The challenges of integrating Higher Airspace Operations (HAO) are also being addressed at the Innovation Hub. These are very different challenges but are part of the same process of looking at how a future ATM digital airspace architecture can be developed to flexibly manage all types of crewed and uncrewed aircraft.
The Innovation Hub has a research agreement with Ente Nazionale per l'Aviazione Civile (ENAC), Italy’s civil aviation authority to prepare, execute real-time simulations (RTS) on the Hub’s ESCAPE simulator to validate how ATM can be adapted to accommodate a range of Higher Airspace Operations and Commercial Space Transportation such as suborbital flights and orbital re-entry operations.
A spaceport is being developed at Grottaglie Airport to host suborbital flights as early as 2027 and 2028 and the Hub will provide vital real-time simulations of the operation, bringing together civil and military controllers, to validate both “nominal” and “non-nominal” operations.
The Hub’s simulator is being used not only to collaborate with ENAC and support the Italian roadmap towards the accommodation of those new operations, but also to contribute to the validation roadmap of the SESAR ECHO 2 programme and in particular, to validate other airspace entrant operations such as High-Altitude Platform Systems (HAPS) missions.
The heterogeneity of these operations presents unique challenges in terms of performance and airspace integration.
According to Innovation Hub validation expert Stefano Tiberia: “Our primary focus is on two key phases: accommodation and integration. Initially, accommodation allows new entrants into the airspace without significant changes to existing ATM systems. This involves designated times or areas for these operations, ensuring safety and efficiency for traditional airspace users. The ultimate goal, however, is full integration, where new entrants are treated as equal participants within the ATM system, necessitating substantial modifications to ATM policies, procedures and technologies. The impact of these operations on current airspace users and the ATM, particularly ATC, is a central concern and the main validation objective of the simulations.”
Slow-moving, high altitude HAPS aircraft – which can operate for weeks and months at flight levels above FL550 serving as communications platforms for rural areas – pose several challenges to ATM. The vehicles are very slow in the climb and descent through commercial airspace. Today, the very few that are flying require complete segregation from other aircraft but as the number of these vehicles increases more integrated, digital procedures will be required.
“The simulator will also be used to understand how future supersonic and hypersonic aircraft can be accommodated within the current airspace architecture and finally integrated,” said Stefano Tiberia. “It has become clear for a while that we will have to modernise our legacy simulation platform to adapt to new ATM technologies and new airspace users.”
The Hub is developing a new platform which will allow researchers by the end of the decade to provide more wide-ranging, flexible and holistic simulations.
“The current platform requires all stakeholders, such as controllers and pilots, to travel to Brétigny if they want to undertake major real-time simulations,” said Stefano Tiberia. “Even if performing simulation with all actors in the same site is a strong and valuable asset that we need to keep, we want to develop a platform that allows cloud-based operations to allow actors to participate remotely. We are currently limited to 40 or 50 controller positions, but we will need to carry out much larger simulations. We undertake some cross-border simulations now but the new platform will open up many more possibilities for these operations, with more complex simulations requiring far less preparatory time.
“The new systems will also allow all stakeholders – regulators, airports, ANSPs, airspace users – to understand how they will integrate their operations in future airspace architectures. It will allow us, for the first time, to look at how a fully integrated airspace, from drones operating a few hundred feet from the ground to high altitude platforms along with hypersonic aircraft could be developed, managed and scaled.”