting connectivity Increasing availability of sustainable aviation fuel at airports Environmental assessmentimpactmethodology metrics new and impacts of aviation 2 Exploratory research ROADMAP 7 ROADMAP Non-CO Aviation green deal economics Advanced RNP greenapproaches Modernisation infrastructureof air offerto more capability and capacity facilitateto environmentally friendly operations Formation flight: single airspace Formationsingle user flight: Emission free taxiing trafficmanagement Environmentally optimiseddescentand climb operations State of the art Implementationactivities Role forEU partnership programme 2020 Meteo data Climatescience APOC dashboards TMA optimisation, PBN SIDs/STARs, ODO/OCO SIDs/STARs, FPL and radar/ADS-Band FPL data Traffic complexity management Big data, & machineAI learning European environmental impact Aircraft performance & emissions State of the art the of State assessment toolset & methodology 3.7 Aviation Green Deal Green Aviation 3.7 Source: SESAR 2020 PJ.20 (W2) project partners (W2) project SESAR 2020 PJ.20 Source:

ROADMAP 4 - U-SPACE AND URBAN AIR MOBILITY AIR URBAN AND U-SPACE - 4 ROADMAP Digital European Sky portfolio 63 3.8 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) FOR AVIATION

PROBLEM STATEMENT

ATM decision-support techniques, mostly based on heuristics, present limitations in terms of the technology itself. Hence the performance improvements of the future cannot be achieved using legacy software system approaches. AI is one of the main enablers to overcome the current limitations in the ATM system. A new field of opportunities arises from the general introduction of AI, enabling higher levels of automation and impacting the ATM system in different ways. The FLY AI report [10] provides a set of recommendations and real examples to help the aviation/ATM sector accelerate the uptake of AI. AI can identify patterns in complex real-world data that human and conventional computer- assisted analyses struggle to identify, can identify events and can provide support in decision- making, even optimisation. Over recent years, developments and applications of AI have shown that it is a key ally in overcoming these present-day limitations, as in other domains. Tomorrow’s aviation infrastructure will be more data-intensive and thanks to the application of Machine Learning (ML), deep learning and big data analytics aviation practitioners will be able to design an ATM system that is smarter and safer, by constantly analysing and learning from the ATM ecosystem.

DESCRIPTION OF HIGH-LEVEL R&I NEEDS/ support AI-enabled applications with the required CHALLENGES software developments processes, using robust architectures for ATC systems to provide ATCOs Trustworthy AI powered ATM environment and pilots with good level of confidence of automa- New and emerging AI capabilities will be required tion and decision aiding tools. for the future ATM/U-space environment in order In addition, to cope with higher levels of automation, to provide the necessary levels of performance be- there is a need to foster access to and sharing of yond current limits. data while looking at data quality, data integrity, R&I is a key lever to deploy this technology and gen- ownership, security, trust framework and data erate trustworthiness upon artificial intelligence in governance aspects, which will mean building an aviation, always considering a human-centric ap- inclusive AI aviation/ATM partnership, aiming a proach in line with the EASA Artificial Intelligence potential leadership for AI in aviation in Europe by Roadmap [17]. Safety science will also need to defining, learning and implementing together. evolve to cope with the safety challenges posed by the introduction of ML. Beyond the work conduct- AI for prescriptive aviation ed by the EUROCAE AI working group, there is the need to focus on the development of new method- AI will help aviation to move forward from a reactive ologies for the validation and certification of ad- (to act when a problem appears) to a predictive (an- vanced automation that ensure transparency, legal ticipating a problem, enabling innovative preventive aspects, robustness and stability under all condi- actions) and even a prescriptive paradigm (adding tions and taking full consideration for a future ATM the capability to identify a set of measures to avoid environment built on multiple AI-algorithms sys- the problem). AI applications will impact all flight tem of systems, with a human-centric approach. phases from long-term planning, through operational to post-operational analysis. So far, AI has been largely dependent on data, as is necessary to develop AI algorithms and to validate New disruptive events (e.g. the COVID-19 pandem- them. Thus, the challenge is to develop an appro- ic), have recently shown that aviation requires the priate aviation/ATM AI infrastructure that can cap- implementation and adaptation of new solutions to ture the current and future information required to face unexpected events of which we have no prior

