WP no.

Work Package description

WP Leader

Organisation

WP1

Autonomous Aircraft Advanced Concept (A³)

Gustavo Cuevas

Isdefe

WP2

Human responsibilities in autonomous aircraft operations

Aavo Luuk

UTartu

WP3

Prediction of complex traffic conditions

Maria Prandini

PoliMi

WP4

Multi-agent Situation Awareness consistency analysis

Maria DiBenedetto

AQUI

WP5

Pushing the limits of conflict resolution algorithms

John Lygeros

ETHZ

WP6

Cost-benefit analysis

Kostas Zografos

AUEB

WP7

Accident risk and flight efficiency of A³ operation

Henk Blom

NLR

WP8

A³ ConOps refinement

Vicente Bordón

Isdefe

WP9

A³ Airborne system design requirements

Petr Cásek

HNWL

WP10

Dissemination-related activities

Henk Blom

NLR

WP1: Autonomous Aircraft Advanced Concept (A³)

Leader: Gustavo Cuevas (Isdefe)

Followers: HNWL, NLR, UTartu, Dedale, ETHZ, EEC, ENAC, AUEB

Objectives:

This work-package will develop an autonomous aircraft advanced concept (A³) including an airline strategy concept for autonomous aircraft operations, using state-of-the-art aeronautics research and Technology results. The airline strategy concept offers opportunities for airlines to harness the greater autonomy to improve on customer service. The A³ concept developed here focuses on the en-route phase of flight, for a potential shift into autonomous en-route operations in airspace that is busy according current standards.

Work Description:

The purpose of WP1 is to:

• Develop the overall A³ concept of operations (ConOps).
• Describe the airline strategy concept for the A³ environment.

WP1 takes advantage of state-of-the-art research results obtained in previous aeronautics research projects like Free Flight, Intent, CARE-ASAS, Freer, MFF, AFAS, M-AFAS. In addition it leans significantly on the pilot responsibility and cognition analysis performed within WP2.

The tasks performed in this WP will be consolidated around an A³ concepts that is targeted to:

• Optimize the performance of airlines with autonomous aircraft.
• Maximise the safety level in the en-route phase at 3 times current busy levels.
• Ensure the interoperability of the various A³ services.
• Improve on customer services by making effective use of the autonomy.

The WP is organised in three sub-WPs. WP1.1 called "High level ConOps" describes the available options towards autonomous en-route aircraft advanced operations. WP1.2 called "Airline Strategy Concept" will describe the strategy concept for airline operations in an autonomous aircraft environment. WP1.3 called "ConOps" will describe the overall concept of operations within the autonomous en-route ATM environment.
The activities performed in these sub-WPs are:

WP1.1 A³ High-level ConOps. This sub-WP outlines the vision in terms of potential solutions towards a shift to autonomous aircraft operations en-route which might or might not lead to the required capacity breakthrough.

The activities outlined in the High-level ConOps are:

• Assessment and definition of a common basis, e.g.: terminology and functionality.
• Identification of candidate concepts or concept elements from previous state-of-the-art aeronautics Research & Technology projects.
• Operational environment description of autonomous aircraft operations en-route.

WP1.2 A³ Airline Strategy Concept. Air traffic demand is highly dependent on customer demand. Customers want to fly directly to their destination within their preferred time constraints. Airlines try to accommodate these preferences mainly within hub-and-spoke strategies resulting in periodic peak demand levels. This kind of behaviour needs to be accommodated within the autonomous aircraft environment. Any limitations of the autonomous aircraft operations can induce delays and reductions in connection probabilities. On the other hand, autonomous aircraft operations offers also new opportunities to improve on the effectiveness of hub-and-spoke strategies, for instance through improved arrival timing. So it needs to be identified how airlines will react with their movement strategies.

This sub-WP identifies:

• Novel ways for airlines to make effective use of autonomous aircraft operations.
• Airline operational environment description for autonomous aircraft operations.
• Identifying a strategy concept for airline operations in an autonomous aircraft environment.
• Identifying the expected benefits and limitations for the proposed strategy concept.

WP1.3 A³ ConOps. The ConOps obtained by integration of candidate concepts or concept elements into an overall concept of operations, aims at the safe accommodation for all types of autonomous aircraft operations en-route, including new or non conventional types of air traffic, and supported by ground CFM service and Airline Operational Centres (AOC) provision only.
The overall potential solution is then to be analysed as follows in order to assure completeness and proper understanding towards the mathematical modeling:

• Holistic view on the proposed concept, identifying interactions with other ATM flight cycles and concepts.
• Identification the providers of the potential solutions. It is expected that the on-board solutions will rely to a large extend on advanced automation of the cockpit.
• Identification of services for the different technologies such as ADS, GNSS and CPDLC.
• Critical self assessment by A³ designers:
• Identification and understanding of the assumptions made for the proposed concept.
• Identification of the expected benefits to ATM areas such as safety, capacity limitations, actor workload and actor error tolerance, etc.
• Identification of expected limitations of the proposed solutions.
• Possible problems and weak-points created through the introduction of the proposed solution and their mitigation.
• Identification of potential safety issues.

The outcomes of the WP7 pre-brainstorming are used to further improve the A³ ConOps. In addition, on the first consolidated draft critical review comments are actively collected from WP3, WP5, WP6 and WP7. These comments are taken into account in the finalization of the A³ concept.

Project Deliverables:

Id

Title

Date

Version

[D1.1]

Autonomous Aircraft Advanced (A³) High Level ConOps
by Isdefe, Honeywell, NLR, UTartu, EEC, Dedale, ENAC

Jan 2009

Final

[D1.3]

Final

Papers published:

Id

Title

Date

Version

[P1.1]

Preprint for INO Workshop 2008

WP2: Human responsibilities in autonomous aircraft operations

Leader: Aavo Luuk (UTartu)

Followers: HNWL, NLR, Dedale, Isdefe, AQUI, EEC, NATS

Objectives:

The objective is to develop the anchor points for the A³ ConOps development that can be defined from the human responsibility and goal setting, and later to verify how well these anchor points are used in the A³ ConOps, and where needed to provide potential solutions.

