ANASTASIA - Airborne New and Advanced Satellite Techniques and Technologies in a System Integrated Approach
Overview
Background & policy context:
In the first 20 years of the 21st century, air traffic is expected to approximately double in volume.
Future satellite-based navigation and communication systems should play a central role in this domain, allowing increased efficiency of airspace use, which will in turn help increase airspace and airport capacities and consequently the overall efficiency of air transport in carrying more passengers safely. In addition, the better management of airspace and time spent in flight will have a positive impact on air pollution, noise and fuel consumption.
Objectives:
The overall scientific & technical objective of ANASTASIA was to define navigation and communications avionics based on satellite services that would best meet the needs of civil aviation in the period 2010 to 2020. The project defined an optimised avionics architecture and the resulting recommendations for ground and space infrastructures. It included the preliminary system development of advanced airborne systems for flight trial evaluation and the dissemination of the results for standardisation activities.
The core of ANASTASIA research is to provide on-board Communication Navigation and Surveillance (CNS) solutions to cope with the foreseen doubling of air traffic by 2020.
In the navigation domain, ANASTASIA carried out research to define technology and system architectures for the navigation function, expected to allow the development of a new generation of airborne GNSS receivers for all phases of flight. Such systems offer accurate and safe global navigation while reducing the avionics cost through the optimisation of the number and complexity of onboard equipment.
On the communication side, the work focused on the design and implementation of a prototype, an affordable aeronautical satellite communications system to meet the evolving European ATM requirements. Research was also carried out into higher bandwidth services, systems and airborne equipment to meet impending aircraft communication requirements efficiently, including both future ATM and passenger needs.
The future needs of surveillance were consolidated with the requirements and key technology prototypes from communications and navigation.
The work conducted in the ANASTASIA project ranged from the elaboration of operational needs to simulations and flight trials with validated avionics architectures and key technologies.
The main goal was to pave the way for the introduction of new satellite-based technologies into aircraft operations, in both navigation and communication.
The main outcome of ANASTASIA was a package of recommendations for future civil aircraft operations, and a set of evaluated technologies and avionics architectures achievable from 2010 that will enable a more autonomous, satellite-based aircraft operation.
Methodology:
The work is divided into six main Sub-Projects (SP), the objectives of which are the following:
- Project management (Sub-Project 1): To manage the consortium, report to the Commission and ensure coordination amongst the partners.
- Needs and Aircraft Requirements (Sub-Project 2): The objective is to identify the requirements for future CNS functions for both business jets and air-transport, and to propose candidate architectures for the new satellite based navigation and communication systems. Towards the end of the project, the initial trade-off matrix between the architectures will be updated to take into account the results of the technology studies and flight trials performed in Sub-Projects 3, 4, and 5.
- Space-Based Navigation Technologies (Sub-Project 3): This Sub-Project will investigate the techniques and technologies that must be implemented for optimal use of the new Global Navigation Satellite System, including GPS and GALILEO constellations, in a future on-board navigation system. The investigated solutions will include antenna design, advanced signal processing, receiver integration and hybridisation techniques with low cost inertial sensors.
- Space-Based Communication Technologies (Sub-Project 4): The aim of this Work Package is to identify and describe the optimum system that could provide the on-board communications services. The overall system will be defined, then the activities will be focused on the design, prototype and evaluation of the critical technologies for the on-board part.
- Operational Characterisation and Evaluation (Sub-Project 5): The central activity of the work package is to verify, in a quasi-realistic environment, the behaviour and performance of key navigation and communication technologies. Most of the performances will be assessed in simulation or lab tests, but for the most critical tests, the assessment will be made through flight tests.
- Dissemination (Sub-Project 6): Throughout the project, the ANASTASIA results will be presented to a number of stakeholders in order to ensure that all their requirements have been taken into account, and to contribute to the establishment of the future standards and regulations in the on-board, satellite-based avionics domain
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