Page 37 - AAA MARCH - APRIL 2018 Online Magazine

How They Did It lers themselves commented very HungaroControl (Frequentis
n integrated multi tower positive on this evaluation test. SESAR Partners) and Leonardo.
position, combining rele- One of the controllers Emese
vant information of three Kisfaludy says: “It was a great SESAR Challenge
Aairports, were provided challenge to put our minds and SESAR 2020 has been allocated
to the controllers. A new multi skills on test as tower controllers. a budget of €1.5 billion, of which
airport planning tool, closely The developed technology, the €500 million will be provided by
integrated with the Frequentis HMI was very helpful and futuris- the European Union and the rest
electronic flight strip solution, tic at the same time. There’s a lot by Eurocontrol and industry. A
called smartSTRIPS, was used to develop and research further to further €85 million is earmarked
to plan and organise the work answer the uprising questions and for research activities particularly
over multiple airports. The out make the multi-remote concept designed to attract universities,
of the window view of the three really safe, useful and efficient in public institutions, SMEs and
airports was displayed on several the near future.” industry. SESAR 2020 aims to
large screens and augmented bring new ideas to the market
with radar and support informa- On Nov. 22 the validation cam- and increase the pace of change
tion (“stitched view”). Wind shear paign was succeeded by a in ATM. Like its predecessor,
information provided by Selex was Public Open Day event. More the SESAR 2020 Programme
integrated to represent an opera- than 30 international remote will be the technology pillar of
tional constraint and for testing the tower experts with operational the European Union’s Single
situational awareness. Integration and technical background used European Sky (SES). It aims to
of voice communication system the opportunity to visit the DLR triple airspace capacity to reduce
in the video presentation and on to learn more about the multiple delays; improve safety perfor-
the electronic flight strips system tower concept and design, the mance by a factor of 10, reduce
enabled the controller to handle set-up, the validation objectives environmental impact by 10 per
the workload, plan the traffic and first results. Says another cent and reduce the cost of ATM
and unambiguously associate an controller Gábor Draschitz: “I services to the airspace users by
airport in a multi remote environ- was looking forward to starting 50 per cent.
ment. off with this extraordinary, as an
ATCO rather unusual, but exciting The current SESAR R&I
DLR researchers and Frequentis challenge of controlling the traf- Programme has succeeded in
human factors experts assessed fic of three airports at the same bringing together all ATM stake-
the controllers’ eye point of time and the testing of the new holders. More than 3000 experts
regard, their perceived situation technology. I have really enjoyed have focussed on overcoming
awareness, workload and accep- controlling in the simulator, but the previous fragmentation in
tance as well as efficiency and it is clear that intensive techni- Europe’s ATM R&D through a
safety in handling the various traf- cal development will be needed comprehensive and coordinated
fic situations to judge about the until this project determining the research roadmap (the European
overall operational feasibility of future of the aviation industry ATM Master Plan). Within this
the concept and the design of the becomes successful, and a lot of current programme timeframe,
controller working position. “The effort awaits those working on the SESAR has produced tangible
first results are encouraging and procedures and the legal environ- technological and operational
will provide the research partners ment.” solutions (SESAR Solutions) that
with recommendations for con- meet the business needs of ATM,
cept and design improvements. The validations took place within with some already proving their
A final analysis of the results will the framework of SESAR proj- readiness for deployment.
follow at a later stage and con- ect PJ05 and are a collaboration
solidation with future validation between DLR (as part of the
activities in other environments,” AT-One consortium), Frequentis
Holzbauer says. Also, the control- AG (Frequentis SESAR Partners),

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