SESAR Joint Undertaking | SESAR Award 2021

The 2021 edition of the SESAR JU awards, aims to celebrate the best of SESAR research and innovation, recognising successful SESAR 2020 projects and achievements in the following five categories

The SESAR Exploratory Research Award recognises projects that are challenging the ATM status quo and demonstrating the potential to significantly advance aviation performance.
The SESAR Industrial Research Award recognises projects, which are able to demonstrate specific and measurable achievements, providing evidence that the innovation can be sustained and lead to industry best practice.
The SESAR Demonstration Award recognises projects which are showing excellence in technology or levels of service, with the potential to have long-term positive influence on improving ATM performance.
The SESAR ATM Sustainability Award recognises projects recognises those working towards reducing aviation’s impact on the environment and making significant contributions to improving the environmental footprint of aviation through ATM.
The SESAR U-space Award recognises SESAR funded U-space research projects exhibiting tangible results towards the integration of drones into European airspace, contributing to the U-space vision of the safe, efficient and secure access to airspace for large numbers of drones.

The contributions have been evaluated by a distinguished panel of ATM experts. 17 projects in the 5 categories were selected based on their contribution to the European Digital Sky.

Public voting is open

Read the projects descriptions in the various tabs hereunder or watch their teaser videos and complete the voting form at the bottom of this page.

Human Performance Neurometrics Toolbox For Highly Automated Systems Design (STRESS)

This project contributed to the transition to higher automation levels in aviation, by addressing, analysing and mitigating its impact on the Human Performance aspects associated to the future role of air traffic controllers.

STRESS directly supports the design of new automated tools providing an objective and detailed assessment of their impact on operators' workload and stress (and so performance).

The project specifically focussed on the transitions among different levels of automation, which will be more and more relevant in the future, both in nominal conditions (e.g. adaptive automation) and abnormal conditions (e.g. automation failure).

It also provides valuable tools to improve training, giving trainers the opportunity to better understand trainees' reaction to different scenarios.

Used in pre-validation activities, it enables a safer deployment of new tools and procedures (e.g. new airspace design), as the effects on operators mental state can be measured in simulations, before going operational.

Finally, used during operations, it can help prevent workload and stress peaks, both enabling automation to adapt to operators' state, both supporting supervisors in acting before the problem arise.

Watch video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2IqAQuR6Wo

Read more: https://www.vigiaero.com

Enabling rationalisation of infrastructure using virtual centre based technology (PJ16-03)

Today, ATM in Europe mostly consists of country-based systems and processes, which require customised systems and solutions at each ATM provider. This has led inevitably to a lack of interoperability and higher costs of air navigation services across Europe and an inefficient usage of resources.

The SESAR Solution PJ.16-03, “Enabling rationalisation of infrastructure using virtual centre based technology”, develops a concept for separating the controller working position (CWP) from the datacentre where the data is produced. It allows non-geographical air traffic management, a change identified in the recently published Airspace Architecture Study as a critical for optimising Europe’s airspace.

PJ.16-03 is the basis for future airspace delegation capability. It provides the technical capability to delegate the ATS from one or several air traffic service units (ATSU) from one air navigation services provider (ANSP) to another ATSU in the same ANSP or in a totally different ANSP.

It furthermore described and tested the relationship between the ATM data service provider (ADSP) and the ATSU and also among the various ADSPs.

The work of PJ.16-03 fully supports the Airspace Architecture Study and is foundation of the legal, economic and regulatory aspects of ADSP and capacity-on-demand as part of the future European airpace architecture report to the European Commission.

Watch video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbgqKHEtrQg

Safer Airports and Flights for Europe (SAFE) - PJ.03b-W1

Airport safety is a key point for European sky overall safety performance. Digital capabilities can significantly contribute to improve safety. For even safer airports, SAFE validated new safety barriers to mitigate the risks of runway incursion, runway excursion and more generally the risk of incident and accident involving aircraft. In the frame of the project, 18 validation exercises were completed with endusers, such as air traffic controllers, pilots, airport operators and airlines.

