Two IDS Projects Nominated for Best Clean Sky Project Award in 2016
IDS were involved in two of the Clean Sky projects nominated for “Best Clean Sky Project in 2016” which was awarded at the Clean Sky Annual Forum in Brussels on the 4th April.
The Clean Sky JTI (Joint Technology Initiative) is a Public Private Partnership between the European Commission and the European aeronautics industry that aims to develop breakthrough technologies to significantly increase the environmental performance of airplanes and air transport, resulting in less noisy and more fuel efficient aircraft.
IDS has had a strong participation in the Clean Sky 1 Programme: From 2011 to 2016 IDS has implemented 7 projects, 5 of them as project leader.
The two nominated IDS projects were:
- TACTIC – in flight Trajectory optimizAtion through advanCed simulation TechnICs
- TRAVEL – Tilt Rotor ATM integrated Validation of Environmental Low noise procedures
Tactic Project
The TACTIC project was led by IDS and also involved Deep Blue. The project’s main objective was the analysis and evaluation of pilot performance, with or without the help of an on-board decision support system, in decision making when unforeseen events force a change in the reference trajectory. To reach this objective a simulation environment that replicates present and future ATC and airborne system configurations was set up using the following IDS facilities:
- AACS: Advanced Aircraft Cockpit Simulator, connected directly to the Decision Support System (DSS)
- ATCSim: an air traffic control simulator, including:
- CWP: Control Working Position, one for each ATCO
- PWP: Pseudo-pilot Working Position, one for each CWP
This test bed environment was used to perform a set of simulations to study:
- The impact of different pilot behaviours in the decision making process when unforeseen events force a change of the reference trajectory;
- The impact of the Decision Support System on pilot workload, situation awareness and aircraft/airspace performance (e.g. fuel consumption, airspace capacity and efficiency, noise abatement) in all the phases of flight.
The overall evaluation strategy for the assessment of the concept followed a human-centred design approach and E-OCVM methodology. In line with these approaches, two main topics were investigated:
- Human factors, usability and safety: how the tool impacts pilot workload? How does it fit in with the current tasks, procedures and strategies? Does it affect flight safety?
- System performance: how the DSS impacts parameters such as fuel consumption, chemical emissions, flight duration? What are the differences between the configuration with the tool and the configuration without the tool?
Travel Project
The TRAVEL project was led by SICTA with IDS as a partner. The project’s objective was to define novel low noise tilt rotor procedures for approach/landing and take-off, and assess the impact of tilt rotors on ATC operations.
The target time frame for the operational implementation of procedures proposed by the TRAVEL project is 2020 and beyond. It is therefore expected that TRAVEL will pave the way, in conjunction with the SESAR programme, towards a significant evolution in environment friendly operational procedures.
The project’s implementation was broken down into the following main activities:
- Definition of the operational environment and a concept of operation for the use of a tiltrotor in an integrated ATC/tiltrotor environment.
- Development of specific tiltrotor procedures on the basis of the identified scenarios and the concept of operation.
- Preparation of the distributed platform (ATC, tiltrotor and connections) from both the operational and technical perspective.
- Execution of validation exercises and analysis of the results.
