PROJECT ID

SlotMachine

PROJECT TYPE

Exploratory research

FLAGSHIP

Not applicable

STATUS

Completed

SESAR PROGRAMME

SESAR 2020

PROJECT DURATION

2020-10-01 > 2022-12-31

TOTAL COST

EUR 2 202 882,44

EU CONTR.

EUR 1 937 738,75

GRANT ID

890456

PARTICIPANTS

Frequentis, Ait Austrian Institute Of Technology , Universitat Linz, Eurocontrol, Swiss International Air Lines

Air traffic flow management (ATFM) slots are allocated times of departure, arrival, or  passage through a sector, which are issued by Eurocontrol’s Network Manager to regulate  traffic in congested areas of airspace. Typically, simple swaps between flights take place.  Such exchanges are helpful for airlines to prioritise expensive flights in order to minimise  costs and passenger delays, providing much needed flexibility. 

Slot swapping is currently restricted to two flights. Flight cost structures, which tend to drive  prioritisation, vary for any number of reasons from the provisioning of connecting flights  for passengers to work-time restrictions for crew members, are confidential information  for the airlines. This is where the SlotMachine project plays  a role in optimising the allocation of flights according to  airline priorities based on the cost structure of the different  airlines. By using blockchain technology and secure multi-party computation, the project allows flexible prioritisation  without the need to disclose confidential information. The  research builds on the existing user-driven prioritization process (UDPP)2  solution, which allows airspace users to reschedule their flights to keep their business-driven  priorities on track.

SlotMachine successfully deployed multi-party computation (MPC) and hyper-ledger techniques to determine the optimal flight sequence based on airline costs without disclosing sensitive information to competitors and without the need of a trusted arbiter.  The project employed evolutionary optimisation algorithms, e.g., genetic algorithm, that seeks solutions to the flight list prioritization problem in an iterative manner. The advantage  of such algorithms is that they can be parallelized easily and aborted at any point while still returning a solution.

SlotMachine showed the feasibility of a privacy-preserving platform, recognising an  essential element in the future aviation industry. The next step is to update the technology stack and involve more airlines and air navigation system providers in real swaps between  multiple airlines.

 

Benefits

  • Trustworthy ATFM slot marketplace
  •  Improved airline efficiency
  • Lower emissions and shorter delays
European Union
SlotMachine - A Privacy-Preserving Marketplace for Slot Management slot