Greening the Skies – How ATM can play its part

As the aviation industry grapples with the imperative to reduce its environmental footprint, the focus on sustainable practices in ATM has become paramount. This presentation explores key sustainability considerations and approaches for ANSPs and CAAs and how Egis facilitates these. The discussion encompasses a range of topics, including not only CANSO Green ATM certification, but also the airspace change programmes to enable better environmental performance, reduced fuel consumption and emissions.

The formulation of robust sustainability roadmaps and strategies is vital for guiding ANSPs and civil aviation systems toward a greener and more sustainable future. These roadmaps should take the form of clear frameworks aligning with international standards and best practices, delineating strategic initiatives such as implementing optimized airspace procedures and collaborating with industry stakeholders. It is imperative that these initiatives are strategically assessed, planned, and mapped out for optimal impact. Sustainability roadmaps should also factor in the adoption of cutting-edge technologies, such as artificial intelligence, to enhance operational efficiency. By embracing these considerations and nurturing a culture of ambition, the aviation industry can pave the way for a sustainable future, effectively balancing growth requirements with environmental responsibility.

With the focus on ATM as a key player to unlock environmental performance savings in our airspace, CANSO have developed the Green ATM accreditation scheme that seeks to provide ANSPs with an evaluation of their current environmental efforts alongside providing a roadmap to reduction of impacts of their operation. This can enable them to baseline their current performance relevant to their respective roadmaps and showcase dedication to improvement. This can only be achieved through very tight and close collaboration between management teams, technical teams and specialists to guide the organisation through every step of the process, from setting out the requirements to delivering validated questionnaires and evidence.

Digitalisation can also play a key role in enhancing performance and reducing emissions within an ANSP’s airspace. Environmental performance dashboards are key tools to assess the impact of internal and external factors on flight efficiency within a given airspace. They can yield valuable insights into flight efficiency levels in specific areas and under various conditions, enable visual representation of key issues and enable reporting on flight performance. This reporting can in turn equip management teams with a comprehensive understanding of environmental performance for informed decision-making.

Finally, airspace change and modernisation is fundamental to unlocking capacity, environmental benefits (reducing delay and unnecessary track miles) and efficiency. Flight route optimisation can be achieved through the adequate implementation of PBN, Free Route Airspace which require extensive studies and close coordination with stakeholders in line with national processes and procedures.

ATM has a key role to play, enabling aviation to meet decarbonisation targets in the short, medium and long term. This will be achieved though relevant strategies, green accreditation ambitions, transformation projects, dynamic airspace change and management and strong performance monitoring. By fostering ambition and embracing technological advancements, this presentation aims to inspire discussions on reshaping the future of ATM to align with decarbonisation trends and global sustainability goals.

Egis is joining forces and supporting ANSPs, Airports and CAAs to develop meaningful strategies and solutions. Essential to this is our independence – working with clients and their communities to balances the critical debate around openness, transparency, and reliability.

The Future and Integrating Emerging Technologies: An ATC Perspective

What’s coming next – and soon – in the world of aviation is the emergence and proliferation of new entrants and technologies. How ATC facilitates their safe integration is of vital concern. Join us as we offer the perspective of the labor unions representing aviation safety professionals from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The Global Air Traffic Controllers Alliance works to ensure the workforce has a voice and is included in discussions about the future of our airspace and the safe integration of all new entrants and technologies.

A glimpse of 2034– Analytics and Visualisations informing strategic planning and investment

As part of two Future Flight Consortiums – a UK Research and Innovation Project – NATS is studying the potential capacity impact of future evtol traffic in the UK.

Industry leading analytics and visualisations, created using existing flight data and simulated evtol data, provide evidenced based insights into future evtol operations and how anticipating these capacity requirements can inform infrastructure investment for the future. NATS’ analytics team will share how they have used data to create a view of how evtol traffic could impact some of the world’s busiest airspace, and how these capabilities could be applied to explore the impact of drone networks.