64 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA experience. The resilience of the ATM system shall and much more. Digital assistants will request to thereby be addressed. be connected to the avionics world in order to ease data exchanges: in this context, cybersecurity will AI/ML have great potential for predictions/forecasts be a key enabler of these exchanges. Moreover, under normal circumstances, but need further evo- digital assistants will support pilots, thus reducing lution if they are to be used in the management of the workload (e.g. automating non-critical tasks, abnormal situations: a prescription-oriented ap- adapting the human-machine interface during op- proach will be needed to monitor reality and define erations). This is a first step towards introducing the precursors to detect deviations from what is expect- artificial co-pilot necessary for future operations ed. More time for reaction is the expected result. like SPO. For major non-nominal situations (like volcanic ash clouds or COVID-19), new methodologies will be re- There will be a need to develop new HMI interfaces searched to cope with the AI gap. This includes not for ATCOs (e.g. augmented reality) and the capability just the tactical phase but also the strategic phase, to monitor ATCO workload in real time based on AI, when the operators of the system may be interest- as well as new skills and new training methods to ed in exploring what should be done to achieve a support these new joint human machine systems. certain multi-objective system performance (for instance, by balancing capacity, cost efficiency and AI Improved datasets for better airborne environmental impact), and a prescriptive system operations. would be able to identify strategies. Datasets are essential to AI-based application development. R&I should be conducted to generate Human – AI collaboration: digital assistants and in particular to enable the automation of such The interaction between humans and machines aviation-specific data sets from a large variety of powered by AI, or other sub-branches such as re- on-board and ground communication across the inforcement learning (RL), explainable AI (XAI) or network, which could then a enable broad range natural language processing (NLP), will positively of AI-based applications for aviation (e.g. voice impact the way humans and AI interact. These ad- communications between ATC and pilots). New vances aim to increase human capabilities during sensors will be loaded on board (drones/UAV and complex scenarios or reduce human workload in aircraft) such as camera, millimetre wave (MMW) their tasks, not to define the role of the human or to radar, detect and avoid (DAA), light detection and replace the human, but to support him4. ranging (LIDAR) in order to be able to execute new types of operations (automatic take-off or land- Aviation will need to ensure a human-centric ap- ing, etc.). These new operations will require new proach as described in the EASA Artificial Intelli- functions, such as intelligent augmentation tools, gence Roadmap [17]. Humans should understand vision-based navigation or trajectory optimisa- what the systems are doing and also maintain the tion. This will enable the use of AI as a response right level of situational awareness, i.e. to have con- to the European Green Deal [3], applying opera- science of the situation to enable human-machine tional strategy based on environmental criteria to cooperate. The different levels of ATM Automa- and developing AI-based solutions to operational tion (0 to 5) described in the European ATM Master mitigations of aviation’s environmental impact, Plan[1] and Airspace Architecture Study [11], and such as near-real-time network optimisation (air- also linked to Master Plan phases, present an evo- space/route availability) and use (on-the-fly flight lution in the way that the human and the system in- planning), in conjunction with meteorological data teract, with different transparency and explainabil- nowcasting, which could be made possible with AI. ity needs. This SRIA aims at laying the foundations for an automation level of up to 4. Furthermore, thanks to permanent high bandwidth connectivity, most data and meta data could be pro- AI-based human operator support tools that ensure cessed either on the ground or directly on-board. the safe integration of “new entrant” aircraft types These functions will require a new high-perfor- into an increasingly busy, heterogeneous and com- mance service platform interfacing the ground (or plex traffic mix (i.e. UAVs, supersonic aircraft, hy- cloud) open world platform (AOC) and on-board avi- brid and fully electric aircraft) should be developed. onics for which AI will be required to remain cyber In addition, AI-powered systems are expected to be resilient. Aspects related to cybersecurity will need integrated into ground/cockpit systems, enhanc- to evolve to cope with AI evolution needs. ing communication for trajectory management

4 See also [1] European ATM Master Plan, Chapter 4.5

Digital European Sky portfolio 65 DEPENDENCIES WITH OTHER INITIATIVES IF REQUIRED

The EC recommendation established the High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence (AI HLEG), which produced the FLY AI report [10]. This output, together with the EASA Artificial Intelligence Roadmap [17] and EUROCAE standardisation effort, shall be taken as inputs. Moreover, close collaboration should be established with the AI PPP and the Digital Europe Programme to ensure that AI for aviation thread is aligned with the evolution of AI, and its partners can benefit from this AI community and their developments, notably in terms of capacity building. Finally, works being carried out by the Institute of human machine cognition (IHMC) will be monitored to establish a potential relationship.

EXPECTED HIGH-LEVEL OUTCOMES AND PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES

The performance objectives are to enable ATM performance optimisation with dependency to all other R&D topics described in section 3, in particular considering a multi-objective approach:

Environment AI will enable the optimisation of aircraft trajectories, allowing (+) a potential reduction in the aviation environmental footprint.

AI will play a fundamental role in aviation/ATM to address Capacity airspace capacity shortages, enabling dynamic configuration (+) of the airspace and allowing dynamic spacing separation between aircrafts.

AI will enrich aviation datasets with new types of datasets unlocking air/ground AI-based applications, fostering Cost data-sharing and building up an inclusive AI aviation/ATM efficiency partnership. This will support decision-makers, pilots, air (+) traffic controllers and other stakeholders, bringing benefits in cost efficiency by increasing ATCO productivity (reducing workload and increasing complexity capabilities).

Operational Increasing predictability will be a key role for AI, by enabling efficiency traffic predictions and forecasts that will boost punctuality. (+)

Safety science will also need to evolve to cope with the safety Safety challenges posed by the introduction of machine learning. (=) Actual safety levels will be at least maintained using this technology.

AI will offer the possibility to stay cyber resilient to new Security technologies and threats, the objective is to maintain a high (=) level of security.

