Overview
Member States of the European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC) undertake validation of their Air Traffic Management (ATM) systems in a fairly rigorous manner. Nevertheless, the approaches to validation taken by these States are, in general, not consistent. There is, consequently, a need to harmonise the approaches and methodologies for validation in Europe, which the GENOVA project was designed to satisfy.
The overall objective of the GENOVA project was to harmonise existing validation processes in order to develop a generic validation methodology. The specific objectives included the following:
- to review ATM systems and identify existing validation activities;
- to develop a generic approach to validation, compatible with existing system development;
- to identify and assess validation methods and techniques;
- to develop a Validation Process, Strategy and Plan;
- to identify and develop a validation environment with respect to organisational aspects.
Funding
Results
Important results were achieved in three main areas:
- the process of validation;
- methods and techniques;
- organisation.
The recommended validation process divides validation into layers, identifies the most significant products of validation and provides a step-by-step approach to tackling validation in a harmonised manner. The methods and techniques were assessed with regard to their limitations, advantages, disadvantages, etc. New methods and techniques and a validation toolbox (defined as a collection of methods, techniques, tools and facilities which, can be mutually coupled and used jointly for overall validation) were developed. Finally, from the organisational point of view, recommendations were made in order to harmonise the validation process at European level.
Policy implications
Some important organisational needs were identified:
- an organisation, at the European level, composed of all actors in ATM, in charge of the selection of high level objectives for the validation of ATM;
- a European body, at the ATM configuration layer, in charge of providing guidelines and methodology for validation process;
- regulatory authorities for qualification and certification of overall ATM;
- a European organisation in charge of the definition of methods to be used to record and organise Users Requirements, and having responsibility for maintaining the repository of Users Requirements.