Work package 2 is divided into two parts: "airborne responsibilities" and "bottlenecks and potential solutions".

Part A: Airborne responsibilities

• To identify current and new responsibilities of cockpit crew during en-route phase of flight
• To analyse Situation Awareness, Information, Communication and cockpit crew tasks.

Work Description:

Changes in the air traffic management system irrevocably cause changes in the role of the human involved in that system as a result of technological changes. When the system becomes more and more automated, a shift in tasks and responsibilities of the human controlling the system occurs. The human operator - in case of an aircraft, the cockpit crew - is responsible for the actions and tasks he/she performs. This responsibility is a core issue in (aerospace) operations, because it determines who makes what decision and can take action if required without being required to request permission from another actor.

Important in this, is that many functions in autonomous aircraft operations will be supported by automation on the flight deck and there should be a balance between automation and responsibility. As long as the human remains responsible for the resulting actions of the human-machine system, he/she also needs to be able to control the system. When the system is fully automated and the human is out of control, it is not possible to hold him/her responsible for the resulting outcomes. On the other hand, automating (parts of) a system can also support the human to maintain control over the situation, especially in complex systems like an aircraft.

Therefore, human responsibility is a key factor in determining to what extent a system can be automated. In an air traffic management environment this responsibility can be spread among the airborne and ground side of the system. Current developments in ATM show a shift towards a more decentralised system, with increasing tasks and likely more responsibilities for the airborne side, i.e. the cockpit crew. This side forms the starting point for the current project, therefore the question that arises is: "What responsibilities can be assigned to the airborne side of the system assuming a new task distribution implied by autonomous ATM?" Work package 2 considers these issues in more detail.

Part A: Airborne responsibilities

WP 2.1 To identify current and new responsibilities of the cockpit crew during the en-route phase of the flight. An analysis should be carried out to identify the responsibilities of the cockpit crew during the en-route phase of the flight. To be able to define a new air traffic management concept, first of all, current responsibilities of the cockpit crew have to be identified.

It also needs to be identified what tasks the crew currently has to perform during (the en-route phase of) the flight. A task analysis helps to provide this information. This analysis needs to be performed on an operational scenario of the en-route flight phase, to map out the tasks of the cockpit crew during this phase.

In addition to the description of tasks, also a description of the goals of the crew is valuable as input for the identification of responsibilities. These goals provide the framework within which the crew performs the actions. Important goals are, for example, to ensure a safe and efficient flight.

This provides a basic overview of the current situation. The already existing responsibilities can be adopted into the new concept. To achieve a highly automated air traffic management system, the possibility for assigning more responsibilities to the airborne crew than in the current situation, should also be investigated. This is a necessity for a more autonomous operation of the aircraft. The proposed concept departs from the view that as much as possible, responsibilities should be assigned to the airborne side, not to the ground side. Therefore, issues that are in current operations accounted for by the ground, are likely to be assigned to the airborne crew and become their responsibilities.

Responsibilities of a cockpit crew go beyond issues related to air traffic management only. For example, the cockpit crew is responsible for monitoring the functioning of the system (i.e. the aircraft). A shift in responsibility with respect to ATM issues should never result in conflicts with other responsibilities. Therefore, consequences of this responsibility shift should be reviewed and resulting bottlenecks - when consequences appear to be outside acceptable limits - need to be identified. All aircraft types that take part of en-route air traffic (e.g. civil aircraft, UAVs, military aircraft) are taken into account.

WP 2.2 Situation Awareness (SA), Information, Communication and Pilot Tasks. The aim of this WP is to identify the SA to be maintained by the crew, the information and communication needs and the tasks of the controller. This involves several questions to be taken into account.

While total situation awareness is prohibitively costly in terms of both financial and human workload costs, it is recognized that there will be some minimum prerequisites for satisfactory situation awareness for iFLY crews. How does one create active and engaged iFLY pilots who are sensitive not only to their own aircraft but also those around it. How does the system support iFLY pilots so that they can make the appropriate delegation of tasks with the iFLY automation, particularly when the pilots are not exactly sure what their neighbours will be doing? How will an iFLY crewstation effective support recognition and projection of future automation actions? How will they be able to intuitively predict how neighbouring iFLY aircraft will perform?

How will an iFLY crewstation support information abstraction and distillation to the appropriate level for effective iFLY operation. How will iFLY support salient mode transitions so the pilots will know how their own aircraft & those around them will be behaving so they know what to expect next?

What type of human cognitive support will be necessary for the flight crew to be an effective iFLY participant? What will be the best way of presenting system uncertainty "information" to the flight crew? Considering the potential state-of-the-art of avionic technology and the supportable human-system interface 1) what will the flight crew information needs be & to what extent will it be possible to meet or support those needs. How does one make clear the level of responsibility and related roles as a function of time & place in the system? How does one assure that the information available matches with the responsibility at the moment? What does the crewstation need from system wide information management and what will crew contribute? What new roles will the flight crew take on & how will the needs of those tasks to be supported?

Part B: Bottlenecks and solutions

The results of WP2 part A are used as input for definition of the operational concept in WP1. WP1 uses this to develop the A³ ConOps. Next WP2 part B assesses A³ ConOps against human responsibilities identified in WP2 part A. WP2 part B tasks will reveal, where bottlenecks with respect to human responsibility issues arise. Finally, potential ways for solving these bottleneck issues have to be developed.

WP 2.3 To identify bottlenecks in responsibility issues. After having identified what responsibility issues arise in a highly automated ATM environment, bottlenecks can be identified where mitigating measures are required. The aim of WP2.3 is to identify such bottlenecks.

Issues like safety and capacity should be investigated to identify when these bottlenecks arise. As these should remain within acceptable limits, maybe changes in task allocation is needed when constraints resulting from human responsibilities are reached. Task analysis serves as input to the task allocation process. Within the task allocation, tasks are allocated to the airborne crew and to the supporting airborne or non-airborne systems.

