FACTOR - Development of Functional Concepts from the EATMS Operational Requirements
Overview
Background & policy context:
A future European Air Traffic Management system is envisaged to improve safety and efficiency, while in parallel, transport volume is increasing significantly. A functional architecture requirements analysis is an essential and mandatory step for the development of a future European ATM system. A process of deriving from the operational requirements the functional concepts, can be developed in its own right in a simultaneous action. The process of definition of future ATM is of iterative nature.
Objectives:
The main objectives of the FACTOR study are to develop a comprehensive and representative set of functional concepts from the EATMS operational requirements and, based on earlier projects, to define assessment criteria and to develop an assessment methodology for the functional concepts. The study is a fundamental building block for the development of operational ATM concepts.
Methodology:
The FACTOR methodology is based on a five stage iterative process which can be entered at any point depending upon the requirements of the assessment to be undertaken. The main elements are:
- mapping of concepts into user requirements and the invariant process model respectively;
- carrying out assessment on a concept by concept basis across all relevant invariant processes.
Two tasks complementary to FACTOR were also carried out in parallel under another project, FACTOR/CAT, funded by EUROCONTROL. These were the entry of a subset of the functional concepts into a database and the definition of the relationships between the functional concepts and the user requirements. This work was necessary to provide links between previous ETC work and the work of the FACTOR project, as well as providing a testing ground for the methodology.
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