A Framework to Assess the Ability of Automation to Deliver Capacity Targets in European Airspace
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A FRAMEWORK TO ASSESS THE ABILITY OF AUTOMATION TO DELIVER CAPACITY TARGETS IN EUROPEAN AIRSPACE Gonzalo Tobaruela Arnedo (Ingeniero Aeronáutico; MSc) March 2015 A thesis submitted as fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy and the Diploma of Membership of Imperial College London (DIC) Centre for Transport Studies Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Imperial College London, United Kingdom 2 This work is dedicated to my parents Pilar Arnedo and Javier Tobaruela All I have and will accomplish is possible thanks to their love and efforts in offering me the best possible education 3 4 5 DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY I hereby declare that the entire work presented in this thesis has been personally carried out. Where sources of information or the work of others have been used, they are fully cited and referenced and/or appropriate acknowledgement is given. ..................................................................................... Gonzalo Tobaruela Arnedo 6 ‘The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives licence. Researchers are free to copy, distribute or transmit the thesis on the condition that they attribute it, that they do not use it for commercial purposes and that they do not alter, transform or build upon it. For any reuse or redistribution, researchers must make clear to others the licence terms of this work’. 7 ABSTRACT The maximum number of flights that the Air Traffic Management (ATM) system can safely and efficiently control over a period of time i.e. airspace capacity, has become a limitation over the last decade, due to a rapid increase in air traffic activity. Therefore, the ATM system in developed countries is undergoing a series of modernisation initiatives to ensure that the future ATM system is able to provide sufficient capacity to safely meet future air traffic demand. As a result, there is a need to assess if the proposed changes can effectively be translated into the desired increase in capacity. This thesis addresses this issue by developing an en-route airspace capacity estimation framework, able to measure the impact of future ATM system modernisation deployments on airspace capacity. In order to do this, it identifies the key airspace capacity drivers for current and future operations, focussing on three areas: air traffic controller workload, air traffic predictability and Air Traffic Control (ATC) centre cost-efficiency. In each of the three framework areas, the research develops methodologies that overcome the deficiencies of existing capacity estimation techniques. This leads to an innovative multi- dimensional approach to airspace capacity estimation, able to reflect the different relationships of airspace capacity with the framework areas. The framework quantifies the relationship between the ATC centre planning process accuracy and airspace capacity. It estimates the effect of increased predictability on airspace capacity through the performance of the Airspace Management and Air Traffic Flow & Capacity Management functions. Finally, it computes air traffic controller workload with considerable accuracy (up to 80% of the actual workload) during medium-low workload scenarios and reflects the workload trend (Spearman’s rank coefficient = 0.72) during high workload scenarios. 8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost my gratitude goes to my three supervisors Dr. Arnab Majumdar, Professor Washington Yotto Ochieng and Dr. Wolfgang Schuster, who provided me with the means and guidance to successfully conduct my research at Imperial College London. In addition a especial mention goes to the people who supported the development of this research and welcomed me in their Air Traffic Control centres: Peter Hendrickx, Peter Fransen, Nick Miller, Roel Huurdeman, Ivan Pelegrin Morales, Vincent Taverniers, Luis Martinez Fuentes and Razvan Margauan in Maastricht Upper Area Control centre and Dr. Stéphane Mariétan, Anaïs Lacroix and Joost Hamers in Skyguide – Geneva. It has been an invaluable experience to learn Air Traffic Control from inside the two most advanced Air Traffic Control centres in Europe and probably worldwide. 9 CONTENTS Declaration of Originality ....................................................................................................... 6 Abstract…………… ................................................................................................................. 8 Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................. 9 Contents………………………………………………………………………………...........10 List of Figures. ........................................................................................................................ 23 List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………… .. 31 List of Abbreviations ............................................................................................................. 36 CHAPTER 1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 43 1.1 Background ................................................................................................................ 43 1.2 Aims and Objectives .................................................................................................. 45 1.3 Thesis Structure ......................................................................................................... 46 CHAPTER 2 Fundamentals of Air Traffic Management ................................................ 51 2.1 Evolution of Air Traffic Management (ATM) .......................................................... 51 2.2 Stakeholders of Air Traffic Management .................................................................. 54 2.2.1 Airspace users .................................................................................................. 55 2.2.1.1 Commercial aviation ...................................................................................... 55 2.2.1.2 Military aviation ............................................................................................. 56 10 2.2.1.3 Business aviation ............................................................................................ 56 2.2.1.4 General aviation ............................................................................................. 56 2.2.1.5 Unmanned Aerial vehicles (UAVs) ............................................................... 56 2.2.2 Airport system .................................................................................................. 57 2.2.3 Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) ..................................................... 57 2.2.3.1 Airspace organisation and phases of flight .................................................... 58 2.2.4 Regulators ......................................................................................................... 61 2.3 Current ATM System ................................................................................................ 62 2.3.1 Air Traffic Services (ATS) ............................................................................... 64 2.3.1.1 Air Traffic Control ......................................................................................... 64 2.3.1.2 Support technologies: CNS system ................................................................ 65 2.3.2 Air Traffic Flow & Capacity Management (ATFCM) function ...................... 67 2.3.3 Airspace Management (ASM) ......................................................................... 68 2.3.4 Long-term planning .......................................................................................... 71 2.3.5 The ATM invariant processes .......................................................................... 72 2.3.5.1 Prediction ....................................................................................................... 74 2.3.5.2 Detection ........................................................................................................ 74 2.3.5.3 Resolution....................................................................................................... 74 2.3.5.4 Communication & information management ................................................. 74 2.3.6 The ATM roles ................................................................................................. 75 2.3.6.1 The Air Traffic Controller .............................................................................. 75 11 2.3.6.2 The Pilot ......................................................................................................... 78 2.3.6.3 Executive Operations Support ........................................................................ 79 2.3.6.4 Network Manager ........................................................................................... 80 2.3.6.5 Automated systems ........................................................................................ 80 2.3.6.6 Airline dispatcher ........................................................................................... 83 2.3.7 The time-frames ............................................................................................... 84 2.3.8 Mapping of roles, time-frames, processes and functions ................................. 84 2.4 Current System Limitations ......................................................................................