As the initial options for allocating responsibility to the cockpit crew have been identified in WP1.3, WP2.3 will be searching for inconsistencies in these options and will question them, to prepare the second design cycle for improvement of the A³ concept. This in contrast with the common way, in which first a concept is fully developed regarding the technical systems, and after this, responsibilities are assigned to the applicable actors.

WP2.4 To develop potential human factors improvements for A³ ConOps. After WP2.3 has identified human factors responsibility bottlenecks where additional ground support is required (in the tasks and functions, where it is impossible to allocate all responsibility to the airborne side of the system), the goal of WP2.4 is to develop potential mitigating human factors related measures of these bottlenecks for the A³ ConOps. These potential mitigating human factors measures are taken into account for the refinement of A³ within WP8.1.

Project Deliverables:

Id

Title

Date

Version

[D2.1]

Description of airborne human responsibilities in autonomous aircraft operations by A. Luuk, J.A. Wise, F. Pouw and V.Gauthereau

Dec 2007

Final

[D2.2]

Situation Awareness, Information, Communication and Pilot Tasks of under autonomous aircraft operations by J. Wise, C. Keinrath, F. Pouw, A. Sedaoui, V. Gauthereau and A. Luuk

Apr 2009

Final

[D2.3]

Final

[D2.4]

Final

Papers published:

Id

Title

Date

Version

[P2.1]

Preprint for EAAP08

Complementary papers and reports:

Id

Title

Date

Version

[C2.1]

Preprint for EAAP08

WP3: Prediction of complex traffic conditions

Leader: Maria Prandini (PoliMi)

Followers: UCAM, ENAC, HNWL, Isdefe, NLR, EEC

Objectives:

The objective of WP3 is to study and develop methods for the timely prediction of potentially complex traffic conditions, i.e. multi-aircraft encounter situations that may be over-demanding to the autonomous aircraft design. In advanced autonomous aircraft based ATM, this is a crucial task to avoid encounter situations that appear safe from the individual aircraft perspective, but are actually safety-critical from a global perspective. The characterization of globally safety-critical encounters situations in terms, for example, of number of aircraft involved and encounter geometry can help in identifying the potential support needs within the autonomous ATM concept developed in WP1 and WP2. WP3 will receive input from WP1 and WP2, in terms of the advanced autonomous aircraft ATM concept. WP3 will provide input to WP8, as for ground support needs within the advanced autonomous aircraft ATM concept developed in WP1 and WP2.

Work Description:

An ATM system is a multi-agent system, where many agents (the aircraft) are competing for a common, congestible resource, represented by airspace and runways space, while trying to optimize their own cost (travel distance, fuel consumption, passenger comfort, etc.). Coordination between different aircraft is needed to avoid conflict situations, where two or more aircraft get too close one to the other. In principle, this can be achieved via a decentralized control scheme where each agent evaluates the criticality of forthcoming encounters based on the information on the current position and intended destination of neighboring aircraft, and eventually coordinates with them to avoid that a conflict actually occurs. In practice, a completely decentralized approach to conflict detection cannot guarantee that the global level of risk is kept below some acceptable limit. This is due partly to the local nature of the information available to the aircraft, and partly to the fact that each aircraft evaluates the criticality of the situation based on a partial viewpoint. A high-level coordination layer is needed to avoid safety-critical encounter situations corresponding to a level of risk that is considered low by the aircraft involved, but is actually high for the overall multi-aircraft system.

WP3 will be structured in the following two sub-WPs:

WP3.1. Comparative study of complexity metrics. In this sub-WP, we shall first carry out a survey of different metrics proposed in the literature for complexity modeling and prediction. Most of the current complexity metrics address ground based ATM. Though this is reasonable within the current centralized ATM system, where aircraft follow predefined routes according to some prescribed 4D flight plan, it becomes restrictive within advanced autonomous aircraft ATM systems. So we need to develop an appropriate complexity metric.

WP3.2: Timely predicting complex conditions. In this sub-WP, we shall study the problem of predicting complex conditions for autonomous aircraft. Aspects that need to be addressed are the sensitivity to the prediction time, and various other conditions. For WP3 studies no specific choice is made regarding where to use the novel method, airborne and/or on the ground. This will be done in WP8.

Project Deliverables:

Id

Title

Date

Version

[D3.1]

Complexity metrics applicable to autonomous aircraft by M. Prandini, L. Piroddi, S. Puechmorel, S.L. Brázdilová

Jan 2009

Final

[D3.2]

Final

Papers published:

Id

Title

Date

Version

[P3.3]

Preprint for CDC 2008

[P3.4]

Preprint for CDC 2008

[P3.9]

Preprint for EIWAC 2009

[P3.10]

Preprint for CEAS 2009

[P3.11]

Preprint for CDC 2009

[P3.15]

Preprint for CDC 2010

[P3.18]

Preprint for INO Workshop 2010

WP4: Multi-agent Situation Awareness consistency analysis

Leader: Maria DiBenedetto (AQUI)

Followers: HNWL, Isdefe, NLR, PoliMi, EEC, ENAC

Objectives:

To develop techniques for detection of possible situation awareness mismatches between autonomous agents in autonomous flight control schema. The techniques will be based on formal methods and will be computationally tractable. We will study the autonomous flight operational concept developed in WP1 and WP2 to determine whether they are viable in view of potential situation awareness mismatches.