Phase Shift Keying for ADS-B: new aircraft signed messages for authentication purposes

Phase Shift Keying for ADS-B, also known as Phase Overlay, is a feature that was introduced in the EUROCAE ED-102B & ED-73F and RTCA DO-260C & DO-181F normative documents. This new phase modulation (based on 8-PSK), which overlays the original amplitude modulation (PPM) of the ADS-B, has its main improvement in the data capacity, as it enables to increase it from 112 to 448 raw bits, effectively from 56 to 260 bits. This new feature avoids the need to modify the structure of the current Extended Squitter message or its assigned spectrum (1090 MHz), maintaining the backwards compatibility of this surveillance system.
Indra has been part of the definition of Phase Shift Keying for ADS-B since its beginnings, participating in different working groups and R&D projects partially funded by the European Commission and with the collaborative work of ANSPs and industry stakeholders. In total, Indra participated in three different projects, each one increasing the complexity of the system and its validations.
In the last one, Phase Shift Keying technology was validated in a real environment, where several transmissions of ADS-B information were tested with a transmitter and receiver system prototype with this feature implemented. This exercise returned successful outcomes, as the information form the phase modulation message was retrieved as expected without modifying the message of the original amplitude modulation.
This R&D project allow to confirm the technological and technical feasibility of this new feature for ADS-B, demonstrating that this additional data can be used for several purposes, such as the provision of more detailed weather information, the reduction of the 1090MHz frequency spectrum congestion or the authentication of ADS-B transmissions in order to avoid threats like spoofing.
In this sense, Indra is participating in a new R&D project, also funded partially by the European Commission and with the participation of an ANSP, international organizations and industry stakeholders, to study the potential introduction of an authentication algorithm for ADS-B. The objective of this project is to study whether the implementation of this new feature in the data capacity provided by Phase Shift Keying is feasible, which would provide an additional security layer to the ADS-B surveillance system. In other words, this will help to know if an aircraft is real or not, as all ADS-B messages broadcasted by the aircraft will be signed and checked.

Transformations for the Future ATM

This panel will discuss the landscape of technological advancements and pivotal transformations within the Air Traffic Management (ATM) industry. By exploring the dynamic intersection of innovation and digital evolution, our panellists will shed light on the cutting-edge strategies, technologies, and trends shaping the future of ATM. Join us for an insightful discussion on how these transformations are reshaping the aviation industry and paving the way for a more efficient and interconnected airspace.

Crisis Management in Air Traffic Management: Ensuring Business Continuity

In this panel, C-level professionals will explore the strategies, technologies, innovations and protocols that underpin the seamless flow of air traffic and, crucially, the measures in place to respond effectively to unexpected disruptions and crises.
Key topics to be addressed include: Traffic Management Strategies, Crisis Preparedness, Business Continuity Planning, Technology and Innovation, Collaborative Efforts.

How highly automated risk assessments support BVLOS operations for business customers and in safety critical domains

The Drone market, particularly the BVLOS UAV segment, is growing exponentially, and expanding in leaps and bounds. Forecasts predict the global drone economy is expected to reach $90 billion by the year 2030, as commercial, enterprise, logistics and other industries embrace the advantages drones have to offer.
Drones are currently seeing growing use in all fields and in all industries, ranging from agriculture, utilities, oil & gas, infrastructure, all the way through to journalism and cinematography. In each of these cases, the inherent advantages of using UAVs to perform work that was previously undertaken by humans is clear to all and is the driving force behind the expansion of the market.
In this speech during WATC2024 skyzr will outline how automated processes will support a proper risk assessment for commercial drone operations as precondition of a successful future of the drone industry regardless of the existence of U-Spaces, and how Civil Aviation Authorities (CAA) can leverage a digital toolchain to provide approvals in due time with minimised safety impact.