66 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA

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ROADMAP 4 - U-SPACE AND URBAN AIR MOBILITY AIR URBAN AND U-SPACE - 4 ROADMAP Digital European Sky portfolio 67 3.9 CIVIL/MILITARY INTEROPERABILITY AND COORDINATION

PROBLEM STATEMENT

The digital transformation of the European ATM network will have an impact on both civil and military aviation and ATM operations. Care must be taken to ensure a sufficient level of civil/military interoperability and coordination, especially concerning trajectory and airspace information exchange, as well as the use of interoperable CNS technologies. Therefore, a joint and cooperative civil-military approach to ATM modernisation would be the best choice to achieve the appropriate level of interoperability, also maximising synergies between civil and military research and development activities.

DESCRIPTION OF HIGH-LEVEL R&I NEEDS/ Action Area 4.9 of ACARE SRIA 2017 update Vol.1 CHALLENGES [15], military authorities must have full access to all available information without additional cost. To achieve the SES objectives while at the same Increased civil-military data-sharing requires time enhancing military mission efectiveness, solutions ensuring the appropriate levels of quali- a joint research and development programme ty of service and security for military systems. should focus on the following key priorities: Connectivity and access to CNS infrastructure Access to airspace Future technical solutions making use of emerg- For reasons of national and international securi- ing SATCOM and terrestrial datalink technologies ty and defence, military manned and unmanned and multilink, as well as advanced navigation and assets will require access to airspace where surveillance should enable a joint civil and mili- and when needed. Size and location of airspace tary utilisation, reducing technical constraints and for military purposes will depend on respective costs while maintaining appropriate levels of safety, mission profiles. In order to make optimal use security and environmental sustainability. The con- of airspace for civil and military aviation, future nectivity and access to CNS infrastructure also re- system options for civil-military collaborative de- quires solutions ensuring security and appropriate cision-making processes supported by common levels of quality of service. At same time, the inte- procedures, data formats and the underlying in- gration of CNS and spectrum consistency in terms formation exchange services should be examined. of robustness, spectrum use and interoperability is These future systems and procedures should be essential to define the future integrated CNS ar- flexible enough to adapt to different operational chitecture and spectrum strategy. A service-driven scenarios and needs, and ensure optimal sepa- approach, accommodating civil and military alike ration management (e.g. DMA 3) taking into ac- is needed to describe how the CNS services are count different and coexistent CNS air and ground delivered for navigation, communication, surveil- capabilities. It is a precondition to accommodate lance and traffic or flight information, including civil and military operations in the same airspace. cross-domain services (e.g. contingencies). Fur- ther military and civil interoperability is expected Military surveillance capabilities in terms of the common use of CNS, rationalising civil infrastructure and costs, taking into account To ensure situational security awareness and to the capacity of military legacy systems to evolve. improve the maintenance of their Recognised Air Research initiatives are needed to enable the use Picture (RAP), military authorities must monitor of multi-mode avionics relying on software-defined the air traffic inside their national airspace. The radios and reliance on enhanced visual systems increased availability of data (such as aeronau- and airborne surveillance to mitigate airborne col- tical, meteorological, environmental and flight lision functions. The success of military missions data) in a digital format can improve military depends on adequate access to RF spectrum re- surveillance capabilities. As also identified in the

68 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA sources, in particular to ensure the mobility and which should be considered holistically in an end- interoperability of forces. The digitalisation of ATC to-end information management process. Further systems enables virtualisation approaches where aspects to consider are personnel education, train- remote operations become an important contrib- ing and capacity building, technical infrastructure utor for resource pooling and sharing and ration- and increased cooperation and information-sharing alisation. Virtual control centres allow for a more among civil and military authorities. efficient and flexible use of resources, with civil/ military synergies. Performance orientation Environmental sustainability, cost efficiency or de- Cybersecurity lays imposed by inefficient use of available capac- In a highly information-oriented operational sys- ity represent a concern against which all aviation tem, data becomes a core asset to be protected. stakeholders have to assume responsibility. The Civil-military data-sharing requires solutions en- complex interdependencies between civil and mili- suring the appropriate levels of quality of service and tary stakeholders need to be examined to enable ap- security for military systems. A necessary precon- propriate performance measurements in a spirit of dition to support the digitalisation of processes is a balanced consideration between commercial needs sufficient level of cybersecurity and data-protection, and security and defence requirements.

DEPENDENCIES WITH OTHER INITIATIVES IF REQUIRED

Civil/Military ATM coordination is a transversal function, therefore there are links with many other ATM domains and functions such as cybersecurity. Synergies with new EU defence initiatives such as European Defence Fund and military mobility must be encouraged.

Digital European Sky portfolio 69 EXPECTED HIGH-LEVEL OUTCOMES AND PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES

The expected high level outcomes could be classified as:

3 Direct contributions to military mission effectiveness through improved CDM in the mission planning phase; increased adherence to planned trajectories, accommodation of unpredicta- ble and complex mission profiles, enriched surveillance and threat detection at a reasonable cost. 3 Indirect contributions to the European network’s performance as regards safety, predicta-

bility, capacity, flight efficiency and 2CO emissions reduction for all operational stakeholders, especially resulting from a common civil/military approach in defining the European ATM Architecture (EATMA) evolution that respects the national and collective defence requirements.

The related military ambition is to execute missions as required. Achieving higher congruence between mission-planning and execution leads to greater mission-effectiveness and the improved predictability of 4D mission trajectories. The qualitative assessment below is to be read as the contribution of civil/military interoperability and coordination to the overall network performance arising from the deployment of specific enablers and related capabilities.

