Coordination of military contribution
SESAR will share expertise and resources, create an environment of openness and transparency, and deliver economies of scale. For the military, it is vital to play a role without underestimating the challenges due to varied and complex missions.
From the military perspective all work packages dealing with performance, master planning, concept development, security and developing interoperability are of interest.
Interview with Denis Koehl
Denis Koehl, Military Adviser to SESAR-JU Executive Director, gives an ...
With its long-standing expertise at the civil-military interface, EUROCONTROL supports numerous SESAR work packages to ensure the full integration of military requirements and interoperability between systems.
The Single European Sky (SES) will change the way skies over Europe are managed and used. These changes have a significant potential to provide substantial benefits for the civil air transport system and military aviation alike. Therefore, successful civil-military coordination and cooperation processes are essential. Integrating both civil and military requirements into one ATM system will guarantee unrestricted access to airspace to all users and minimise the implementation cost.
Civil-military requirements are contained in the SESAR Master Plan. As a consequence, all SESAR work packages address civil-military interoperability issues. The enhanced civil-military cooperation and coordination must develop new mechanisms, criteria and structures to improve ATM efficiency and cost-effectiveness through a more integrated civil-military management of the European airspace.
Following the decision of the military ATM directors to use EUROCONTROL working arrangements to provide the military contribution to SESAR, the Agency is proposing to contribute to all projects impacting the military. This involvement, although limited in some cases, is crucial to ensure military buy-in and the overall consistency of technical solutions. The available resources will be mainly used at the beginning of the projects to ensure that the military dimension is covered by the detailed operational requirements and technical specifications and at the end in support of the validations.
Military involvement in SESAR activities, with the support of the military authorities through EUROCONTROL, provides expertise and capabilities to:
- validate the operational concept from a civil-military standpoint;
- participate in the development of a secure system-wide information management (SWIM) environment;
- contribute to cost-benefit analyses/financial studies;
- support the definition of civil-military interoperability solutions for avionics and ground systems.
EUROCONTROL is supported in this commitment by stakeholders at all levels of the Organisation. The participation of military experts at national level has proven essential to ascertain the right focus and achieve mutually beneficial results throughout the development phase.
The EUROCONTROL civil-military ATM coordination unit (DSS/CMAC) is involved in the following Work Packages of the SESAR Development Phase:
- High-Level Target Concept & Architecture Maintenance (including Military Key Performance Indicators). The main tasks are to develop the ATM business model and operational goals by including military aspects, to update and refine the CONOPS and develop a common understanding of the Mission Trajectory.
- Master Plan maintenance and SESAR standardisation roadmap (including military ATM/CNS requirements). The main tasks are to support the maintenance of a ‘roadmap of OIs’ (Operational Improvements) and ensure military consultation, to develop a civil-military standardisation roadmap and support the initiation of such standards and the development of business cases.
- Civil-military specifications for the validation of infrastructure adaptation and integration where the main tasks are the validation of infrastructure acceptance plans, infrastructure requirements, technical specifications and platform acceptance.
- Civil-military en-route operations where the main task is to ensure that the en-route operations concept is acceptable for the Mission Trajectory, applicable to CUMA and not negatively impacting military aircraft operations for civil airports.
- Civil-military TMA operations where some of the tasks are to capture military needs and ensure the defined solution addresses them, as well as to identify the specific civil-military issues of civil-military cooperative planning in a joint Civil-military TMA or the joint use of an airport.
- Airport Operations which consists of development and validation of mixed civil-military operations at military airports in a manner consistent with the overall airport concept of operations.
- Information Management which consists of information model development where the civil-military requirements for information exchange are ensured.
- Civil-military datalink interoperability, ADS-B capability for military aircraft and use of FMS-like mission systems supporting the 4D Mission Trajectory. This includes the feasibility of re-using military aircraft MMS, interoperability with current and future military datalinks (SWIM air/ground capability), and interoperability studies on military platform ability to cope with the operational use of GNSS baseline.
- ATC system support for trajectory and airspace management where the military dimension during the development of the ATC system is included.
- Network Information Management System (NIMS): technical definition of system supporting airspace management, flight planning management, aeronautical information distribution including the military aspects.
- System-wide Information Management (SWIM): monitor SWIM progress and integration to ensure appropriate use of SWIM for information/data sharing between applications/systems from a military stakeholder viewpoint.
- CNS system addressed civil-military interoperability aspects, surveillance services and interfacing with pan-European IP-based networks.