Work Description:

In the ATM framework of this proposal, the approach taken to guarantee the achievement of the ambitious goals of increasing efficiency of air traffic control requires distribution of tasks among autonomous agents. This WP is aimed at providing an analysis and an assessment of the concept(s) proposed in WP1 ad WP2 in view of potential multi-agent situation awareness inconsistency.
Given the distributed nature of the decision making process, it is of paramount importance to guarantee that all the agents who participate in the decisions have a similar if not identical, perception of what the situation is. Situation awareness has been the subject of research for guaranteeing safe operation in ATM. Many operation problems (some of potential catastrophic outcome) can be traced to erroneous or inconsistent multi-agent situation awareness. The study of techniques that can detect automatically that there are problems with situation awareness and that these problems may be leading to a catastrophic situation is the basis for the work to be done here (WP4.1). Based on this study, we will attack the multi-agent case, where the interesting (and challenging) problem is that even though situation awareness errors may in isolation not cause any significant problem, when taken in a multi-agent environment, they may yield catastrophic outcome (WP4.2). The approach we plan to take is to develop hybrid models for the multi-agent ATM case and then to develop observers for these distributed hybrid systems. This method is essential to evaluate the procedures proposed in WP1 and WP2 and to point out their intrinsic limitations. The hybrid observers will be targeted to critical states so that the complexity of the computation can be minimized. Of interest will be the root cause determination of the multi-agent situation awareness problem. In particular, the work will be articulated in the following sub-WPs:

WP4.1 Foundation of MA-SA analysis. We will begin our work by analyzing hybrid models for the verification of Situation Awareness consistency in presence of deterministic and stochastic disturbances. We will then study critical observability (i.e., the property related to the possibility of detecting whether from a state we may have a path to a catastrophic state) for the proposed hybrid models. The assessment of structural properties is an important step in building techniques to cope with situation awareness issues.

WP4.2 MA-SA consistency. In this sub-WP, we move from the analytic part of our work to the prescriptive part: WP 4.2 will provide the main analytical tool to evaluate the operational concept proposed in WP1 and WP2.
We build on the results of WP7.1 and consider the system as a composition of parts where decomposition in parts was conceived for reducing the complexity of the control systems. We will investigate compositionality properties for critically observable components. We will assume that each subsystem is critically observable and safe. We will then study under which conditions the composed multi-agent system is critically observable and safe. The issue here is that when subsystems are composed, they share resources. The conflicts in accessing resources are the root causes of many composability problems and we expect critical observability to be in the same class. These results will be passed to WP8, where we plan to collaborate for proposing strategies for the operators so that they can reach correct situation awareness and decide which policy to adopt to prevent accidents. In case the multi-agent situation awareness mismatch cannot be fixed in the proposed approach, methods have to be identified to correct the situation, e.g. by adding additional agents including ground actions.
Since the proposed approach is rather novel for the domain of application, dissemination of our approach has to be multi faceted: we plan to provide supporting simulations to demonstrate the usefulness of the approach and to present example of applications in enough details to serve as a tutorial.

Project Deliverables:

Id

Title

Date

Version

[D4.1]

Final

[D4.2]

Final

Papers published:

Id

Title

Date

Version

[P4.1]

Preprint for SSSC07

[P4.2]

Preprint for HSCC 2008

[P4.3]

Preprint for ICRAT 2008

[P4.9]

Preprint for INO Workshop 2008

[P4.12]

Preprint for NAHS 2009

[P4.13]

Preprint for CDC 2009

[P4.14]

Preprint for INO Workshop 2009

[P4.15]

Preprint for ICRAT 2010

[P4.16]

Preprint for CDC 2010

WP5: Pushing the limits of conflict resolution algorithms

Leader: John Lygeros (ETHZ)

Followers: NTUA, UCAM, HNWL, EEC, NLR, PoliMi

Objectives:

The objective of WP5 is to investigate and push the limits of conflict resolution algorithms for the autonomous aircraft operational concept developed by WP1 and WP2. This will cover both the most advanced conflict resolution methods that have been developed within the free flight community as well as radically novel approaches which are in development in other research areas (robotics and finance in particular) and which have been identified by the HYBRIDGE project as innovative and feasible for application to air traffic management. The WP will analyse relevant AP23 deliverables to see if useful input could be extracted and used in the work. These studies will revolve around two reference points:

• The requirements stemming from the autonomous aircraft concept developed within WP1 and WP2 (and early developments within WP8).
• The performance of the most advanced conflict resolution methods already under development within the autonomous aircraft community.

Work Description:

The work in WP5 will be structured in four sub-WPs:

WP5.1: Comparative study of conflict resolution methods. A survey of different methods proposed for conflict resolution will be carried out. Both centralized and decentralized conflict resolution methods will be considered. Emphasis will be placed on methods that provide proven performance and arise both in the autonomous aircraft/free flight communities and in potentially related fields such as robotics and mathematical finance. The methods will be analysed and compared in terms of their capabilities, limitations and complementarities from a general autonomous aircraft conflict resolution perspective.

WP5.2: Analysis of conflict resolution needs of A³ operation developed by WP1 and WP2. As the novel ATM concept developed under WP1 and WP2 begin to take shape, WP5 will identify the conflict resolution requirements imposed by this concept, as well as the resources that the concept can make available for conflict resolution tasks (in terms of communication, computation, stakeholder roles, etc.). We will then compare the advanced conflict resolution methods versus these requirements and identify the strengths and weaknesses of each method.

WP5.3: Further development of conflict resolution methods. It is unlikely that the existing conflict resolution methods will exactly match the needs and requirements of the concept developed in WP1 and WP2. Further development of conflict resolution methods will therefore be necessary. This development will be carried out under WP5.3. The initial approach taken will be one of concurrent engineering. Three teams will be formed each led by one of the main contributors to WP5. Each team will develop one conflict resolution design that it believes would be best for the autonomous aircraft concept of WP1 and WP2. The emphasis of each team will be slightly different: one team will concentrate on short term conflict resolution issues (horizons of seconds to a few minutes), the second will concentrate on mid term resolution (horizons of tens of minutes) and the third on long term resolution and flow management (horizons of tens of minutes to hours). By month T0+21 an initial indication of the capabilities and requirements of the three designs will be documented in intermediate deliverable D5.3i. Each team will then perform an assessment of the developed approach against the requirements, based on feedback from WP8 and WP9. At the end of the concurrent phase (T0+21) the three teams will collaborate in order to combine the best features of their designs into one design. This activity will take into account the insight gained by the early work on A³ refinement within WP8 and WP9. If possible, the conflict resolution will be traced to ASAS avionics support functions developed by AP23 [D4].