The additional predictability resulting from the integration of military flight data into the network, will lead to more efficient Environment use of available airspace capacity by civil traffic, which will (+) lead to greater fuel efficiency.

The additional predictability resulting from the integration of Capacity military flight data into the network, will lead to more efficient (+) use of available airspace capacity by civil traffic which will lead to fewer delays.

Operational Greater mission predictability will be of benefit to the efficiency operational efficiency of civil traffic in the European Network. (+)

The confidentiality, integrity and availability of information and data is crucial in ensuring safe and secure military operations. Security The development of a secure virtual infrastructure would (+) address the fragmentation issue, while digital technologies are viable options for enhancing the resilience of infrastructure to cyberattacks.

Civil-Military The coordination of sharable data relating to the mission Coordination trajectory with the Network Manager will ensure the optimal and timely integration of military flight data into the network, (+) thus allowing solid and reliable traffic predictions.

70 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA 71 . high non- , provide flexibility o l io , resilience to level of trust , and mission design from the technical (video and voice efficiency and of operations. Vision necessary to more standards Vision and an optimal k, decision making processes capabilities airspace . predictability conventional data records, passengers’ information,make accurate etc.) predictions to ofdifferent the impact of and management options, thus supporting the relevant This will allows decoupling thetechnical provision of and Cloud, big data technologies andlearning machine algorithmsconventional will allow ATM exploiting data infrastructure services. Challenges to be tackled are cyber attac Digitalisation for ASM andbetter MTM integration allows ofwithin military requirements ATMenables network thebetween operational operations. optimisation This of trade-off quality data between users and technology. Digital technologiestransformation are essential of forsupport military of the the capabilities,network ATM in future Interconnected n Sky por tf Sky Eu ropea n a l D igi t

2030 T IO N Implementation mission support mission trajectory concept. D C OORDI N A A N D From mission planning support service into From GAT/OAT Flight planning operation to Demonstrator Include Include datadefencesharing airfor EATMA within capability layer 2025 Demonstrate digital transformational technology impact on CDM technologies Industrial research I NT EROPERABI L TY Introduce EPP in surveillance sensor AR Y Develop mission trajectory managementtrajectory missionDevelop Demonstrate digital transformational technology impact on MTM Develop the integration of military demand in the ATM network operations (MT and ARES) and networkoperations ATM(MT the demand integration militaryDevelop inthe of M I L T / Develop Develop trajectorymissionmanagement capability integrated with 3 dynamicto areas mobile type 1 Exploratory research coordination Investigateand C IVI L Demonstrate digital transformational technology impactonASM – Investigateand

Network collaborative Network NOP)management & (Flow Investigateand Surveillance services Flexible Flexible airspace management and free route From CNS service to Com/Nav and iSWIM:Ground-ground integrationand aeronautical datamanagement andsharing State of the art Role forEU partnership programme Implementationactivities roperability and roperability ROADMAP 9 ROADMAP 2020 State of theState of art State of the art the of State Mission trajectory management trajectory Mission (MTM) ConOpsguidelines and are being developed localThe sub-regional and airspace management support system, LARA,supports inreal time of automatic the exchange airspace informationbetween providers civil service and military 3.7.3 Civil military 3.7.3 Civil military inte Source: SESAR 2020 PJ.20 (W2) project partners (W2) project SESAR 2020 PJ.20 Source:

ROADMAP 4 - U-SPACE AND URBAN AIR MOBILITY AIR URBAN AND U-SPACE - 4 ROADMAP Digital European Sky portfolio 71 4 Overall output performance and economic impact

Aviation enabled by ATM is a major contributor system, which will eliminate the inefficiencies to Europe’s economy, in terms of both business of the current system. and leisure travel and cargo operations. With operations now extending to U-space, aviation This SRIA brings together a unique set of looks set to bring additional economic and partners from all areas of traditional ATM societal benefits. The sector also creates and the U-space, working together to deliver intangible benefits, making possible cultural outputs and performance improvements in an interchanges between people and communities integrated manner. all across Europe and the world. The future partnership will deliver the The performance objectives of this Digital expected performance benefits in the key European Sky SRIA are aligned with the performance areas through the R&I and Digital performance ambitions of the European ATM Sky demonstrator developments identified in Master Plan 2020 edition [1]. This SRIA is a pre- Chapter 3. Where needed, this SRIA enhances requisite for these ambitions to be realised as the Master Plan performance framework with it enables the timely and complete optimisation additional performance indicators. The first of the aviation infrastructure. The European part of this chapter looks at the consolidated ATM Master Plan performance ambitions have key performance areas, while the second part been derived by envisioning an optimised ATM derives the economic benefits.

72 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA 4.1 Performance

This chapter presents the consolidated performance impact of the SRIA with references to the respective sections in Chapter 3.

