Overview
Air transport technology is heavily influenced by safety concerns. Its safety record justifies this approach. Compared with the general market, the volume, both for aircraft avionics and for ground systems is relative minor. This combination results in a slow evolution of the technology deployed and a very limited use of commercial of-the-shelf (COTS) products. Nevertheless the evolution tends to be technology driven instead of user driven due to the complex aeronautical issues involved. Typical implementation times for new technologies are measured in decades, as illustrated by certified GPS approaches in the navigation domain (versus massive GPS use in the general domain, cars and the maritime domain), and the still incumbent ATN (Aeronautical Telecommunication Network) versus massive use of mobile communication in the general domain.
Air transport is expected to grow in the long term, despite the temporal downturns like the one after the 11 September 2001 attacks in the USA. It is a widely held view that this expected traffic volume can only be accommodated by a paradigm shift away form the current concepts and ways of working. Rising delays reinforce the business need for more responsiveness of the air transport system to user needs instead of the current practice of innovation based on technological opportunities.
On the operational side, a number of air-ground integration concepts are currently being conceived. These range from short-term improvements like ADS-C and CPDLC, through Airborne Separation Assurance System (ASAS) to the long-term vision of Co-operative ATS (COOPATS) of Eurocontrol for the European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC) area or Distributed Air-Ground Traffic Management (DAG-TM) of NASA for the USA. These concepts are based on integrating the airside and the groundside comprising amongst others integration of the navigation capabilities with the communication systems. Note that the Co-operative ATS concepts naturally uses the notion of service and the notion that advanced services are build upon more primitive services.
Key objectives have been to:
- Reinforce the need for more responsiveness in terms of a new approach and new technologies through investigating – within the framework of air-ground and ground-ground digital aeronautical communications – the viability and benefits of adopting an approach based on service oriented architecture and distributed systems;
- investigate a COOPATS and DAG-TM enabling technology by providing an architectural software environment allowing for advance services to be easily built upon more primitive services, investigate an enabling technology for the deployments of Co-operative ATS (COOPATS) and DAG-TM concepts;
- address certification issues through investigating the issues associated with certification of the proposed architecture by assessing the potential impacts of the involved technologies on the methods and development and deployment processes.
The high degree of innovation the TALIS project puts forward can be seen as three main pillars:
- Technology;
- Architecture; and
- Project management.
Technology
The use of state-of-the-art technology (Java, Enterprise JavaBeans, JINI) for the aeronautical sector is new. The wish to use code mobility technology for a highly flexible and dynamic system is also new. In addition, applying the paradigm of mass-market commercial-off-the-shelf for the avionics is new, especially for flight critical functions, and must therefore be supported with specially focused R and D for avionics certification issues.
Architecture
The architectural innovation is very high, and the applied principles of distributed and federated software components, and the needed architectures to support these, will con-tribute to other high-end research efforts in general Information Technology research. The output of the architecture work packages will be published in an open process, com-parable to industrial standardisation processes, which is also new for the aeronautical sector, and the benefits will therefore not be limited to the air transport sector. The generic TALIS architecture will enable almost unlimited extensions for additional applications, and will allow to other third parties to add value.
Project Management
Innovation in TALIS project management is high in applying the Unified Software Development Process, with an expected improvement of project efficiency and herewith cost. The outcome of the project will have a higher chance to succeed, due to the iterative and incremental approach that is being taken. The deliverables will also be closer to the analysts' intentions, facilitating the trace-ability that will be enabled by user requirements captured with use-cases. The iterative and incremental management process is especially useful for R&D projects, as early results can relatively easily influence the later work. That means that the management process is not only beneficial as a whole, but is especially relevant for this type of project.
Funding
Results
TALIS has been an innovating project, on several levels. Key findings can be summarised as:
- Conceiving the services concept for global, interoperable and dynamic availability of services;
- creating a federated architecture for dynamic and component based service infrastructures;
- integrating the principles of a flight deck browser for information;
- conceiving applications for increased pilot situational awareness;
- innovating the traffic information service in contract mode;
- innovating weather service;
- innovating a total information sharing protocol, ready for standardisation;
- studying contextual information for intelligent systems;
- creating an open system to enable a community process;
- basing on commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software for cheaper and more reliable systems; and
- using Java portability for very dynamic, self-healing systems.
For demonstration and verification of these features, the TALIS project developed a prototype at the premises of Thales Avionics in Toulouse, which shows a cockpit simulator with the enhanced capabilities, a Java-based TALIS infrastructure, and the two initial TALIS application servers.
Policy implications
The high costs of air-ground integration is understood to be a major problem. All technologies supporting the integration of air and ground systems take a long time from research until implementation, due to massive safety concerns, the costs of avionics integration, and the necessity for global deployment of infrastructures.
Hence typical implementation cycles for new aviation technologies are measured in decades rather than in years as is the case e.g. for car or in the maritime sector.
The TALIS concept targets the shortening of time-to-market for new avionics packages, and herewith reduces the costs of implementation through provision of early benefits coming from an earlier deployment of the operational concepts. Also, TALIS attempts to lower the production costs of new packages, making intensive use of commercial-off-the-shelf software (COTS).
TALIS came up with an impressive list of ideas for continuing work, which covers on one hand some important continuation mainly for validating the
innovative concepts, and on the other hand injects an entire bunch of new items and research suggestions that would be useful for investigations. The concept of intelligent and mobile transport systems has just been started to be explored, it bears a very high potential for research, with useful applications for the travelling public and the air transport system, increased intellectual property for the research community, and last but not least overall benefits to the European society.
Air
Key findings
TALIS has been an innovating project, on several levels. Key findings can be summarised as:
- conceiving the services concept for global, interoperable and dynamic availability of services;
- creating a federated architecture for dynamic and component based service infrastructures;
- integrating the principles of a flight deck browser for information;
- conceiving applications for increased pilot situational awareness;
- innovating the traffic information service in contract mode;
- innovating weather service;
- innovating a total information sharing protocol, ready for standardisation; and
- studying contextual information for intelligent systems.
For demonstration and verification of these features, the TALIS project developed a prototype at the premises of Thales Avionics in Toulouse, which shows a cockpit simulator with the enhanced capabilities, a Java-based TALIS infrastr