SAFE delivered four Solutions for the benefit of the aviation community: ’Enhanced airport safety nets for controllers’, ‘Conformance monitoring safety net for pilots’, ‘Traffic alerts for pilots for airport operations’, Safety support tools for avoiding runway excursions.
Moreover, SAFE has actively contributed to European standards in support to Single European Sky implementation. These solutions are fully in line with the vision for the Digital European Sky and SESAR Master Plan Edition 2020.

Airport safety nets have been identified as supporting the Digital European Sky in CP1 by the SESAR Deployment manager and the Commission.

SAFE involved 30 European stakeholders of the airborne industry, ground ATM industry, service provision (ATM and airports), aerospace research and EUROCONTROL hence providing a wide range of expertise, covering all aspects of ATM.

Watch video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou6aJPqXu3U

4D Trajectory Management (4DTM) - PJ.18-W1

Harmonised and global trajectory information sharing, including improved negotiation mechanisms, will enable significant operational benefits on flight management. The aim is to enable a unique and integrated view of all flights trajectories (including military ones) among the stakeholders. The project investigated new tools and capabilities ensuring all stakeholders are managing a single, updated and complete view of the forecasted meteorology and airspace configuration.

This project supports the vision of the Digital European Sky as by having a more precise, up-to date and consistent view of the flight, we are able to improve the operations with more reliable supporting tools, contributing to a higher automation level in ATM.

This will enable a cost effective performance based service provision that will allow increasing the global ATM system capacity and performance, and thereby allowing aircraft to fly optimised flight profiles, reducing CO2 emissions and ultimately providing a better service for passengers.

Increased Runway and Airport Throughput (EARTH) - PJ.02-W1

EARTH focused on improving runway and airport throughput, considering wake vortex, weather, the environment and noise around the airport, for different levels of traffic demand, future aircraft capabilities and airport configurations.

ORD – Optimised Runway Delivery is the ATC support tool to enable safe, consistent and efficient delivery of the required separation or spacing between arrival pairs on final approach to the runway landing threshold.

This project has had an impact on several key areas of the Digital European Sky portfolio.

It improves automation and digital information in ATM: with these solutions controllers are able to optimise traffic and reducing flights time from the TMA until landing due to new HMI on their working positions.

These solutions are scalable as they create the adequate capacity-on-demand to handle traffic in the most efficient way under different conditions, tackling disruptions and without need for further airport infrastructure expansion (e.g. building new runways).

This project looked also at the AI pillar, ORD is a powerful tool where algorithms are used to compute Time Based separations between aircraft. Machine learning techniques can improve the calculation of required safe and optimum TBS separation in the ORD tool and further enhance its benefits. This aspect is included in the on-going deployment activities of ORD by Industry and ANSPs at several airports worldwide.

Integrated Airport Operations (IAO) – PJ.28

Nice, Hamburg and Budapest. Three European airports with very distinct operational characteristics and challenges. But between 2017-2019, these three airports acted as demonstrator sites to showcase the potential of solutions within the framework of the Integrated Airport Operations project (IAO) PJ.28.

IAO focused on departure management synchronised with pre-departure sequencing, airport safety nets and automated assistance to controller for surface movement planning and routing. Installed systems at airports in Nice, Budapest and Hamburg were connected to the operational airport systems and have been evaluated by local controllers during live trials. The project also supported the development of on-board alerting systems by collecting data during real airline operations.

The IAO very large-scale demonstration was an important step forward for implementing innovative ATM solutions at airports. The innovations emerging from the SESAR research and innovation programme have shown their potential to support airports and the work of controllers. At the same time, the demonstrations have thrown light on some prerequisites that need to be carefully considered before deployment like for example an up-to-date digital routing network. For some European airports the implementation of the tested solutions is mandatory in line with the European Union’s Pilot Common Project (PCP). In line with the idea of a demonstrator network to accelerate the market uptakes, the three airport test sites have shown the importance of evaluating and demonstrating solutions in an operational environment with real data. IAO directly included the end users at their working places and was connected with standardisation bodies like EUROCAE working groups.