At the heart of this SRIA is the focus on the European Green Deal and the considerable reduction of the impact that aviation will have on the environment. The European ATM Master Plan 2020 edition

sets the performance ambition to a reduction of gate-to-gate CO2

emissions by 5-10%. For aviation, this also means savings on CO2 emission allowances to a value in excess of EUR 2 billion. As laid out in Section 3.7, overall air vehicles must have net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. This will be supported by emission-free taxiing and solutions to optimise airport and terminal airspace operations, such as exceptional holdings and more continuous climb and descent operations (CCO/CDO) (§3.1, §3.2, §3.3), while curved, steep and/ or segmented approaches and noise-preferential routes are being Environment considered for deployment to address noise reduction (§3.3). Urban air mobility will depend on electric or hydrogen-powered vehicles that will be emission free (§3.4), with R&I ensuring that noise levels are minimised for the general public. The environmental performance of aviation will be achieved through effective coordination and cooperation with the measures listed in the Clean Aviation SRIA.

ATM’s contribution to passenger experience and to the implementation of efficient multimodality (§3.6), including urban air mobility (§3.4), will be a major factor in society’s attitude to the performance of aviation in the future. The passenger experience will be optimised by focusing on departure and arrival punctuality on the aviation legs of the multimodal journey, reducing time spent at airports. Optimisation will also be achieved through the effective sharing of multimodal connection data with other modes of transport, enabling an integrated approach to reducing door-to-door travel time. Expressed in monetary terms, the passenger time savings are valued in excess of EUR 200 billion. The passenger experience will be positively impacted by the implementation of the ATM network performance cockpit, supporting Passenger an integrated transport network performance cockpit. This will be achieved in cooperation and coordination with other SRIAs on mobility experience and multimodality. Efficient multimodal disruption management will also minimise the impact on passengers. Furthermore, a connectivity indicator will show progress towards enabling better connectivity for European citizens. The benefit to the consumer of increased availability of flights and connections represents around EUR 130 billion for the timeframe considered. Overall, passengers in the network gain EUR 330 billion for the period 2021-2027.

Overall output performance and economic impact 73 Airspace and airport capacity has been an issue in the recent past, as substantiated by STATFOR’s Challenges of Growth report5, which predicts some 1.5 million unaccommodated flights by 2040 in a “do-nothing“ scenario. While the COVID-19 crisis has hit aviation extremely hard and created an unprecedented trough in demand, it is expected that traffic will by 2024 return to 2019 levels and grow from there as previously forecast. The recovery pattern has been derived from previous crises scenarios. The performance ambition for capacity is to accommodate all traffic forecasts in a crisis-adjusted “regulation and growth” scenario. This includes the additional ‘recovered’ unaccommodated demand, which can be enabled through capacity improvements at the most congested airports. Contributions will come from further automation (§3.1) and from applying AI-supported optimisation (§3.8). Applying better automation, virtualisation and more dynamic airspace configurations will equally result in improved scalability of the system Capacity (§3.3, §3.5), providing the right level of resources at the right time and at the right place throughout the network thus minimising related delays. Eventually this scalability will lead to a much more resilient ATM system (§3.3) able to cope also with crisis situations, such as the current COVID-19 crisis in an even more responsive manner. In addition to the scope of traditional air traffic, the SRIA will ensure that the capacity needs for U-space are addressed (§3.4). An integrated ATM approach will deal with a more heterogeneous fleet of aerial vehicles and ensure that capacity levels are maintained in this changing setting.

Improved cost efficiency has already been reflected in the high-level goals of 2005, with a target of reducing ATM service unit costs by 50% or more. The levels of automation and scalability reflected in this SRIA will allow for optimal use to be made of technology to support all ATM tasks. Through automation and optimised machine support (§3.1, §3.8), cost efficiency will further increase contributing to the performance ambition of reducing the gate-to-gate direct ANS cost per flight by 30- 40%6. Moreover, the optimal allocation of resources to where they will be Cost needed (§3.3, §3.5) and the design of U-space aviation from the outset efficiency (§3.4) will allow service delivery costs to be controlled. The expected benefits from improving cost efficiency within the 2021-2040 timeframe are monetised at an approximate value of EUR 39 billion.

The improvements in operational efficiency will lead to the minimisation of inefficiencies in system performance in terms of additional flight time per flight and improved predictability. Enhanced data sharing between all stakeholders and automation in data processing will allow the airspace users to fly their optimal 4D business/mission trajectory (§3.2, §3.3, §3.9). The influence of such things as weather will be minimised through better anticipation and more efficient coordination, reducing Operational tactical interventions (§3.1). The improvements will lead to higher efficiency punctuality and on-time performance, taking some volatility and buffer times for operations out of the system. Consequently, the resources saved could be re-directed to the improvement of aviation connectivity.

5 In the ‘Regulation and Growth’ scenario envisaged by STATFOR. See Eurocontrol, ‘Flight forecast to 2040 — challenges of growth’, 2018 [22] (https://www.eurocontrol.int/publications/flight-forecast-2040-challenges-growth-annex-1). 6 European ATM Master Plan Performance Ambition, baseline value in 2012: EUR 960 direct ANS cost per flight gate-to-gate.

