DAVID LEARMOUNT / LONDON
ADS-B allows pilots to assist air traffic controllers
A multinational team sponsored by the European Commission has completed initial airborne tests of a system that enables pilots to help air traffic control with strategic aircraft separation. The tests of the Airborne Separation Assurance System (ASAS) were conducted using UK research organisation Qinetiq's BAC One-Eleven and the German DLR's VFW614 testbed aircraft in airspace set aside for them near Rome, Italy.
In the BAE Systems Avionics Systems-led project, the aircraft are fitted with automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) that enables the pilots to see other aircraft on their navigation display at ranges greater than those provided by airborne collision avoidance systems (ACAS), which are safety-net systems rather than strategic tools.
ATC, rather than micro-managing strategic separation, can advise the aircrew of a forthcoming conflict, identify the aircraft involved and ask the pilots to use their ADS-B with the flight management system (FMS) to resolve it. ATC advice can be datalinked or delivered by voice for pilot input to the FMS.
Eventually, the FMS will contain preset default parameters so it can manage a "pass behind" or "merge behind" instruction and ensure the minimum separation distance between the two aircraft is the same, so that the pilot data entry task is reduced to specifying details like the waypoint by which their aircraft should resume its track. Having advised the pilots of the desired action, the ATC monitoring task continues, but the controllers would intervene further only if necessary.
Andy Wolfe, from Qinetiq's Future Systems Technology department, says that because trial airspace was limited, the crew had instructions to avoid conflicts that were about 3min away, whereas ASAS will be able to predict the need for avoidance 5-10min ahead.
The five-flight trial is a part of the Eurocontrol More Autonomous Aircraft in the Future Air Traffic Management System, a European Union project in which 19 companies and organisations are taking part.
Source: Flight International
