Overview
Air traffic is increasing significantly thus a future European Air Traffic Management system is important for improved efficiency and safety. A functional architecture requirements analysis is an essential and mandatory step for the development of a future European ATM system. The more conceptual work of Projects, ADORA and FACTOR need a validation exercise as a follow-on activity.
The main objectives of the PROCTOR study are to define a prototyping and general ATM concept validation exercise and to develop a specific validation methodology suitable for concepts at subsystem level for a chosen satellite application.
PROCTOR will involve:
- Development of a validation methodology for a chosen satellite application.
- Analysis of the applicability of different validation methodologies across a range of functional concepts.
- Development of a business plan to enable the ATM provider to assess the technical and commercial risks associated with any proposal for a full validation of concepts.
Funding
Results
The project has developed a validation methodology able to analyse simultaneously the impact of a concept implementation at the highest operational level, with respect to user-defined objectives and performance indicators, and the technical feasibility of the concept with respect to technologies deemed available for supporting its implementation.
The modelling framework developed includes the four key elements of:
- an abstract service and its implementation;
- implementation dependency links in terms of requirements and constraints;
- quality of service characteristics representing a performance profile for the chosen test case;
- specific quality of service viewpoints and their translation into a set of constraints enabling validation.
For each quality of service viewpoint, the validation process compares the top-down performance required with the bottom-up performance available, and checks for margins, implying a success in validation, or gaps, implying a failure.
The results of an exercise on the ADS-C (Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Contract) test case have shown that the PROCTOR model is able to provide useful indications of the validity of a particular implementation of a chosen test case. The flexibility of the model has been demonstrated through the ability to add new services and alternative viewpoints and to incorporate better input data, as it becomes available.
Policy implications
The use of simple spreadsheets to implement the PROCTOR methodology gives to the model an easy-to-use property, which is important for its usability in the global aviation community. Once the initial validation performed by the PROCTOR model is complete, there will be a need to use more sophisticated modelling techniques, which takes into account factors such as dependent events and human factors.
The greatest potential use for the PROCTOR model is as a tool for obtaining a first impression on the validity of a cluster of concepts. This will be particularly beneficial when making decisions about how to best progress along the EATMS (European Air Traffic Management System) development lifecycle of a chosen application.