WP5.4: Validation of the resulting conflict resolution method against the requirements. The aim of this sub-WP is to compare the resulting conflict resolution methods against the best currently known by the autonomous aircraft research community and against the requirements identified in WP5.2. Monte Carlo simulation will play a key role in this comparison. Emphasis will be put on demanding multiple aircraft conflict situations. Part of these demanding conflict scenarios will come from the complexity and collision risk simulations performed within WP7.

Project Deliverables:

Id

Title

Date

Version

[D5.1]

Comparative Study of Conflict Resolution Methods by G. Chaloulos, J. Lygeros, I. Roussos, K. Kyriakopoulos, E. Siva, A. Lecchini-Visintini and P. Cásek

Jan 2010

Final

[D5.2]

Final

[D5.3]

Final

[D5.4]

Final

Papers published:

Id

Title

Date

Version

[P5.1]

Preprint for NIPS 2007

[P5.2]

Preprint for ACC2008

[P5.3]

Preprint for AIAA-GNCC 2008

[P5.4]

Preprint for NMPC 2008

[P5.5]

Preprint for INO Workshop 2007

[P5.6]

Preprint for CDC 2008

[P5.7]

Preprint for CDC 2008

[P5.8]

Preprint for CDC 2008

[P5.9]

Preprint for ACA Jun 2009

[P5.10]

Preprint for ECC 2009

[P5.11]

Preprint for ICRA 2009

[P5.12]

Preprint for ECC 2009

[P5.14]

Preprint for ECC 2009

[P5.15]

Preprint for CDC 2009

[P5.16]

Preprint for INO Workshop 2009

[P5.19]

Preprint for ICRAT 2010

[P5.20]

Preprint for ACC2010

[P5.21]

Preprint for ACC2010

[P5.22]

Preprint for MTNS 2010

[P5.23]

In IJACSP 2010

[P5.25]

Preprint for ATOS 2010

[P5.26]

Preprint for Wiley Online Library

[P5.27]

Preprint for DARS 2010

[P5.28]

Preprint for CDC 2010

[P5.29]

Preprint for CDC 2010

[P5.32]

Preprint for ICRAT 2010

[P5.33]

Preprint for IFAC 2011

[P5.34]

Preprint for HSCC 2011

[P5.35]

Preprint for IFAC 2011

[P5.37]

In IJACSP 2010

WP6: Cost-benefit analysis

Leader: Kostas Zografos (AUEB)

Followers: HNWL, Isdefe, NLR, EEC, ETHZ, UCAM

Objectives:

The objective of this work package is to assess the cost-benefit of en-route A³ operations. The operational benefits and costs associated with the introduction of A³ the concept will be identified and the conditions under which the proposed concept is viable will be determined. The WP will assess the cost related to the avionics baseline used by early ADS-B implementations in Europe and USA, (regulated respectively by EC surveillance implementing rule and FAA ADS-B mandate).

Work Description:

A necessary prerequisite for the practical implementation of any new Air Traffic Management (ATM) concept is the estimation of its potential positive (benefits) and negative (costs) impacts. Given the fact that the introduction of a new ATM concept may generate positive and negative impacts to all stakeholders, e.g. airlines, air traffic management organizations, air traffic controllers, etc., it is important to be able to consider in the evaluation process the goals and priorities of all affected parties. Furthermore, it is important to stress here the fact that the estimation of the various types of impacts, e.g. capacity, work load, delays, etc., due to the introduction of the autonomous aircraft concept should be quantified on the basis of alternative scenarios. Given, the organizational complexities arising from the participation of multiple stakeholders in the Air Traffic Management System, it is important to study the institutional and organizational issues associated with the implementation of the autonomous aircraft concept as well as to identify a strategy for the optimum implementation of the proposed concept. The WP will estimate the avionics package cost as part of the analysis, using avionics industry experience, and by making comparison against the baseline set by regulations for ADS-B driving the ADS-B equipage both in Europe and in the USA. For methodological purposes the proposed work will be divided into the following sub-WPs:

WP6.1: Development of a methodological framework for cost-benefit analysis. This sub-WP will develop the overall methodological framework for assessing the cost-benefit of the proposed A³ concept. The objectives and priorities of all involved stakeholders will be identified and indicators measuring the objectives of all stakeholders will be determined. Alternative scenarios, representing different achievement levels of the performance of the autonomous aircraft concept will be developed in cooperation with the involved stakeholders. The cost-benefit analysis will be based on the established scenarios through the quantification of the expected financial and operational impacts.

WP6.2: Institutional and Organizational issues. The objective of this sub-WP is to identify institutional and organizational barriers and enablers for the effective implementation of the autonomous aircraft concept. The relationship among the various ATM participants will be analyzed and the organizational and institutional changes needed for the successful implementation of the autonomous aircraft concept will be identified.

WP6.3: Data collection for cost-benefit analysis. The objective of this sub-WP is to collect the data needed for the implementation of the cost-benefit analysis. The collection of data will relate to : i) traffic projections for the horizon of analysis, ii) conversion of operational impacts into monetary benefits and costs, and iii) financial analysis data, i.e. interest rates , inflation rates etc.

WP6.4: Cost-benefit analysis and results assessment. In this sub-WP the data collected in WP6.3 will be analyzed using the cost-benefit technique identified in WP6.1. The results of the cost-benefit analysis will be assessed and the viability of the autonomous aircraft concept will be determined, on the basis of the analyzed scenarios. The interim results of this analysis will provide input to WP8.4.

