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www.airtrafficmanagement.netIssue 3 2013 Air Traffic Management42
US SPECIAL REPORT: INTEROPERABILITY
When it comes to aviation officials airing
their dirty linen in public, there have
been few washdays that have produced
quite such a spectacular pile of soiled laundry as
the one this summer, writes Aimée Turner.The débacle was ignominiously splashed
across the Wall Street Journal detailing US avia-
tion officials’ fears over whether aircraft flying
between the US and Europe would be able to
use each other’s air traffic management systems
as progress in NextGen modernisation stateside
and its European counterpart SESAR gains pace.
The talk was of an impending breakdown in
relations between those charged with setting
standards in the field of data communica-
tions, something which risked undermining
an aviation partnership that has to date been
an example of perfect transatlantic unity - in
industrial terms at least.
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) chief
Michael Huerta has gone on record as pledging
that economic uncertainties and challenges
will neither deter the two trading regions
from staying the course with their respective
modernisation efforts nor prevent them from
ensuring that interoperability remains at the
fore of those efforts.
That however contradicted a warning deliv-
ered by John Hickey, one of the FAA’s top safety
officials, that the US and Europe continue to
move in different directions and risk undermin-
ing progress on both sides of the Atlantic. He
told a US-European safety summit that he was
becoming ‘greatly concerned about divergent
paths’, including conflicting timetables and
technical standards over data communication
technologies. It was those comments that led to
the recent unsettling media attention.
Hickey said he feared that with different
timetables and requirements, full co-operation
and agreement on the choice of specific tech-
nologies would ultimately break down which in
turn would create a fractured global
satellite-based network offering no
prospect of seamless operations.
Hickey’s comments reflected internal
FAA concerns that a two-speed political and
economic deployment timetable risked setting
a precedent that would lead to even further rifts
and complications that could impact transforma-
tional technologies further down the schedule.
Gold StandardIt should have been all so different. A
2011 pact promoting the gold standard of
interoperability between the US and Europe
was underpinned by a formal collaborative
structure – principally through the workings
of joint standards development committees
made up of the membership of RTCA and
Eurocae standards bodies.
So what is at the heart of this summer’s very
public falling-out?
After three years of collaboration the US and Europe are fighting to stop conflicting technology agendas from damaging transatlantic partnerships
Exchange?Fair
www.airtrafficmanagement.net Air Traffic Management Issue 3 2013 43
US SPECIAL REPORT: INTEROPERABILITY
Michael Standar, the SESAR strategy chief
heading international relations, says that the
two sides have since effected a rapproche-
ment and that the transatlantic spat was a
mere storm in a political teacup.
“This has been an issue for some time. We
needed to converge on a standard that we
could push forward through both Eurocae and
the RTCA which would fit the timescales of
both NextGen and SESAR,” says Standar. “That’s
been a discussion all along. The issue was more
about timing with the specific programmes.
It was our way of pushing and saying, look
we have a memorandum of cooperation with
the US, we are leading the two largest ATM
modernisation programmes in the world so we
need to come to an agreement.”
Standar’s colleague David Bowen, who heads
ATM operations and systems at SESAR, says that
because the issue over meeting deadlines was
not being necessarily handled with any sense
of urgency, a summit of FAA and SESAR experts
was convened in August.
“What we did at the outset was draw up a clear
statement of the needs from both the US and
European positions in terms of which datacomm
applications were critical for the two programmes
and what the timings were in terms of deploy-
ment,” says Bowen. “It was really the timeline that
was causing the issue as the Europeans are push-
ing for a nearer term initial deployment of some
of these critical applications.”
Bowen explains that the Europeans want to
adopt a more incremental approach
with an initial roll-out in
2018 for some
datalink capabilities with
a focus on 4D operations whereas the US wants
a later date but a more comprehensive roll-out.
“This was predicated on the publication
of the standards by 2014 at the latest which
would give industry the necessary time to start
the industrialisation for equipage in time for an
operational launch of 2018,” he says.
The US however adopted a different view,
determining that there were a few missing
elements in the set of applications SESAR
had been working towards over recent years,
highlighting three additional services it wanted
to feature as part of a package termed ATM
Baseline II.
An Airframer’s Perspective Mike Caflisch, Boeing
With few European companies in NextGen
and few American ones in SESAR, there
will be challenges in focusing on the in-
teroperability question. That is one of the
reasons why the roles played by Boeing
and Airbus are so important.
The US Federal Aviation Administration
(FAA) and Eurocontrol are attempting to co-
ordinate NextGen and SESAR efforts. ICAO
has an interest in promoting ‘One Sky’
through its Global Air Navigation Plan.
There is a global priority to establish
interoperable airspace systems but the
unintended consequence of these multiple
efforts is similar to the hard part of what
Europe is trying to do with SESAR.
Disparate global data systems, hardware,
infrastructure, processes and procedures
- combined with differences in state and
regional requirements and priorities - make
interoperability extremely challenging.
Work is progressing on the establish-
ment of global standards but the interna-
tional community must be careful not to
limit or inhibit interoperable solutions. Ad-
vancements in technology and the ap-
plication of those technologies will help
to define the future of interoperability in
realistic and operationally-driven ways.
Interoperability in avionics is assured
through ICAO, RTCA, EASA and other
standardisation committees but it doesn’t
always work perfectly. A recent example is
the different requirements for ADS-B Out
performance for different airspace regions.
