Use cases

Operational assessment of the dynamic airspace configuration collaborative process

12 February 2019

This covers

In 2019, the SESAR 2020 project advanced airspace management (PJ08 AAM) organised a validation exercise led by EUROCONTROL in the EUROCONTROL Experimental Centre to assess and validate the Dynamic Airspace Configurations Management models and automated support tools in a gaming exercise involving EUROCONTROL teams together with external partners - air navigation service providers (ANSPs) and military users.

The PJ.08 major objective was to deliver a Dynamic Airspace Configuration (DAC) function including a new generation of flexible Airspace Reservations (ARES) - the Dynamic Mobile Areas (Type 1 & 2), based on improved traffic prediction, to be integrated into the Demand and Capacity Balancing (DCB) processes, and that can be executed as one of the possible processes to adjust capacity in order to meet traffic demand and respond to various performance objectives.

“Validation exercise PJ08.01-02 was another of many positive PANSA’s experiences with simulations in Bretigny EUROCONTROL Experimental Centre, which confirmed an excellent cooperation with EUROCONTROL experts. This time it was particularly important because Common Airspace Tool - PANSA’s local airspace management supporting system was part of the validation platform together with the EUROCONTROL INNOVE Platform. Many functionalities of the INNOVE system – i.e. rerouting – turned out to be very useful and crucial, both during the process of CAT prototype development and validation itself. Professionalism, flexibility and commitment of whole team involved in the Project allowed us to carry out the validation successfully.”

Lukasz Godlewski AIM & OPS Planning Director, PANSA

The main objectives of the joint exercise were to validate the DAC collaborative decision-making (CDM) process in pre-tactical planning phase (D-1) between Wing Operations Centre (WOC), Air Navigation Services Providers and EUROCONTROL Network Manager, and to assess the technical feasibility of the DAC tools including DMAs Type 1 and 2 definition at regional and local levels. DAC tools provided system support functions enabling an increased global situational awareness to support the CDM process.

The exercise took place over 4 sessions on January and February 2019, with operational experts from ANSPs (PANSA, DFS), EUROCONTROL Network Manager and Wing Operations Centre (supported by the Industrial Partner AIRBUS). The January sessions aimed at integrating all Partners’ tools and fine-tuning the operational processes.

During the February sessions, the simulations allowed for the assessment of two proposed DAC models, and for the confirmation of the expected benefits of automated tools facilitating civil-military coordination tasks, increasing situational awareness and allowing ANSPs to define optimal sector configurations providing required capacity with the available resources.

During the exercise preparation, it was also possible to validate with PANSA operational experts (FMPs) the DAC algorithms allowing to automatically re-design a new airspace based on traffic patterns and workload balance, and to assess for the first time a new AI algorithm to predict the capacity of these new sectors.

At a glance

stakeholders (ANSPs and military users)

DMAs

simulation days

airspace redesign

The exercise was executed with a validation platform connecting with B2B services EUROCONTROL R-NEST and INNOVE platforms with CAT – Common Airspace Tool (PANSA), STANLY-POS (DFS), and WOC ASM (AIRBUS D&S) prototypes implementing 2 Local DAC positions for FMP and AMC, 1 WOC position for Military Operations, and 1 NM Ops position.