Watch video: https://youtu.be/Z6BTiZnklPo

Initial trajectory information sharing (DIGITS) – PJ.31

The DIGITS very large-scale demonstration aimed to assess the benefits for ATM when the aircraft shares its complete predicted 4D trajectory (3D + time) with air traffic control services. DIGITS also allowed to fine tune the requirements for integration of aircraft trajectory data in the ground systems.
DIGITS covered the developments of ATS B2 avionics and ANSP controller support tools. Four European ANSP and associated suppliers were involved: MUAC for pre-operational implementation, DFS, ENAV and NATS for integration in their test platforms.

Through its sister project, DIGITS-AU (for airspace users), a total of 90 Airbus aircraft (A319/A320/A321 from six airlines: Air France, British Airways, EasyJet, Iberia, Novair and Wizz Air) were equipped with the CPDLC/ADS-C standard called ATS Baseline 2 (ATS B2).

By the end of the project, approximately 20,000 successful flights had connected in shadow mode, with 12,000 of these linking to controllers working on the pre-operational MUAC system. In total, more than 1,400,000 ADS-C transactions were logged.

As a first implementation step towards the ICAO trajectory-based operations concept in the world, DIGITS constitutes a concrete contribution to the aviation industry and to the Single European Sky transformation program towards more digitalization, increased automation and exchange of data among all parts of the aviation value chain. The project demonstrated potential for significant improvements in the fields of safety, efficiency and environmental benefits.

The demonstration managed by the DIGITS/DIGITS-AU project team has pioneered the deployment of the European Common Project 1 Implementing Regulation (CP 1) AF#6 Initial Trajectory Information Sharing through the operational validation and demonstration of the main end-to-end air/ground systems blocks.

Watch video: https://youtu.be/DDmBxDkwfbE

Cross-border SESAR Trials for Enhanced Arrival Management (xStream) - PJ.25

The xStream very large-scale demonstration validated new arrival management tools to reduce the use of operational measures to absorb delays at low levels in TMAs and improve flight efficiency. WP6 focussed on three exercises in the London TMA of which Exercise 2 (Gatwick XMAN) was an operational demonstration to pave the way to deploy at a single-runway airport.

It involved:
•   developing a common HMI showing arrival and departure data to ensure consistent information between London Terminal Control and Gatwick Airport ATC to agree the runway spacing policy 60 minutes ahead (required because mixed-mode operations)
•   XMAN partners (MUAC, DSNA Reims, IAA Shannon and NATS Prestwick) slowing aircraft in the cruise at 350nm when delay predicted to be greater than 7 minutes
•   NATS Swanwick controllers applying 250kts descent speed when delay predicted to be greater than 5 minutes

Modifications were required to the Harris Orthogon AMAN system and engineering work to develop SWIM capability to securely share data

The SESAR demonstration activity led directly to the operational deployment of Gatwick XMAN in December 2019. Gatwick XMAN is a deployment of SESAR Solution 05 (Extended Arrival Management (AMAN) Horizon) and also contributes to SESAR Solution 54 (Flow-based integration of arrivals and departures management) through the development of a common HMI showing arrival and departure data at the airport and terminal control.

This was the first deployment of XMAN procedures for a single-runway airport. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, Gatwick XMAN provided significant benefit reducing low-level holding, providing fuel savings for airlines and reducing CO2 emissions and noise.

A SWIM capability was developed to securely share data, displaying both arrivals and departure information to both airport ATC and ANSP. This is a good example of SWIM capability, which is a key enabler for deploying solutions contributing to the Digital European Sky.

Watch video: https://youtu.be/jsxqt56B-mw

Concept of Operation for EuRopean UTM Systems - CORUS

Gathering experts from aviation, research and academia, guided by a 21-member stakeholder advisory board, the CORUS consortium developed a Concept of Operations (ConOps) for U-space. It proposes an airspace architecture with a detailed definition of the airspace types to be used for very low-level drone operations and the services in them, so that operations are safe and efficient. The activity of the CORUS project centred around three workshops held in January and June 2018 and April 2019, each attended by 100 stakeholders of widely varying backgrounds. Each workshop discussed a new iteration of the ConOps, allowing the project to refine and validate them, leading to a U-space concept of operations (edition 3), providing the latest baseline for the U-space services. Broad acceptance of the CORUS ConOps has been essential to its success, with interested parties invited to join the “U-space Community Network” (UCN) that grew to over 500 members during the course of the project.

