ATC-WAKE - Integrated Air Traffic Control Wake Vortex Safety and Capacity System
Overview
Background & policy context:
With the steady increase in air traffic, civil aviation authorities are under continuous pressure to increase aircraft handling capacity. One potential approach is to reduce the separation distance between aircraft at take-off and landing without compromising safety. One major limiting factor is that aircraft always give each other a wide berth to avoid each another's wake turbulence (aircrafts create wake vortices when taking off and landing). With the aid of smart planning techniques, however these distances can be safely reduced, significantly increasing airport capacity.
The ATC-WAKE project aimed to develop and build an integrated system for ATC (Air Traffic Control) that would allow variable aircraft separation distances, as opposed to the fixed distances presently applied at airports. When used with new European Wake Vortex Safety Regulation, ATC-WAKE is able to provide airports and aircraft handling organisations a significant increase in punctuality and capacity, while maintaining safety.
This project was undertaken in the context of the EUROCONTROL Safety Regulatory Requirements (ESARRs) and the ICAO wake vortex induced separation criteria.
Objectives:
The main objective of ATC-WAKE was to develop and build an integrated ATC Wake Vortex Safety and Capacity platform. A variety of existing subsystems is integrated such that this platform is used within a test bed environment role:
- To evaluate the interoperability of the ATC-WAKE system with existing ATC systems currently used at various European airports;
- To assess the safety and capacity improvements that can be obtained by local installation of the ATC-WAKE system at various European airports;
- To evaluate operational usability and acceptability of the ATC-WAKE system;
- To make a plan and to assess the costs for further implementation and exploitation of the ATC-WAKE IP platform into the system that can be installed at European airports).
A further aim was to analyse both tactical and strategic benefits of using this integrated system at various European airports. This project provides both:
- Tactical benefits, in terms of temporary capacity increases, and improving the management of arrival flows while reducing holding.
- Strategic benefits, in terms of long-term runway capacity for airline schedule planning.
The proposed time frame for local installation of the integrated system at European airports was 2010, which implies that the project's baseline was the airport environment with infrastructure systems at that time.
The integrated platform will be extendable, such that evaluation of future systems and concepts will be feasible after completion of ATC-WAKE.
Methodology:
The main scope of ATC-WAKE was to develop and build an integrated ATC Wake Vortex Safety and capacity platform. The project followed five steps:
Step 1: System Requirements - Defining the requirements of the system included the operational requirements, the operational concepts and procedures, the users' requirements, and the system requirements themselves.
Step 2: Integrated System Design and Evaluation - This step involved the building of the platform, integrating all subsystems. These subsystems included Wake vortex prediction and monitoring system, weather forecasting and monitoring systems, aircraft spacing predictor, and human machine interface for air traffic controllers. Evaluation of the technical feasibility of the system was also carried out.
Step 3: Safety and Capacity Analysis - This step focused on a thorough assessment of safety and capacity improvements (tactical and strategic benefits) owed to the system's use. Safe and appropriate separation distances were determined for single runways (arrivals and departures) and closely spaced parallel runway arrivals.
Step 4: Evaluation of Operational Feasibility - The evaluation of the operational feasibility of the system included: analysis of the interoperability with existing ATC systems, and the usability and acceptability by air traffic controllers.
Step 5: Technological Implementation Plan (TIP) - The Technological Implementation Plan was set up in accordance with the guidelines from the EC. This was carried out in co-ordination with a User Group members and representatives of the aerospace and ATM community.
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