Project Deliverables:

Id

Title

Date

Version

[D6.1]

Final

[D6.2]

Final

[D6.4]

Final

WP7: Accident risk and flight efficiency of A³ operation

Leader: Henk Blom (NLR)

Followers: TWEN, INRIA, HNWL, UCAM, ENAC, Isdefe, PoliMi, UTartu, EEC

Objectives:

The aim of this WP is to assess the A³ operations developed by WP1 and WP2, through hazard identification and Monte Carlo simulation on accident risk as a function of traffic demand, to assess what traffic demand can safely be accommodated by this advanced operational concept, and to assess the efficiency of the flights. The accident risk levels assessed should be in the form of an expected value, a 95% uncertainty area, and a decomposition of the risk level over the main risk contributing sources.  In order to accomplish this assessment through Monte Carlo simulation, the complementary aim of this WP is to further develop the innovative HYBRIDGE speed up approaches in rare event Monte Carlo simulation.

Work Description:

The work is organised in the following four sub-WPs:

WP7.1: Monte Carlo simulation model of A³ operation. The development of a Monte Carlo simulation model of A³ operation is accomplished through a sequence of steps. First a scoping has to be performed regarding the desired risk and capacity simulation study. An important aspect of this scoping is to identify the appropriate safety requirements to be derived from ICAO and ESARR4 regulation. Next a hazard identification and initial hazard analysis is performed for the A³ operation as has been developed by WP1 and WP2. After these preparations the main work can start: the development of a Monte Carlo simulation model that captures the accident risk and the flight efficiency of the A³ operation. Such a simulation model covers the human and technical agents, their interactions and both the nominal and non-nominal aspects of the operation.

WP7.2: Monte Carlo speed up methods. Within HYBRIDGE novel Monte Carlo simulation speed up techniques have successfully been developed and applied. As such, we start with a review of the Monte Carlo simulation based accident risk assessment situation. Subsequently, potential candidates are identified that are expected to provide significant room for the development of complementary speed-up and bias and uncertainty assessment techniques. In order to spread the risk as much as is possible, within this task various options for improvement are identified and these are subsequently elaborated and tested within parallel tasks. Several options are already known at the moment of proposal writing, e.g.:

• Develop an effective combination of Interacting Particle System based rare event simulation with Markov Chain Monte Carlo speed up technique.
• Develop a method to assess the sensitivity of multiple aircraft encounter geometries to collision risk, and develop importance sampling approaches which take advantage of these sensitivities.
• Develop novel ways how Interacting Particle System speed up techniques that apply to a pair of aircraft can effectively be extended to situations of multiple aircraft..
• Develop an efficient extension of Interacting Particle System based rare event simulation for application to hybrid systems.
• Combine Monte Carlo simulation based bias and uncertainty assessment with operation design parameter optimization.

Project Deliverables:

Id

Title

Date

Version

[D7.1a]

Accident risk and flight efficiency of A³ operation - Scoping and safety target - by H.A.P. Blom

Feb 2009

Final

[D7.1b]

Final

[D7.1c]

TBD

[D7.2a]

Review of risk assessment status for air traffic. Editors: H.A.P. Blom, J. Krystul, P. Lezaud and M.B. Klompstra

Jan 2009

Final

[D7.2b]

Final

[D7.2d]

Final

[D7.2e]

Final

[D7.2f]

Final

[D7.2g]

Final

[D7.4]

Final

Papers published:

Id

Title

Date

Version

[P7.1]

Preprint for CDC 2007

[P7.2]

Preprint for Eurocontrol Safety Seminar 2007

[P7.3]

Preprint for INO Workshop 2008

[P7.7]

Preprint for IEEE MED 2009

[P7.8]

Preprint for SYSID 2009

[P7.9]

Preprint for EPTCS20 2010

[P7.11]

Preprint for ACC 2011

[P7.12]

Preprint for SPA 2011

[P7.13]

Preprint for SESAR Innovation Days 2011

Complementary papers and reports:

Id

Title

Date

Version

[C7.1]

Preprint for IFAC 2008

WP8: A³ ConOps refinement

Leader: Vicente Bordón (Isdefe)

Followers: HNWL, NLR, AQUI, NATS, PoliMi, ETHZ, UTartu, Dedale, NTUA, UCAM, EEC, AUEB

Objectives:

The objective of WP8 is to refine the A³ ConOps and to develop a vision how A³ equipped aircraft can be integrated with SESAR concept. The key inputs to be used for the refinement are the innovative methods and architecture implications that are delivered by WP3, WP4 and WP5. In addition, use is made of feedback from WP2, WP6 and WP7. The WP will make use of results from global work performed by AP23 on ConOps (AP23 D3) and ASAS operational elements (AP23 D4) and integrate them. Because the requirements for the airborne and ground segments have to be developed following conventions and specific background from both domains, WP8 is performed in parallel with an airborne counterpart design WP9. The objective of WP8 thus also is to describe the non-airborne requirements in support of A³ equipped aircraft, working in close collaboration with WP9. Together, WP8 and WP9 form the second design cycle.

The rationale to be followed within iFly is that with increasing traffic levels the advantage of effective ATM ground support will increase, and at a certain traffic demand level there even is an absolute need to receive the best possible ATM ground support. Half a year prior to the end of the iFly project, the safety and cost-efficiency assessment results from WP6 and WP7 shall provide the key information on the performance of A³ operations as a function of traffic demand levels. From that moment on the A³ ConOps refinement cycle shall scale its design and the corresponding requirements to this full spectrum of traffic demand levels. In order to safely accommodate even higher traffic demand levels, then there is a theoretical need to make use of ground ATM support.

In practice, however, and also in line with the SESAR deployment sequence (D4), a possible gradual implementation of ASAS self separation into SESAR en-route environment is needed. In support of this gradual implementation view, within WP8 also a vision is developed regarding the SESAR necessary elements that are in support of A³ equipped aircraft. Again this leans significantly on the analysis of pilot responsibility, cognition and bottlenecks as will be performed within WP2. This is done in close cooperation with the airborne needs addressed within WP9, the strategic ground ATM options identified by SESAR, and the innovative methods developed in WP3, WP4 and WP5. Moreover, this includes the development of an integrated concept for air traffic flow management (ATFM). ATFM role may both increase and may go beyond the current centralized approach if this allows to take advantage of the opportunities autonomous aircraft operations will give in optimizing Gate-to-Gate operations for the airlines, but it focusses on en-route phase of flights. WP8 also takes SESAR ConOps and strategy into account as far as these have been developed at the start of WP8 tasks. Moreover, WP8 may deviate from SESAR ConOps or strategy if such deviation is properly justified.

