Promoting EGNSS Operational Adoption in BLUEMED FAB BLUEGNSS proposal aims at promote innovation technologies to maximise the potential of the European GNSS and its adoption. The Consortium, led by ENAV, Italian Air Navigation Service Provider, sees the participation of the other BLUE MED FAB ANSPS partners, such as DCAC – Cyprus, HCAA – Greece, MATS – Malta and is complemented by an industrial partner IDS (Italy) to promote a fully integrated approach. The primary objective of the BLUEGNSS Project is to develop European Global Navigation Satellite System (EGNSS) aeronautical applications in accordance with ICAO standards and in particular to design RNP approaches with all 3 minimas (LPV, LNAV/VNAV, LNAV), in selected airports in order to increase their accessibility and safety. The publication of the procedures on the national AIPs will allow the adoption of such technology by civil aviation, demonstrating safety, operational and economic benefits. Other objectives, linked to the primary one, are: • Training procedure designers on the design and regular review of RNP APCH procedures; • Disseminating EGNSS culture among BLUEMED partners; • Implementing a regional EGNSS Monitoring Network and data recording capabilities in support of the validation of RNP APCH and of the introduction of Galileo for aeronautical applications. Design and validation of RNP APCH is a fundamental enabler for the exploitation of EGNSS in the aviation domain and to push forward its adoption in Europe. This is the first time in Europe that a RNP APCH implementation project is coordinated at FAB level. The advantage of such approach is that States that don’t have enough experience on RNP APCH operational implementation will take benefit from inter FAB knowledge transfer. Furthermore the BLUEMED PBN Task Force framework will act as catalyst platform to spread knowledge among the area and beyond at whole EU level.

With aviation traffic reaching unprecedent levels, surveillance is a critical service for ensuring operations safety and for improving airspace and airport capacity to accommodate the increasing traffic forecast. ASTONISH objective is to develop new surveillance solutions to sustain the growth of the European aviation sector using innovative technologies, addressing the peculiar challenges of airborne and ground traffic management. ASTONISH consortium identified three critical solutions: ground-based systems for enroute and terminal areas surveillance, aircraft-based alternate surveillance (A-SUR) technology, and airport and aircraft-based surveillance sensing systems for ground operations. ASTONISH will investigate the use of an LDACS-based passive multistatic radar system and a network of distributed active radar systems to increase safety and capacity of sectors not covered by primary or secondary surveillance services, while providing a robust backup solution for non-cooperative surveillance. These solutions are expected to be cost-effective and environmental-friendly, built on services offered by LDACS to deliver a fully integrated CNS solution. A-SUR solution will leverage the Hyperconnected ATM concept to use existing and potential new datalink channels such SATCOM, LDACS, VDLM2, 5G and LTE as alternative means for downlinking aircraft surveillance data. The objective is to relieve the congestion on the 1030 MHz and 1090 MHz frequencies used by SSR, ADS-B, and TCAS, offering a secure and robust solution for cooperative surveillance with limited impact on surveillance infrastructures and avionics systems. ASTONISH solution for improving aircraft safety during ground operation will investigate new sensing systems such as lidars, radars, and vision-based sensor at aircraft and airport level, improving ground operation safety and airport resilience by increasing the situational awareness of the pilots and air traffic controllers under all-weather conditions.