However, it is a much better process
than interoperability in ATC procedures
and automation systems, where there
is basically no formal process for global
standardisation. Additionally, there is not
a process for ‘synchronising’ investments in
new systems and operations across ANSPs,
which does factor into interoperability as
experienced by the aircraft operator.
Disparate global data systems, hardware, infrastructure, processes and procedures combined with differences in state and regional priorities make interoperability
extremely challenging
www.airtrafficmanagement.net Air Traffic Management Issue 3 2013 45
US SPECIAL REPORT: INTEROPERABILITY
“As such they came to the RTCA/Eurocae fo-
rum with a proposal to delay the publication of
the standard of one to two years,” says Bowen.
This however posed a serious problem for the
Europeans because that delay would prevent
them achieving initial deployment by 2018.
A solution had to be found that would meet
Europe’s needs as well as satisfy the FAA’s desire
to include capabilities such as dynamic RNP,
advanced interval management and an ability
to transmit wind information back to ATC.
Standar here points out that Europe is not
against embracing these additional capabilities.
“The difficulty we had is that if we kept on put-
ting off setting the standards it would not be
until 2023 that we had anything to work on. It
was important for us to get something in place
and build on the deployment experience we
gain from validation.”
Bowen agrees saying that all standards evolve
over time but that there has to be a balance
between a stable stance that avoids the risk of
industry and airlines having to reinvest
while allowing evolution and new capability.
At OddsIn addition to conflicting timescales, the way in
which both regions want to use datacomm is
also at odds.
“The business case element of datacomm
which for the Europeans is pretty much based
on 4D trajectory management is not so pivotal
for the US,” says Bowen. “The US has a very
strong view in terms of the use of PBN and RNP
etc and their core focus is on datacomm ena-
bling those elements to be used more widely.”
“We have certainly nothing against that,”
points out Bowen. “It’s just that our focus on 4D
essentially allows increased predictability and
less reactive management. I wouldn’t necessar-
ily say any one is better than another, it’s just
another perspective.”
The solution has been to establish a set of
services which meet both European and US
needs. Here, Bowen says it doesn’t make sense
to go through a whole standardisation indus-
trial and deployment cycle for just one single
capability. “It makes sense to package them
into a set of things some of which will be used
in some places, some of which will be in others
and some of which are used everywhere. The
key is to make sure you have common equipage
to avoid multiple investments.”
The solution will be embodied in a new co-
ordination plan agreed between SESAR and the
FAA which enshrines a two-step approach to
capabilities. An initial version of the standards
to be applied will be published in early 2014 as
per the original schedule which will meet the
initial needs of the Europeans. That will allow
industrialisation of a product by 2018 in which
initial 4D capabilities will feature.
The additional US capabilities will continue
to be worked on within the Eurocae/RTCA
forum which aims to publish a final standard
that ensures these are compatible with the
initial version sometime in the mid to late
2015 timeframe.
Bowen says industry has been deeply involved
during the whole process and that the airframers
Boeing and Airbus have this summer drawn up a
joint position paper which provided an excellent
catalyst to agreeing the two-step approach.
Michael Standar insists that the beauty of
the collaborative result achieved is in recognis-
ing that a one-size approach is not appropri-
ate or useful. “They might have their system,
we may have ours. The important thing is that
they have to be interoperable. What we can
show is that we can achieve interoperability
for seamless operations without having an
identical system.”
US Survey 2013 Are interoperable airspace systems feasible?
Carol Huegel Metron AviationInteroperability has long been focused on the aircraft
and associated procedures. Looking forward, it will be
equally important to address the interoperability needs
with respect to data exchange. Accurate, timely exchange of operational
data among all stakeholders will be pivotal to the success of all moderni-
sation programmes. While there are many industry professionals who
understand the technical elements of the various data exchange models,
a significant focus on the processes, procedures and policies associated
with transparent data exchange is a must.
Bobby Sturgell Rockwell CollinsInteroperability has been a key theme between NextGen and SESAR for sev-
eral years and ICAO is working hard to keep the need for interoperability in
front of everyone. What has caused things to flare up recently is perhaps the
somewhat divergence on data link programmes between the US and EU.
Hopefully, that can get resolved over the next couple of years. You are never
going to get perfect coordination between NextGen and SESAR, especially
with respect to mandates and timelines. But you do want interoperability in
the end and all ANSPs should be striving to ensure that happens. The worst
thing you can do for your customers - the operators - is to impose additional
equipage requirements to perform similar types of operations.
Mike Caflisch BoeingThe key difference between FAA and SESAR is in their solution selection,
such as SESAR’s emphasis on i4D using aircraft RTA capabilities versus the
FAA’s emphasis on ADS-B In for Interval Management. This can lead to
a global harmonisation problem for aircraft operators and manufactur-
ers, i.e. multiple solutions for the same operational problem in the same
timeframe. For global interoperability to have priority, the airplane manu-
facturers, backed by their customer airlines, must continue to make the
economic arguments concerning the cost to the aircraft and to the airlines
should diverse systems be adopted in different regions of the world.
Roberta Leftwich Booz AllenDoes every nation, regardless of traffic density or airspace characteristics,
need to have technology and procedures that are truly of the same level
as the rest of the world? CANSO’s Guide to Seamless Airspace lays out
one sound approach in which certain airspace characteristics need to be
globally or regionally standardised (e.g., phraseology, nav performance
requirements), some harmonised (e.g., flight level allocation schemes),
and some truly interoperable.
Read more views on the challenge of interoperability at www.airtrafficmanagement.net/ussurvey2013