Based on the experience of the previous Engage Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN), it will support the SESAR 3 Joint Undertaking (S3JU) and contribute to the development and implementation of the SESAR Digital Academy (SDA), created by SESAR 2020 Joint Undertaking in order to train and inspire the next generation aviation workforce in anticipation of the digital economy. In particular, the consortium will build on the platform of Engage KTN (“Engage”), taking forward the success story of its previous 4.5 years of work, drawing on lessons learned, and complementing the partnership with invaluable new partners. “Engage 2” will build on the existing brand and awareness of the Engage KTN, to deliver excellence across the elements of the expected outcomes, as delineated task-by-task through this proposal. Lean and efficient implementation from a tightly knit and highly effective consortium, whilst ensuring experienced and competent delivery, has enabled Engage 2 to maximise its potential and outreach into the ATM community and beyond, both directly through maximised ‘externalised’ budget (e.g., through PhD funding and catalyst funds) and indirectly (e.g., through continued development of the Engage knowledge hub, or wiki, and its multiple resources). Engage 2 will deliver cross-fertilisation of knowledge from other disciplines to stimulate inputs from innovative, future-scoping and unconventional research into the domain of ATM: a focal point here is the ATM concepts roadmap, which will be developed further as a core element of the Engage wiki. The KTN will continue to forge strong links between research at the leading edge of apposite fields and establish alignment and synergies with the operational challenges facing SESAR.This will be achieved across multiple activities and underpinned by the ‘thematic challenges’ – a key success story of the Engage KTN.

This Fast Track project is a unique opportunity allowing the different stakeholders to approach, in an agile way, the development and joint validation of needed UAM technologies and operations in a real European environment. This will help the market bridge the famous Valley of Death in technology development, while it will bring a significant amount of insights that will be necessary for ensuring a safe introduction of the new UAM vehicles in all types of airspaces. The project has set 5 key objectives which will deliver 6 well defined results that will contribute to achieving all Expected Outcomes stated in the Call text. The OperA project will enable safe and efficient operations in all types of airspace (controlled, uncontrolled and U-space) and conditions by validating 3 different complex UAM (piloted Air Taxi and unmanned cargo) operations in real-life ATM conditions (TRL7) including contingency and non-nominal situations. It will stimulate the uptake of new sustainable Urban Air Mobility services by addressing Air/Ground integration and the critical transition steps from piloted towards automated flights for 5 key autonomy-enabling technologies at TRL7. In addition, it will ensure environmental sustainability compared to the next best transport alternative, and enhance it, by optimizing flight routing for minimum noise footprint and aircraft energy utilization. Eventually, it will accelerate the deployment of Urban Air Mobility by addressing necessary standardization, regulation and roadmaps, in synchronization with the ongoing certification of the 3 involved European UAM vehicles, and ensure social acceptance by targeted communication and dissemination activities. All of this will be done through 3 distinct and well selected demonstration activities involving Europes most promising UAM OEMs.

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.

In recent years a lot of attention has gone into the concept of integrating Communication, Navigation, and Surveillance (CNS) services. While no clear criteria exist for what exactly constitutes “integrated” CNS, a common interpretation is that a single radio technology will serve multiple purposes, potentially covering all three domains. This perspective is most attractive in the sense of spectrum efficiency, as each radio link will serve multiple domains simultaneously, instead of a single one. In addition to the multi-domain utility of L-band digital aeronautical communication system (LDACS), MIAR will also implement various Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) technologies to concurrently provide a modular approach to navigation. The project aims to demonstrate that LDACS can support CNS services on an aircraft. The proposal is centered around flight experiments, which will use LDACS-based CNS services to provide optimized separation between aircraft in real time, thus making optimal use of the airspace while being spectrum efficient. In addition to multi-domain use of one technology, MIAR will also feature the ability to support NAV services from multiple, modularly interchangeable technologies. This aspect will be an important piece to the standardization of “Modular APNT”. A real-time, in-flight demonstration of separation controls will be the first of its kind using a single physical layer: LDACS. This fact, combined with the ambition of bringing all components to TRL-6, is a show of the potential for LDACS and other new technologies to support the future of aviation. MIAR will cover two crucial developments, which will be world-first: use of LDACS for integrated CNS and the use of multiple non-GNSS technologies to provide an integrated navigation solution. Neither of the two has ever been demonstrated in flight, so MIAR poses a unique opportunity to accomplish two world firsts in one project.

Based on the results obtained mainly from SESAR W2, this project completes key developments of the Demand and Capacity Balancing (DCB) operational concept in those areas where improvements would make the implementation of the operational concept more efficient. The core focus being: -to provide automatic support for spot analysis and particularly resolution, using what-if simulations that can find optimal solutions with most appropriate combinations of airspace configurations, choice of flights and measure or set of combined measures selection; -to integrate and harmonise the constraints of the network actors, such as departure and arrival airports, Integrated Network management and ATC Planning (INAP) