HARMONIC

Harmonised network through smart technology and collaboration

HARMONIC is a SESAR 3 industrial research project that focuses on enhancing air traffic demand and capacity balancing (DCB).

THIS IS PART OF
Innovation, research and simulation

Objectives

The project goal is to advance air traffic flow and capacity management tools and methodologies for key actors across the network, as well as to improve coordination abilities between the stakeholders. To achieve this, the activities will focus on the following objectives:

  • Enhance collaboration and communication: Promote improved collaboration and communication between local and network-level actors to support the implementation of the new Flow Concept of Operations (CONOPS).
  • Optimise demand-capacity balancing: Implement solutions to automate demand management processes, optimise capacity utilisation and enable more effective decision-making.
  • Improve dynamic airspace configurations: Enhance certain aspects of the dynamic airspace configurations concept to better manage airspace capacity. Provide supporting tools to allow humans to work efficiently in a complex and dynamic environment.
  • Validate multi-constraint reconciliation: Elevate DCB to a new level with tools that allow stakeholders to express their business needs while ensuring correct capacity utilisation.
  • Validate tools for civil-military collaboration: Test and validate a set of tools designed to improve collaboration between civil and military entities, ensuring flexible and cooperative capacity provision.

Solutions

The project proposes two solutions to achieve the outlined objectives.

Leader: EUROCONTROL

Solution 0381: Enhanced Demand Management

Air traffic is surging, with local levels reaching pre-COVID numbers. Staff shortages and limited capacity at air traffic management (ATM) organisations have led to significant delays in recent years. The congestion problem is expected to persist, requiring innovative strategies to optimise capacity use and offer airlines greater operational flexibility.

Previous SESAR research demonstrated significant efficiency gains by selecting optimal flights and demand measures. Key results include the benefits of "what-if" tools for exploring demand measures and the importance of harmonised solutions involving all stakeholders. However, limitations remain in performance and user input criteria.

The Enhanced Demand Management solution aims to support local actors, such as local traffic managers (LTM) and extended ATC planners (EAPs) as well as the EUROCONTROL Network Manger Operations Centre (NMOC) to define solutions based on improved flight selection and measure choices. This approach ensures flexibility and equity for airlines while harmonising requests from all stakeholders.

Key objectives:

  • Automated support: Enhance what-if simulations and flight selection functionalities to identify optimal measures.
  • Network integration: Consolidate local complexity indicators to facilitate network-initiated measures.
  • Imbalance resolution: Provide tools for optimal flight selection and measure choice to automate the DCB process.
  • Multi-constraint reconciliation: Develop models to accommodate constraints from all stakeholders for network-wide solutions.

Ambition:

  • Achieve Technology Readiness Level 6 (TRL6) for all objectives and propose features for early deployment.
  • Integrate mature evolutions into the architecture of EUROCONTROL’s new Integrated Network Management (iNM) system.
  • Deliver tangible improvements in operator efficiency, cost savings for ATS operations, increased airline flexibility, and reduced costs.

By leveraging advanced tools and algorithms, Enhanced Demand Management aims to transform how air traffic demand and capacity are managed, ensuring smoother and more efficient operations across the network.

Leader: ENAIRE / CRIDA

Solution 0382: Enhancing DCB Efficiency: Advanced DAC Process

Without the full introduction of DAC process, airspace management and demand-capacity balancing (DCB) are coordinated in a limited way and subject to numerous constraints allowing human actors to conduct the process in a correct manner with very limited automation. This leads to inefficiencies and delays, especially in complex situations where flexibility requirements are high. Controllers and planners struggled with this operating mode in peak traffic periods, resulting in suboptimal use of airspace.

The partners involved in SESAR projects set out to revolutionise this with Dynamic Airspace Configuration (DAC). Beginning with SESAR 1 and evolving through SESAR 2020, DAC demonstrated that flexible, integrated airspace management was not only possible but also practical.

In addition to the advantages, DAC brings also challenges to be resolved before deployment. Managing numerous sector configurations required advanced algorithms for optimal selection, particularly for finding optimal transitions between the configurations (configuration paths). Additionally, the collaborative decision-making (CDM) process needed enhancement to support cross-border coordination and redefine roles for key stakeholders.

The goal of DAC is to fully integrate demand and capacity tools, improving coordination and efficiency of ATFCM process in challenging traffic situations.

Key objectives:

  • Enhance flexibility: Improve algorithms, operational processes, and automation support for dynamic airspace configuration.
  • Optimise configurations: Create a ranking system for airspace configurations to facilitate efficient changes.
  • Execution phase integration: Implement dynamic sector configurations and dynamic military areas (DMAs) into real-time operations, ensuring safety and efficiency.

Ambition:

  • Achieve Technology Readiness Level 6 (TRL6) for all objectives, enabling early deployment.
  • Integrate these advancements into the EUROCONTROL’s new iNM system.
  • Deliver tangible improvements in en-route capacity, operational efficiency and cost savings.

By advancing DAC processes and stakeholder integration, this solution aims to enhance airspace management, providing significant benefits to the entire ATM network.

Implementation

The project started on 1 January 2023 (01/06/2023) and is expected to finish on 31 May 2026 (31/05/2026).

Partners

EUROCONTROL (coordinator), ENAIIRE, CRIDA, FREQUENTIS, FREQUENTIS ORTHOGON, SWISS INTERNATIONAL AIR LINES, INDRA SISTEMAS, DSNA, ENAV, IDS AIRNAV, NATS, THALES LAS, AIT, UNIVERSITAT LINZ, DEEP BLIE, FLUGHAFEN ZURICH, SKYGUIDE, NG AVIATION, PANSA. 

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