74 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA Safety remains the most important key performance area for aviation. All R&I and deployment will perform safety cases to follow the target of at least maintaining the current level of safety or improving it further. Furthermore, the elaboration of safety nets (§3.1) is targeting the avoidance of safety incidents. Automation and increased data sharing enables advanced collision avoidance and separation management (§3.2). It will also let humans focus more on safety oversight and contribute to a better anticipation of problems (§3.1, §3.2). The increased heterogeneity of aerial vehicles, including Safety drones (§3.4), with very different flight performance, will be managed in an integrated ATM approach to ensure that there is no detrimental impact on safety. Moreover, the implementation of automation and AI will be certified to maintain, or even improve, safety levels in a growing air traffic scenario (§3.8).

The goal for security is to have no significant traffic disruption due to cybersecurity vulnerabilities and ATM-related security incidents. The assessment of future R&I will systematically include a (cyber-) security evaluation of the concept and its implementation. Specifically, further automation and the implementation of machine learning and artificial intelligence must not create any (cyber-) security vulnerability. A secure virtual infrastructure will address fragmentation issues, and digital technologies provide options for bringing additional resilience Security to ATM systems (§3.5, §3.9) so that malicious attacks can be dealt with, causing only minimal impact. Specifically, AI will provide the possibility to stay cyber-resilient to new technologies and threats (§3.8).

The airspace of today and the future is a resource shared between civil and the military air traffic. Optimising civil-controlled air traffic, while taking into account future military needs for training and missions, will be enabled by efficient civil-military coordination (§3.9). Automation, real-time sharing of CNS information and the air picture with the military and better network-level planning (§3.3) will Civil-military minimise constraints on both sides. Society expects a fully functional, well trained military air service which has a minimal impact on civil coordination needs. In addition, synergies for optimal sharing of physical and virtual resources and services will provide further benefits.

Digitalisation is seen as an enabler for achieving the goals of this SRIA. An initial version of an ATM Digital Index has been developed, as reflected in the European ATM Master Plan (Annex D). This will be elaborated on further to reflect the progress made as regards automation of ATM. It is linked to automation in all areas of Chapter 3 and in the digitalisation and virtualisation of services.

Overall output performance and economic impact 75 4.2 Economic impact 3 Indirect impact on suppliers of the aviation value chain: This accounts for the increased economic activity of suppliers of the direct ATM value chain considered above. This chapter provides an assessment of the economic impact of the SRIA. The analysis Quantified benefits on passengers and oth- focuses on the time period reflected in the holistic 3 er impacts on society: This is the monetisa- business view of the European ATM Master Plan. tion of the impact on passengers and society Whereas the present SRIA extends to 2027, the driven by SESAR. These are typically the val- vast majority of benefits of a Digital European ue of the additional flights enabled and time Sky materialises afterwards, as SESAR Solutions savings because of minimised delays and are gradually rolled out and implemented. shorter flights. Another relevant area here is the environmental benefit of SESAR in terms 4.2.1 What are the positive impacts for of climate change with lower air pollution by European citizens and the economy? virtue of the improved efficiency of the system. In alignment with the European ATM Master Plan [1] and its companion document [2], three 4.2.1.1 What benefits can this SRIA bring types of impact have been quantified for the about? SESAR programme. The values are calculated by combining ATM and U-space values to show The proposed partnership is key to the the total expected value. successful implementation of the SESAR vision in the long term. Particularly for the SRIA time Direct impact on the aviation value chain: 3 horizon, we consider the Digital European Sky This includes the total gross domestic prod- is instrumental for three economic objectives uct (GDP) created by SESAR along the direct that have been quantified: ATM value chain.

Figure 13 – BENEFITS FOR 2021-2050 – CUMULATIVE VALUES

2000 1.812 1.800 € Billions Beneﬁts with SRIA 1.600 ATM U-space 1.400

1.200 982 1.442 1.000

800 693 600

400 371 200 209 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030 2031 2032 2033 2034 2035 2036 2037 2038 2039 2040 2041 2042 2043 2044 2045 2046 2047 2048 2049 2050

Source: SESAR 2020 PJ.20 (W2) project partners, making use of data from Master Plan 2020 edition

76 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA Figure 14 – VALUE AT RISK WITHOUT SRIA. 2021-2050 – CUMULATIVE VALUES

2000 1.812 1.800 € Billions Beneﬁts U-space: Loss of € 297 bn 1.600 with SRIA

1.400 Digital European Sky Loss of € 339 bn

1.200 Delay of market update Loss of € 248 bn 1.000

800 928 600 Beneﬁts 400 without SRIA

200 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030 2031 2032 2033 2034 2035 2036 2037 2038 2039 2040 2041 2042 2043 2044 2045 2046 2047 2048 2049 2050

Source: SESAR 2020 PJ.20 (W2) project partners, making use of data from Master Plan 2020 edition

3 Ensuring the full market potential of the Proposal, we have modelled a scenario U-space is achieved within the necessary time- where the current needs for a strengthened line and in a truly integrated ATM environment. partnership are not met. We envisage a situation where market impact only improves 3 Delivery by 2028 of the Solutions identified in marginally compared to current levels, without the European ATM Master Plan for phase D at proper integration of U-space and without the TRL6. much-needed shorter innovation cycles. Put simply, we have considered a situation “without 3 Increasing the market uptake for a critical the SRIA”. mass of early mover infrastructure modernisation priorities and so ensuring the Figure 14 shows a potential economic loss achievement of the Master Plan Performance of EUR 884 billion if the SRIA would not be Ambition by 2035. materialised.

