Overview
Significant increase in air traffic and congestion requires a future European Air Traffic Management System which uses new technologies. The ATM system will be implemented by gradual introduction of innovative subsystems developed within several projects. Although these subsystems will have their own validation, an overall modular ATM system validation is also necessary. Based on an assessment of the ATM system configuration in comparison with the expected ATM goals, decisions will be taken to adopt alternative technologies or procedures.
The main objective of the ASIVAL project is to provide a consistent, concrete and feasible modular validation process for the future ATM system.
The objectives consist of the following key points:
- To identify classes of requirements for overall validation of the future European Air Traffic Management System.
- To classify the elements of the future EATMS scenario with respect to overall validation.
The project will involve:
- Identifying and characterising a candidate scenario for a European ATM system on the basis of a review of related studies.
- Providing a workable statement of an ATM system breakdown strategy for overall validation.
- Assessing ongoing and foreseen validation activities to identify the best system and component configuration.
- Being part of a concerted action for validation with the projects GENOVA and CASCADE.
Funding
Results
The survey of validation activities performed by ASIVAL showed that much work has already been done and is being done for the validation of the ATM system. However, it was also clear from this survey that many validation needs are not yet being met and that validation of ATM is not manageable as a whole.
ASIVAL proposed an approach based on a system breakdown strategy for overall validation, consisting of 22 validation configurations, which correspond to several different operational contexts. This breakdown has been assessed for two European target ATM systems (the current view of the system in 2005 and 2015). Short-term actions were also identified, relating to practical issues:
- decisions to be taken;
- identification of required validation platforms, allowing the implementation of proposed validation configurations;
- the implementation of these platforms if required.
Policy implications
The ASIVAL ATM system validation approach provides both national and
European level authorities with an effective tool for decision making in
air transport policy implementation, (e.g. policies aiming at increasing
the transport capacity, defining new working positions for controllers,
implementing a new flight data processing system, etc.).