Controlling spacing from the cockpit is one of the aims of Eurocontrol's Cascade programme, to be completed by 2020
Air traffic management (ATM) automation with aircraft separation ultimately carried out by pilots is the objective of a just-launched Eurocontrol programme.
The agency says existing technologies and ATM methods are reaching their performance limits and have little potential for further enhancement, so operational trials will begin next year of technologies and methods to be used in the new programme, known as Cascade. The first "stream" will go live in 2008.
Existing surveillance systems like the Mode C monopulse secondary surveillance radar are beginning to reach their limitations in busy sectors, says Eurocontrol. Increasing traffic density now means controllers more frequently face display problems like garble, split plots and code swaps, and the system is running out of codes.
Eurocontrol says the answer to future air and ground surveillance needs is a "fusion" of ground-based Mode S enhanced surveillance with airborne automatic dependent surveillance extended squitter. Added to this would be VHF datalink Mode 2 (VDL-2) to enable controller-pilot datalink communication (CPDLC) to reduce exchanges on the increasingly cluttered voice channels. The airborne equipment needed to handle all the required surveillance tasks - Mode S, ADS-B and the airborne collision avoidance system (ACAS) - is a 1090MHz transponder, says Eurocontrol sector productivity business division head Rob Stewart.
The first operational stream of Cascade from 2008 to 2011 does not see any transfer of separation responsibility to the cockpit, but the programme involves optimisation of airport ATM and the introduction of advanced systems and tools for controllers, like predictive medium-term conflict detection or MTCD.
In an evolutionary process starting in 2012, Cascade "stream two" will see a gradual transfer of the separation task from controller to cockpit. This process, says Eurocontrol, will enhance the flight crew's knowledge of the surrounding air traffic situation using an ADS-B-enabled cockpit display of traffic information (CDTI).
At first the controller will retain responsibility for separation, but as the system matures the controller may ask a pilot to maintain a certain spacing distance from an aircraft ahead in an approach sequence. Later will come delegation of separation to flight crew at the controllers' discretion, and finally the pilots will become responsible for self-separation. This process is expected to be complete by about 2020, says Stewart.
DAVID LEARMOUNT / LONDON
Source: Flight International