The proposed SRIA is linked to unlocking the full 3 Ensuring the full market potential of benefits associated with achieving the SESAR U-space: The SESAR Solutions addressing vision. This is estimated at almost EUR 80 billion the integration of new entrants into ATM air- yearly benefits in 2040 and slightly above EUR space require the research and innovation 100 billion in 2050. When the benefits are and implementation enabled by this SRIA. cumulated over the 2021 to 2050 period, they are The current system and technologies are not reaching benefits in excess of EUR 1800 billion. designed to accommodate the new entrants Figure 13 below shows how the benefits break to their full potential. Not being able to ad- down in terms of ATM and U-space. dress these needs would be translated into an economic loss of almost EUR 300 billion. 4.2.1.2 What is the economic impact if the SRIA is not achieved? 3 Delivery of the Digital Sky Solutions at TRL 6 by 2028 with the phase D of the vision: The We have estimated the economic value at risk need to maximise the exploitation of digital if the SRIA content would not be materialised. possibilities enabled by the Digital European In accordance with the High-Level Partnership Sky becomes evident when we study their

Overall output performance and economic impact 77 impact in our economic calculations. Failing 4.2.1.3 COVID-19 crisis does not significantly to deliver the Digital European Sky Solutions change the need for and the benefits would result in giving away around EUR 340 from Digital European Sky SRIA billion, the biggest contributor in economic value to the SRIA. Aviation is a resilient industry which has been hit by a number of shocks in the past. Whereas 3 Acceleration of market uptake. The SRIA COVID-19 is currently creating unprecedented is designed to facilitate market uptake for low traffic levels, in the medium to long term, early movers addressing the priorities to there is very little doubt that aviation will return to deliver the ATM Master Plan performance growth. Moreover, the COVID-19 crisis does not ambition by 2035 with the phase C of the vi- change the need for the European ATM system sion. Without the proposed partnership, only to become more automated, more scalable and partially fulfilling the ambition comes at the more resilient in its support of European aviation expense of reducing the benefits to the order while reducing the environmental impact and of EUR 250 billion. improving cost efficiency.

Using economic modelling shows that for all cases there is a strong point supporting the described SRIA investment, which will bring back many times more benefits even in pessimistic scenarios.

78 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA 5 References

[1] “European ATM Master Plan”, Executive View, 2020 edition, SESAR Joint Undertaking

[2] “Master Plan Companion Document on the Performance Ambitions and Business View”, version 2.0, 19-12-2019, SESAR Joint Undertaking

[3] “The European Green Deal”, COM(2019) 640 final, 11-12-2019, European Commission

[4] “Flightpath 2050, Europe’s Vision for Aviation”, Report of the High Level Group on Aviation Research, 2011, European Union

[5] “STRIA Roadmap on Connected and Automated Transport: Road, Rail and Waterborne”, 2019, European Union

[6] “STRIA – TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE”, 2019 update based on original 2016 version, 09-12-2019, C. Bousmanne et.al.

[7] “A Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda for EU funded Space research supporting competitiveness”, Final version - January 2020, Steering Committee of the consultation platform on space research and innovation

[8] “Strategic research and innovation agenda”, The proposed European Partnership for Clean Aviation, Draft - Version July 2020

[9] “AVIATION SAFETY, Challenges and ways forward for a safe future”, January 2018, European Union

[10] “The FLY AI Report”, Demystifying and Accelerating AI in Aviation/ATM, 05-03-2020, EUROCONTROL

[11] “A proposal for the future architecture of the European airspace”, 2019, SESAR Joint Undertaking,

[12] “Future architecture of the European airspace - Transition plan”, SESAR Joint Undertaking, 2019

[13] “Orientations towards the first Strategic Plan implementing the research and innovation framework programme Horizon Europe”, 2019, European Commission

[14] “Draft proposal for a European Partnership under Horizon Europe: Integrated Air Traffic Management”, July 2020, European Commission

[15] “Strategic Research & Innovation Agenda” 2017 Update, Volume 1, Advisory Council for Aviation Research and Innovation in Europe (ACARE)

[16] “Digital European Sky Blueprint”, SESAR Joint Undertaking, 2020

[17] “Artificial Intelligence Roadmap, A human-centric approach to AI in aviation”, version 1.0, European Union Aviation Safety Agency, February 2020

[18] “Performance Review Report, An Assessment of Air Traffic Management in Europe during the Calendar Year 2019”, June 2020, Performance Review Commission

References 79 [19] Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/123 of 24 January 2019 laying down detailed rules for the implementation of air traffic management (ATM) network functions and repealing Commission Regulation (EU) No 677/2011

[20] “Network Strategy Plan 2020-2029”, 27-06-2019, EUROCONTROL

[21] “High Level Network Operational Framework 2029”, version 1.0, 02-04-2020, EUROCONTROL

[22] “European aviation in 2040, Challenges of Growth”, 2018, EUROCONTROL, STATFOR: https://www.eurocontrol.int/publications/flight-forecast-2040-challenges-growth-annex-1.

[23] Single European Sky: a changed culture but not a single sky, Special Report 18/2018, ECA.