Work Description:

The sub-WPs performed in this WP will be consolidated around the A³ concept that is targeted to:

• Ensure A³ equipped aircraft within SESAR to accommodate the target safety levels at busy traffic levels up to 6 times current busy en-route traffic levels.
• Ensure the interoperability between the A³ airborne and SESAR ground services.
• Improve on effective usage of available capacity within the A³ environment.

The WP is organised in five sub-WPs. WP8.1 takes the lessons learned from the mathematical WPs and integrates them into the ConOps for the A³ environment. WP8.2 called "Distributed Air Traffic Flow Management" will describe a concept for flow management which supports and emphasises the philosophy behind autonomous aircraft operations. WP8.3 develops a vision for fitting "A³ equipped aircraft within SESAR". Finally, in WP8.4 called "Non-airborne requirements in support of A³ environment" will identify the prerequisites for the non-airborne support to A³ (e.g. FOC, ATFM, SWIM, COM, etc.). Finally, WP8.5 identifies options for the potential mitigation of any cost-benefit or safety bottlenecks identified within WP6 and WP7.

WP8.1 Integration of mathematical results. The options still open within the A³ ConOps are now further analysed and consequentially reduced by taking advantage of the outcomes of the innovative methods under development by WP3, WP4 and WP5 for the:

Project Deliverables:

Id

Title

Date

Version

[D8.1]

Final

[D8.2]

Final

[D8.3]

Final

[D8.4]

Final

[D8.5]

Final

Papers published:

Id

Title

Date

Version

[P8.1]

Preprint for INO Workshop 2009

WP9: A³ Airborne design requirements

Leader: Petr Cásek (HNWL)

Followers: Isdefe, NLR, ENAC, UCAM, Dedale, ETHZ, UTartu, EEC, NTUA

Objectives:

The objectives of WP9 are summarised as follows:

1. To define the preliminary Safety and Performance Requirements (SPR) of the Autonomous Aircraft Operations Advanced Concept (the A³ concept) described in WP1; and
2. To use the results of the SPR process to define preliminary system design requirements for an airborne system to support the A³ concept.

The SPR process will be carried out in line with the methodology described in EUROCAE document ED-78A "Guidelines For Approval of The Provision and Use of Air Traffic Services Supported By Data Communications". The SPR process comprises preparation of an Operational Safety Assessment (OSA) and an Operational Performance Assessment (OPA) based on the A³ concept as described in an Operational Services and Environment Description (OSED). System design requirements can then be derived from the OSA and OPA results. The aim of WP9 is to perform a preliminary cycle through ED78A, with focus on strategic results and identifying the required technology pull.

For the purposes of exploitation, WP9 will produce a preliminary set of requirements. Follow on work will be required to increase the maturity level of the Safety and Performance Requirements and the System Design Requirements. The WP will identify, at the end of the work, areas that will need to be further analysed from a performance standpoint.

Work Description:

WP9.1 Operational Services and Environment Description (OSED)
This WP will develop an OSED describing the operational environment and the air traffic services required to support the A³ concept described in the High Level A³ ConOps delivered by WP1 and refined by WP8.1. To accomplish this, use is made of the A³ ConOps from WP1, the output of WP2, and the innovative methods from WP3, WP4 and WP5.

The OSED will be written based on an operational services and environment information capture process that co-ordinates the information among stakeholders. The process captures elements related to a defined CNS/ATM system, and will be expected to include aspects such as aircraft equipage, ATS provider technical system, communication service provider systems, and procedural requirements. The work performed in AP23 on OSED building from ASAS operational elements and ASAS avionics support functions will be analysed and used if necessary.

The OSED will identify the operational services and their intended operational environments and includes the operational performance expectations, functions, and selected technologies of the related CNS/ATM system. During this process, a high-level Functional System Description will also be developed.

The OSED facilitates the formulation of technical and procedural requirements based on operational expectations and needs and will be updated as necessary throughout the co-ordinated requirements determination process.

WP9.2 Operational Safety Assessment (OSA)
The OSA will be an assessment of the safety of the autonomous ATM concept described in the OSED produced in WP9.1, and will consist of two interrelated processes. First is an Operational Hazard Assessment (OHA) and second is an Allocation of Safety Objectives and Requirements (ASOR).

Operational Hazard Assessment (OHA)
The purpose and scope of the OHA will be to qualitatively assess operational hazards related to the advanced autonomous ATM concepts, and to establish safety objectives and candidate safety requirements related to each identified hazard.
Operational services will be examined to identify and classify hazards that could adversely effect those services. Hazards are classified according to a standardised classification scheme based on hazard severity, taking into account human factors. Overall safety objectives will be assigned to the identified hazards.

Allocation of safety objectives and requirements (ASOR)
Based on the results of the OHA, the ASOR will allocate safety objectives to organisations, develop risk mitigation strategies that are shared by multiple organisations, and allocate safety requirements to those organisations.
Requirements are allocated to the CNS/ATM system elements that provide the functional capability to perform the service and the stakeholders in control of or responsible for each of the elements. Understanding the interactions of the operational services, procedures, and airspace characteristics will assist in the identification of failures, errors, and/or combinations thereof that contribute significantly to the hazards identified in the OHA. It may be that the allocation requires updating based on feedback from other processes.

WP9.3 Operational Performance Assessment (OPA)
The main objective of the OPA will be to provide the airborne performance requirements for A³ operations. The definition and setting of the performance requirements are linked to the primary performance objectives (extracted from the OSED produced in WP9.1), as well as to safety analysis in WP9.2 and operational needs (WP1, WP8.1).
Performance requirements are the minimum operational requirements ensuring that end users can expect the same quality of services for the autonomous ATM concept in any airspace where the various elements of the CNS/ATM system meet these requirements.