CORUS developed a concept of operations (ConOps) for drones in the very low-level airspace. The project transformed the high-level vision of U-space into tangible procedures supported by digital services. Therefore, CORUS laid the groundwork for the implementation of U-space, which is one of the main goals presented in the Digital European Sky Blueprint. Opting for an inclusive approach, the project integrated a vast number of stakeholders in multiple workshops. Based on these discussions, the project conceived a set of distributed, connected and automated U-space services. As drone traffic is increasingly automated and operated with minimal human interaction, the ConOps enables digital interaction between various stakeholders, including air traffic management and new entrants, contributing to the envisaged increase of connectivity and digitalisation of aviation. The project results enable future advanced mobility services.

Watch video: https://youtu.be/HtE-ikzJdWs

Demonstration of multiple U-space suppliers (DOMUS)

In 2017, U-space got started in Spain with a set of initial activities carried out through two SESAR innovation projects:
TERRA (led by INECO) explored whether the current CNS infrastructure tailormade to commercial manned aviation traffic management, could cope with the emerging drone sector with an effective performance and proposed a technical ground architecture to support drone operations.
IMPETUS (led by CRIDA) explored what information is needed and how it will be used by drones in VLL airspace and proposed a federated information management architecture based around microservices with a layered distribution of responsibilities.

The main conclusions were gathered and used as inputs for DOMUS, which took over and successfully demonstrated the U-space concept up to U3 services. Complex operations were carried out, including contingency and manned aviation operations, which provided valuable conclusions for the design of the ATM-UTM interface.

DOMUS has provided valuable conclusions to U-space demonstrating operational viability of B2B connectivity between ATM and U-space system, and moreover, the experience earned has been gathered in order to launch a tender to acquire a U-space digital system in Spain, which will contribute towards the realisation of the Digital European Sky.

Watch video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhXppPBsMac&ab_channel=ENAIRE

Safe and flexible integration of Initial U-space services in a real environment (SAFIR)

The SAFIR consortium demonstrated how technology can support the safe integration of a multitude of drones in a challenging airspace environment. Three U-space service providers and one air navigation service provider integrated their services to control the airspace collaboratively. Flights included parcel delivery flights, aerial survey, medical inter-hospital flights and emergency prioritisation.

The use cases were successfully tested at DronePort and then in Antwerp City (urban area), Antwerp Airport terminal area and the Port of Antwerp to test the viability of the use cases in a realistic environment. SAFIR tackled the issue of unregistered drones and their impact on legal drone operations and manned aviation. A specialised radar was deployed to detect rogue drones in critical areas and provide a live feed for the U-space service providers. SAFIR’s federated model enabled information sharing between multiple interoperable services, categorised according to their function.

Unmanned traffic management (UTM) technology indirectly contributes to carbon neutrality, sustainable mobility and creates innovations that drive the digitalisation of Europe.
SAFIR demonstrates that not only is it crucial to a seamless and scalable integration of drones into the port and city ecosystem, UTM technology is designed to
•   keep airspace usage safe for both manned and unmanned aircraft
•   enhance port operations through full situational awareness
•   integrate drone flights as part of a city’s medical infrastructure
This closes the loop to allow for complete management of the ecosystems, on the ground and in the air.

The work done by SAFIR is ideal as proof of concept to progress further implementation of drone use elsewhere. Data compiled from ports adopting UTM technology can serve as a stepping off point into not just smart ports but also smart cities including urban air mobility, as well as smart logistics including last mile delivery in congested zones.

Watch video: https://youtu.be/qqlGPjqlMOA

Improved parallel operations - PBN to ILS at Paris-CDG airport - PJ.01-W1

Since 18 January, 2021, at Paris-CDG airport, some 800 incoming flights facing West on the North runway pair (27R) have flown on performance-based navigation (PBN) via satellite-based legs with RNP 1 accuracy to reach the final axis.

This initial phase called “PBN to ILS” is a pre-requisite to implement round-the-clock continuous descent approaches at the end of 2023. This project is the result of experiments led through the Improved Parallel Operations SESAR solution, fitted to Paris-CDG approach airspace specific constraints, as well as DSNA’s strong expertise in implementing PBN. Several simulator sessions were performed since 2017 at EUROCONTROL’s experimental centre to consolidate this new configuration and ensure a sufficient level of maturity.