[24] The EU’s regulation for the modernisation of air traffic management has added value – but the funding was largely unnecessary, Special Report 11/2019, ECA

[25] Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 716/2014 of 27 June 2014 on the establishment of the Pilot Common Project supporting the implementation of the European Air Traffic Management Master Plan

[26] SESAR Deployment programme, Edition 2018, 19-12-2018, SESAR Deployment Manager PCP Review/CP1 Proposal, 16-12-2019, SESAR Deployment Manager

[27] SESAR Concept of Operations for U-space (CORUS Project): https://www.sesarju.eu/node/3411

[28] Expert Group on the Human Dimension of the Single European Sky: https://ec.europa.eu/ transparency/regexpert/index.cfm?do=groupDetail.groupDetail&groupID=2561

80 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA 6 Glossary

Abbreviation AAS Airspace architecture study ACARE Aeronautics research in Europe ACAS X Airborne collision avoidance system X A-CDM Airport collaborative decision making ADS Automatic dependent surveillance ADS-B Automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast ADSP ATM data service provider AeroMACS Aeronautical mobile airport communications system AFR Autonomous flight rules AI Artificial intelligence AI HLEG High-level expert group on artificial intelligence AIM Aeronautical information management AIS Aeronautical information services ANS Air navigation service ANSP Air navigation service provider AO Airport operations AOC Airline operation centre AOP Airport operations plan APT Airport(s) APW Area proximity warning ARES Airspace reservation ASM Airspace management ATC Air traffic control ATCO Air traffic control officer ATFCM Air traffic flow and capacity management ATFM Air traffic flow management ATM Air traffic management ATSEP Air traffic safety electronics personnel ATSU Air traffic service unit AU Airspace user

BI Business intelligence BUBBLES Basic building blocks for U-space separation

CAPEX Capital expenditure CCAM Connected, cooperative and automated mobility CCO Continuous climb operations CDM Collaborative decision making CDO Continuous descent operations

Glossary 81 Abbreviation CNS Communication, navigation and surveillance CONOPS Concept of operations Conference of the Parties (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate COP Change) CORAC Conseil pour la recherche aéronautique civile CPDLC Controller-pilot datalink communications

D2D Door to door DAA Detect and avoid DAC Dynamic airspace configuration DACUS Demand and capacity optimisation in U-space DCB Demand capacity balancing DMA Dynamic mobile area

EASA European Union Aviation Safety Agency eFPL Extended flight plan EIT European institute of innovation and technology EOC Essential operational change EPCA European Partnership for Clean Aviation EPP Extended projected profile ESO European standardisation organisation ETS EU Emissions Trading System EU European Union EUROCAE European organisation for civil aviation equipment eVTOL Electric powered vertical take-off and landing

FCI Future communication infrastructure FF-ICE Flight and flow information for a collaborative environment FIR Flight information region FO Flight object FOC Flight operations centre FOC Full operational capability FPL Flight plan FUA Flexible use of airspace

G/G Ground/ground GA General aviation GANP Global air navigation plan GAT General air traffic GDP Gross domestic product GNSS Global navigation satellite system

HALE High altitude long endurance HAO Higher airspace operations

82 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA Abbreviation HLO High-level operations HLPP High-level partnership proposal HMI Human-machine interface IaaS Infrastructure as a service ICAO International civil aviation organisation ICT Information and communications technologies IFR Instrument flight rules INAP Integrated network management and extended ATC planning IOP Interoperability IoT Internet of things

KIC Knowledge and innovation communities KPA Key performance area

LAQ Local air quality LDAC L-band digital aeronautical communication LiDAR Light detection and ranging

MaaS Mobility as a service MET Meteorology/Meteorological information ML Machine learning ML Military MMW Millimetre-wave MSAW Minimum safe altitude warning MTCD Medium-term conflict detection MTM Military trajectory management

NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration (US) NLP Natural language processing NM Network Manager NOI Noise NOP Network operations plan NOx Nitrogen oxides

OEM Original equipment manufacturer OPEX Operational expenditure

PaaS Platform as a service PinS Point-in-space

R&D Research and development R&I Research and innovation RC Rotorcraft RF Radius to a fix RL Reinforcement learning

References 83 Abbreviation RNP Required navigation performance RPAS Remotely piloted aircraft system SaaS Software as a service SAF Sustainable aviation fuel SATCOM Satellite communications SBAS Satellite-based augmentation system SES Single European Sky SESAR Single European Sky ATM Research SID Standard instrument departure SOA Service-oriented architecture SOx Sulphur oxides SPO Single pilot operations SRIA Strategic research and innovation agenda STAM Short Term ATFCM Measures STAR Standard terminal instrument arrival route STCA Short-term conflict alert SWIM System-wide information management

TBO Trajectory-based operation TBS Time-based separation TMA Terminal manoeuvring area TMV Traffic monitoring values TRL Technology readiness level

UAM Urban air mobility UAS Unmanned aircraft system UAV Unmanned aerial vehicle UDPP User-driven prioritisation process UTM UAS traffic management

VFR Visual flight rules VHF Very high frequency VLD Very large-scale demonstrations VLL Very low level

WOC Wing operations centre WX Weather

XAI Explainable AI

84 STRATEGIC RESEARCH AND INNOVATION AGENDA

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