WP9.4 Airborne System Design Requirements
This sub-WP will use the results of the OPA and OSA processes to define the preliminary system design requirements for airborne systems to support the A³ operations. In addition, interim results of the assessment cycle (WP6 and WP7) and the second design cycle (WP8) will be taken into account and a first estimation of their impact on airborne requirements will be provided. WP9.4 will as well collaborate with WP8 which will develop requirements from the non-airborne perspective.

Project Deliverables:

Id

Title

Date

Version

[D9.1]

Final

[D9.2]

Final

[D9.3]

Final

[D9.4]

Final

WP10: Dissemination-related activities

Leader: Henk Blom (NLR)

Followers: UCAM, ETHZ, NTUA, AUEB, HNWL, UTartu, Isdefe, INRIA, AQUI, TWEN, Dedale, EEC, NATS, PoliMi

Objectives:

The objectives of this Work Package are to disseminate and exploit iFly results in order to ensure the appropriate involvement of the major European stakeholders on the project activity, and to recommend the optimal use of the project results.

Dissemination and exploitation of project results is considered of primary importance for all the partners involved in the iFly project. Recommendations will be made as input to future tasks and studies.

Work Description:

This WP is specifically dedicated to the exploitation and the dissemination of the project results and will be refined during the execution of the project to take into account new market products, user contact, research work results, partner activities, etc. To ensure a careful co-ordination of the dissemination and exploitation activities, an Exploitation Manager will be appointed.

WP10.1 Studies on socio-economic aspects
Assessment of the expected socio-economic impact of the knowledge and technology generated, as well as analysis of the factors that would influence their exploitation is foreseen on the following:

• Standardisation; reporting on the possibility to adapt separation minima (is included by WP7 final report); in co-ordination with RESET.
• Development of overall validation strategy/plan, which also takes into account certification to advanced conflict resolution methods (Deliverable D10.1).

WP10.2 Dissemination activities
The dissemination of project results will rely on the usual mechanisms for publishing scientific research. That is, the partners will place little or no restrictions on the availability of the results (beyond respecting the usual commercial confidentiality), and will provide the documentation to relevant scientific libraries and establishments and publish papers in relevant journals and conference proceedings. The use of e-mail and Internet will be considered to maximise the speed and effectiveness of the dissemination.

As indicated in the company profiles, key iFly partners belong to the ATM/ASAS research community and are active members of CARE ASAS, ASAS Thematic network, FAA-EUROCONTROL action plans, EUROCONTROL Programme Steering Groups on ADS, AGC, as well as industry groups such as EUROCAE, and the Requirements Focus Group (RFG). Therefore, dissemination of project results is both automatically assured and well facilitated. The list of activities to be managed include:

• Presentations and publications and presentations to mathematical audience by WP3, WP4, WP5 and WP7 (IEEE conferences and journals) (D10.2.1.a-j)
• Presentations and publications to civil aviation audience by WP1, WP2, WP6, WP7, WP8 and WP9 (USA/Europe ATM conferences and AIAA or IEEE-DASC conferences)
• Presentations at ASAS Thematic Network workshops (September 2007, November 2008) (D10.2.2a)
• Workshop on the mathematics of autonomous aircraft jointly with a conference, e.g AIAA or IEEE-DASC conference (D10.2.2b)
• Summer School on autonomous aircraft concept design and validation (D10.2.2c)
• Intermediate presentations of the iFly project to the aviation community (December 2008 at Eurocontrol, Bretigny) (D10.2.2.d)
• Final presentation of the iFly project results to the aviation community (February 2011 at Eurocontrol, Bretigny) (D10.2.2.e)
• Web-based activities aiming at disseminating the knowledge and technology produced (iFly web) (D10.2.3a) + Eurocontrol Experimental Centre e-letter (D10.2.3b)
• Final iFly executive project report (D10.2.4); this report will collate the conclusions of the iFly Project.

WP10.3 Activities promoting the exploitation of the results:
As a part of the overall dissemination and exploitation policy, partners involved on the project consider the exploitation of project results of primary importance and are all committed to achieve that goal. The main channel for this is the SESAR programme.

In addition to this, exploitation of project results externally to the consortium could facilitate:

• ATC National Service Providers to obtain the information needed to estimate how the proposed procedures could affect the ATM system and plan well in advance system enhancements to accommodate ASAS applications.
• Commercial airlines and airspace users to get the basic knowledge to understand ASAS procedures and be prepared for the possible avionic upgrades.
• Industry to identify the needs related to the implementation of new ASAS procedures and provide useful direction for their research on new systems/tools.
• Applied Research Centres to address the problems related to this area, thus leading to more efficient ASAS operations and procedure design and a clear validation process.
• Universities to analyse fundamental properties of the concept where separation maintenance is distributed.
• Regulatory bodies to take advantage of the recommended draft procedures with related Safety reports.
• For “take-up” activities of the innovative methods developed by the academic partners contact is made with small companies, e.g. Cambridge Performance Solutions, in the UK, Neo MetSys in France, etc.

Project Deliverables:

Id

Title

Date

Version

[D10.1i]

Intermediate

[D10.1]

Final

[D10.2.1]

Scientific papers

[D10.2.2]

Workshop and presentations

[D10.2.3]

iFly website

[D10.2.4]

Final

Papers published:

Id

Title

Date

Version

[P10.1]

Preprint for AIAA-ATIO 2007

[P10.3]

Preprint for ISSC 2008

[P10.3]

Preprint for ISSC 2008

[P10.4]

Preprint for APISAT 2009

[P10.5]

Preprint for AIAA ATIO 2009

[P10.7]

PhD Thesis

[P10.8]

PhD Thesis

Complementary papers and reports:

Id

Title

Date

Version

[C10.1]

Preprint for AIAA ATIO 2008

[C10.2]

Preprint for ATM Seminar 2009