Eurocontrol and Airbus are carrying out trials intended to deliver full traffic situational awareness to pilots by 2011 at the latest. Pilots will be able to see all the traffic in the vicinity of their aircraft, both in the air and on the ground, on their navigation displays.
The airborne traffic situational awareness (ATSAW) system will enable the pilots to manage their own separation under certain circumstances, but initially it will just provide the relative positions of local traffic, according to Alex Wandels, head of Eurocontrol's Cascade datalinking programmes.
ATSAW, one of the Cascade programmes, is based on automatic dependent surveillance - broadcast (ADS-B) systems in the aircraft and on the ground: aircraft continuously datalink their satellite navigation-derived position, height and identity to each other and to air traffic control. Eurocontrol's industry partners in the programme are Airbus, equipment manufacturer Sofreavia and French air navigation service provider DSNA.
Wandels predicts that, by 2011 "the first aircraft will be equipped with a [certificated] receiver and a display". He confirms pilots will not be allowed initially to use it to carry out their own separation. It may be 2020 before the Single European Sky programme is ready for delegated separation. Meanwhile, Wandels says, "it will be useful to have the equipment on board to let the pilots become acquainted with it and make comments, so it can be improved and be made ready for autonomous separation".
The earliest practical use for the ATSAW, predicts Wandels, will be pilot ability to manage in-trail aircraft separation on oceanic tracks, enabling clearances to be given for aircraft to climb to higher flight levels as they use fuel that, currently, they cannot do once they are out of radar surveillance range.
That facility may be ready for use by 2011, he says. Trials for in-trail separation management will begin shortly, first with simulation, then with operational trials in Icelandic airspace in 2008. Airbus will work with the UK and Icelandic air navigation service providers (ANSP) NATS and Flugstodir on the trial.
Wandels also foresees ATSAWS use from about 2011 to enable more efficient sequencing and merging for approaching aircraft in terminal areas from 2011 - which has the potential to increase capacity.
Source: Flight International