The increasing interest in Synthetic Vision (SV) and Augmented Reality (AR) technologies has led various analysts to positively esteem the adoption of new tools enabling pilots and controllers to seamlessly operate under Visual Meteorological Conditions and Instrument Meteorological Conditions. The RETINA project will investigate the potential and applicability of SV tools and Virtual/Augmented Reality (V/AR) display techniques for the Air Traffic Control (ATC) service provision by the airport control tower. Within the project, several concepts and basic principles that have been observed in different areas (e.g. Remote Tower, Synthetic Vision Systems, AR, Information Technologies, etc.) will be brought to the level of maturity required for the Applied Research that will be conducted in SESAR V1-V3 (Applied Research, Industrial Research & Validation). To this end, a 3D airport model will be developed, along with V/AR based human-computer interfaces. The digital model will provide controllers with precise positioning for both aerial and terrestrial objects, drawing information from multiple, simulated, data sources, such as the System Wide Information Management (SWIM) network, Remote Towers sensing technologies and other well-established surveillance systems – e.g. Airport Surveillance Radar (ASR) and the Surface Movement Radar (SMR). The interface design will be based on the Ecological Interface Design approach. Finally, the project will investigate the impact of the newly conceived tools on the control tower air traffic management procedures. On the whole, those tasks that are negatively affected by poor visibility conditions, such as bad weather, fog, smoke, dust or any other kind of environmental occlusion, will become weather-independent. The RETINA project primarily relates to SESAR ER-06-2015 - High Performing Airport Operations - Improved Visualisation and Awareness, but also has a secondary relationship to SESAR ER-03-2015 - Information Management in ATM.

TADA is a project aimed at improving Terminal Airspace (TMA) performance through the use of ATCO generated historical data and ML to provide the ATCO with decision and action selection for future situations, presented in a human centric way. TMAs, especially those serving major airport hubs and/or multi-airport systems, are areas of heavy congested traffic. Busy TMAs could benefit from further automation that would improve capacity, flow and trajectory efficiency and safety. The current ATC paradigm in TMAs consists of having flights and their intentions identified by the air traffic controllers (ATCOs), supported by a series of information acquisition and analysis tools, such as AMAN (providing a sequence), trajectory predictions, safety nets and instruction adherence monitoring, most of which are integrated into the ATM system in use. ATCOs assimilate the information available, incorporate other background information, make decisions and instruct the flights. They also interact with the ATM system to keep it up to date with the decisions and the feedback received from the flights. This ATCO data gathered through this interaction is currently barely used beyond the immediate information update cycles and possibly post ops investigations. This wealth of big-data,together with the introduction of machine learning (ML) algorithms that will learn to predict patterns and ATC instructions can be taken advantage of much more to improve capacity, efficiency and safety by providing decision making support to ATCOs and delegation of certain tasks. A digital assistant and corresponding HMI will be developed through TADA and AMAN will benefit from an improvement through the use of the same data and ML. TADA will be carried out by a consortium of 6 partners from 6 different EU countries including academia, ANSP, ATM system provider and an expert company in AI, bringing complimentary academic, technical, human factors and operational skills and expertise to the project.

In recent years crises and disasters (Eyjafjallajökull and Deepwater Horizon 2010, Fukushima Daiichi 2011) have made it obvious that a more resilient approach to preparing for and dealing with such events is needed. DARWIN will improve response to expected and unexpected crises affecting critical infrastructures and social structures. It addresses the management of both man-made events (e.g. cyber-attacks) and natural events (e.g. earthquakes). The main objective is the development of European resilience management guidelines. These will improve the ability of stakeholders to anticipate, monitor, respond, adapt, learn and evolve, to operate efficiently in the face of crises. Guidelines will be presented in formats for easy usage and maintenance to avoid them being dust-collectors on a shelf. To enable dynamic, user-friendly guidelines the project will adapt innovative tools (e.g. serious gaming, training packages), test and validate the guidelines, and establish knowledge about how organisations can implement guidelines to improve resilience. A multidisciplinary approach is applied, involving experts in the field of resilience, crisis and risk management, social media and service providers in the Air Traffic Management and health care domains. To ensure transnational, cross-sector applicability, long-term relevance and uptake of project results, a Community of Crisis and Resilience Practitioners (CoCRP) will be established, including stakeholders and end-users from other domains and critical infrastructures and resilience experts. The CoCRP will be involved in an iterative evaluation process to provide feedback on the guidelines. The target beneficiaries of DARWIN are crisis management actors and stakeholders responsible for public safety, such as critical infrastructures and service providers, which might be affected by a crisis, as well as the public and media. The project duration will be 36 months, requesting financing of €4.9M.