Focussing on BVLOS
BVLOS, or Beyond Visual Line of Sight, is the operation of a drone or other form of Uncrewed Aerial System (UAS) where the distance between the operator and the UAS is larger than Visual Line of Sight (VLOS, or approx. 300 meters).
The ability to fly longer distances BVLOS is a key enabler for efficient and commercially attractive drone operations in numerous fields and industries and can be applied in a wide range of public safety use cases.

Regulation
The entire UAV industry is waiting for the final rulings and regulations from Civil Aviation Authorities around the world, including the FAA, EASA and other regulators to begin operating BVLOS in earnest. The national implementations present a formidable challenge, as it is evident that the existing framework has not reached a stage where it adequately empowers the industry and public safety organizations to fully harness drone technology at scale. The gap between regulatory provisions and the practical needs of stakeholders is distinct, hindering the seamless integration of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) into our airspace. This discrepancy poses a substantial hurdle, limiting the potential benefits of drone technology and impeding the widespread adoption that is crucial for the industry’s growth.

Motivation
This status and the common sense that BVLOS operations must be risk assessed translates into the necessity of having a detailed risk assessment for each BVLOS drone operation which will lead to a huge workload and resources needed for both drone operators and the authorising authorities.
To reduce the required resources and the time to receive an approval by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) while maintaining highest safety standards, skyzr developed an automated risk assessment tool for BVLOS operations based on the planned trajectory of the flight and is aligned with the SORA process defined by the JARUS group.

The solution
The digital risk assessment tool bridges an analogous gap between the requestor and the approver side by providing stakeholder-specific front-end applications exchanging digital information based on a framework consisting of (a) an algorithm for aggregation, transformation and prioritization of heterogeneous spatial data of different resolutions to generate a hexagon layer, (b) a trajectory-based detailed analysis of classified multidimensional ground and air risks for flight segments using the spatial, hexagon-based visualization on different layers, (c) parameter optimization of the risk calculation algorithms to determine the risk classes based on safety-critical ConOps flight information complementary to the trajectory and (d) the determination of the Specific Assurance and Integrity Level (SAIL) based on the final ground and air risk classes.

Conclusion
The drone industry is facing a high demand of BVLOS while having high efforts due to analogue approval processes, leading to long approval times. The provision of BVLOS operations at scale is a precondition for future commercialisation and growth of the drone industry.
Therefore, there is a current need for digital tools to access the airspace for BVLOS operations which is already available.

Digital Tower roadmap

In the provision of Air Traffic Services (ATS) basic capabilities and models are evolving thanks to digital technologies. In particular, control towers are rapidly evolving into digital towers, augmenting air traffic control capabilities at an aerodrome through fully digital means (e.g. artificial intelligence, augmented reality, Machine-Learning), making airports around the world safer, more flexible and efficient. ENAV roadmap foresees to develop both local and remote digital towers, depending on tailored solution able to target the expected operational benefits. For remote digital towers, two Remote Tower Control Centres are in the pipeline, able to accomodate a total of 26 airports. Advantages come from airports flexible allocation and air traffic controllers flexible management, with the idea of pioneering the ultimate goal, e.g., the multiple management of airports.

The European ATM Master Plan campaign – Establishing Europe as the most efficient and environmentally-friendly sky to fly in the world

The new European ATM Master Plan, to be adopted at the end of 2024, will set the vision and prioritise the digital solutions needed to deliver the Digital European Sky, with the goal of establishing Europe as the most efficient and environmentally-friendly sky to fly in the world. This session will provide an update on progress so far in relation to each of the key success criteria for the Master Plan campaign.

NEXT-GEN Digital Tower

The presentation highlights a groundbreaking advancement in air navigation services – a futuristic digital remote tower system. It delves into the technology’s unique capabilities, including its utilization of real-time data, safety, enhancements, and efficient management of air traffic from remote locations. The focus is on its ability to integrate and display all source of data, necessary to provide tower control in single HMI. This level of integration is a huge leap for aerodrome ATC, adding up advanced camera technology. The presentation underscores how this cutting-edge system transforms aviation operations for a safer and more effective future.