During this trial, in situ measurements are carried out to assess the noise impacts. The final outcomes of the trial will also be analysed in the context of environmental demonstration project ALBATROSS (Horizon 2020).

As the precursor to these live trials, PJ.01-03A, “improved parallel approach operations using PBN” aimed at addressing today’s limitations in many dense TMAs in Europe involving platforms with existing or planned parallel approaches/runways. The Solution used PBN transitions to final to replace vectoring to final intercept. A series of real-time simulations was run at the EUROCONTROL Experimental Centre in Bretigny, based on initial design and ops method options jointly developed by EUROCONTROL, leading the Solution, and DSNA, in a Paris-CDG case study.

This solution is based on PBN capabilities that are part the vision for the European Sky (SESAR Master Plan “Improved Flight trajectories minimising the environmental foot print of aviation”). By using PBN to final, the aircraft will be established on a trajectory before the interception point, that will allow to manage the runways independently, thus allowing optimized descent on both runways at the same time.

Watch video: TBC

Cross Border SESAR Trials for Enhanced Arrival Management (PJ25 xStream); WP6 (London exercises) EXE-VLD-06-001, 002 & 003 – NATS (Gatwick and Heathrow) contributing to environmental improvements for aircraft inbound to London

The xStream large-scale demonstration validated new arrival management tools to reduce the use of operational measures to absorb delays at low levels in TMAs and improve flight efficiency. Heathrow (dual-runway airport) extended AMAN (XMAN) has been deployed operationally since 2015 providing environmental benefits and fuel cost savings.

The exercises in WP6 (London) provided the opportunity to:
• develop the NATS AMAN system (Harris Orthogon) for extended arrival management to a single-runway airport and demonstrate the benefits through an operational trial (Exe 002 - Gatwick XMAN). A common HMI was developed showing arrival and departure data in London Terminal Control and Gatwick Airport ATC to agree the runway spacing policy, required because mixed-mode operations. (Exercise 1)
• assess (through a shadow-mode trial) the benefits case for future enhancements to Heathrow AMAN (streaming into systemised airspace) to address the issue of bunching at peak times thereby bringing further environmental benefits (Exe 003).

The SESAR activity led directly to the operational deployment of Gatwick XMAN in December. Gatwick XMAN is a deployment of SESAR Solution Extended Arrival Management (AMAN) Horizon (#05) and was the first deployment of XMAN procedures for a single-runway airport. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, Gatwick XMAN provided significant benefit reducing low-level holding, providing fuel savings for airlines and reducing CO2 emissions and noise.

The use of target times over boundary Coordination Points (as part of extended arrivals management procedures for Heathrow to take account of both delay absorption and arrival streaming) has the potential to reduce controller workload, which supports the deployment of systemised PBN-defined arrival routes and saves fuel. This has led to further research (SESAR Waves 2 and 3), including merging arrival flows in the TMA, expected to provide additional benefit in support of the Digital European Sky.

Watch video: https://youtu.be/jsxqt56B-mw

Flying Air Traffic Management for the benefit of environment and climate - FlyATM4E

FlyATM4E, an exploratory research project, will develop a concept to identify climate-optimised aircraft trajectories, which enable a robust and eco-efficient reduction in aviation’s climate impact. Climate optimisation will consider CO2 and non-CO2 effects, such as contrails and contrail-cirrus, water vapour, NOx and particulate emissions.

FlyATM4E will identify those weather situations and aircraft trajectories, which lead to a robust climate impact reduction despite uncertainties in atmospheric science. It will further identify those situations where there is a large potential to reduce the climate impact with only little or even no cost changes (“Cherry-Picking”) and those situations where both, climate impact and costs can be reduced (“Win-Win”).

FlyATM4E will formulate recommendations how to implement these strategies in meteorological (MET) products and enable not only the understanding of ATM possibilities to reduce aviation’s climate impact, but moreover how to implement such eco-efficient routing.

FlyATM4E contributes to the vision of the Digital European Sky of making air transport smarter and more sustainable by expanding current ATM working towards identification and implementation of climate-optimised trajectories.

Watch video: https://youtu.be/Nta_0sZgo1o

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