The goal of ITACA is to accelerate the development, adoption and deployment of new technologies in ATM. In order to contribute to achieving this general objective, ITACA will develop a new set of methodologies and tools enabling the rigorous and comprehensive assessment of policies and regulations aimed at amplifying the uptake of new technologies within ATM. The specific objectives of the project are: 1. Identify the main drivers and barriers for technological change in ATM and devise a set of policy measures and regulatory changes with the potential to lower such barriers and incentivise faster technology upgrade. 2. Develop an agent-based model of the R&I lifecycle allowing the representation of the complex decisions and interactions between ATM stakeholders and their impact on the development and implementation of new technologies. 3. Validate the behavioural assumptions of the agent-based model through a set of participatory simulation experiments involving the direct participation of ATM stakeholders. 4. Demonstrate and evaluate the potential of the newly developed methods and tools through a set of policy assessment exercises that will analyse the impact of a variety of policies and regulatory changes aimed at accelerating technology change in ATM, with particular focus on the distributional effects of the proposed policies across ATM stakeholders and society at large. 5. Consolidate the methods, tools and lessons learnt delivered by the project into a coherent policy assessment framework and a set of policy recommendations, and provide guidelines for the future maintenance, evolution and use of the proposed framework.

Facing the air traffic growth and the challenges in balancing air traffic between geographical sectors, the air traffic control paradigm is shifting from local sector-based solutions to cross-border flow-based approaches. Such flow-centric approaches can be promising to overcome the scalability limits of geographical sectors and optimize the traffic at a regional level. Under this paradigm, this project proposes to develop a dynamic air traffic flow configuration method to assess, predict, manage, and optimize the evolving air traffic flows to enable more efficient flow-centric ATFCM and airspace management. To realize this, first, a flow-pattern extraction module will be developed to identify the major air traffic flows and to characterize the traffic flow structure. Second, with the identified traffic flow pattern, a flow monitor module will be developed to observe the evolution of major traffic flows, such as flow density, flow rate, and flow interactions, integrating as well weather and environmental impact key performance indicators. Third, with the monitored traffic flow data, a traffic flow assessment module will be designed to measure the congestion and flow/capacity imbalance in the airspace, followed by a flow prediction module to provide forecasts of the future air traffic flow features. The fifth module, traffic flow configuration, will investigate the dynamic flow management strategies, such as flow merge and split and flow regulation, based on the flow assessment/prediction outcome. This last module will allow for installation of Flow Regulation Gates to monitor flow interactions and to regulate flights according to flow capacity. An integration of these modules into a flow-centric airspace management framework can pave the way to the dynamic airspace management. Finally, all the developments will be integrated into an innovative platform to validate the concept and methods proposed by the project.

Europe has developed the U-space Concept of Operations as a basis for regulations, system development and drone operations. Most operations to date have taken place in segregated airspace yet the need to integrate U-space into controlled airspace is increasingly recognized as an enabler to widespread use of unpiloted vehicles. The SESAR projects CORUS and CORUS XUAM have developed and demonstrated the European Concept of Operations for U-space, presently ConOps v4.0. Recognizing that full integration, not segregation, is the final objective we advocate a stepwise approach. Building on the success of CORUS and CORUS XUAM, “CORUS five” will extend and mature the European U-space ConOps to include airspace that is not presently covered, e.g above VLL and in the vicinity of controlled airports. This objective can only be met by involving all stakeholder groups and eliciting a sound set of requirements based on their needs. The CORUS five consortium therefore includes ANSPs, a USSP, a CISP, research, industry as well as a drone operator. To ensure alignment and uptake of ConOps v5.0 with the ATM community, the consortium includes the EUROCONTROL ATM Master Plan Unit. To base the ConOps on an even wider base, a strong Advisory Board will be built and consulted very actively through workshops and dialogue to capture requirements and ensure the ConOps is safe and technically feasible. It would be naïve to assume that all outstanding research questions can be solved in the lifetime of CORUS five and its sibling projects. An Integration Roadmap will provide recommendations how outstanding research topics can be addressed. In addition, Recommendations for Standardization and Regulation will be provided. Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation are of outmost importance for a project with such a potential for the future aviation system. Flanking the CDE strategy is a series of stakeholder workshops to disseminate the CORUS five ConOps as widely as possible.

U-AGREE aims to develop an integrated risk model linking the operations of unmanned aircraft (UAS) with some negative effects they may have with regard safety, security, privacy and environment. This risk model is intended to support the airspace risk assessments required by U-space European regulation as well as an amendment to SORA methodology so that risk can be quantitatively estimated, enabling digital implementations leading to swifter operational approval processes. Moreover, the U-AGREE risk model will account for U-space services to mitigate the risk, thus reducing the burden of meeting the SORA operational safety objectives and unleashing operations and business models which are currently economically unviable. To achieve these goals, U-AGREE will start by identifying realistic scenarios where UAS operations will take place and will assess them to identify all the hazards that these operations can pose to safety, security, privacy and environment. Next, the project will agree metrics and thresholds to measure the risk due to these hazards with relevant stakeholders (especially civil aviation authorities and common information services providers). Afterwards, the team will develop mathematical models linking the hazards with their effects (either on the ground or in the air) and will define mitigation barriers using U-space services, as well as algorithms to quantify their effectiveness in terms of risk ratios. These models will be integrated into state-of-the-art U-space simulators to evaluate the applicability and relevance of the proposed integrated risk model in the representative scenarios previously identified by the project. To synchronise the project outcomes with the U-space deployment, a first version of the risk model addressing short term needs will be delivered one year after the project kick-off, whereas a second version addressing mid to long-term needs (e.g., urban air mobility or variable demand) will be delivered at the end of the project.

The scope of the SAFEDRONE project is to acquire practical experience in Very Low Level (VLL) operations where general aviation, state aviation and optionally piloted aircrafts and drones will share the airspace. It is important to highlight that this project will have a clear practical focus which primary activities will be innovation, integration, and especially, demonstrating activities with flight tests. The specific objectives of SAFEDRONE are the following: 1. Demonstrate how to integrate general aviation, state aviation, optionally piloted aircrafts and drones into non-segregated airspace in a multi-aircraft and manned flight environment, in order to explore the feasibility of U-Space vision by 2019. 2. Perform a large number of demonstrations in order to accumulate evidences and experience about the required services and procedures necessary to operate drones in a safe, efficient and secure way within U-Space. 3. Validate proof of concept implementations of a large variety of U-Space services and procedures. 4. Provide evidences to EASA and National Aviation Authorities to reinforce the safe integration of drones under U-Space for the different drone categories. Also, the lessons learnt and the technologies used during the project will be proposed to the different standardization bodies. 5. Coordination with the recently approved SESAR-RPAS projects in order to align the demonstrations with the CONOPS and technological developments of these projects. 6. Increase the awareness of the advances in U-Space within Europe through the dissemination of the obtained results. Finally, SAFEDRONE consortium is formed by 2 private companies (INDRA and UNIFLY), 2 government-owned companies (IAI and ENAIRE), two aeronautical research centres (CATEC and CRIDA) and one university (University of Seville) obtaining a balance among accessing to novel technology, integration and operational experience, and orienting the demonstrations towards real market needs.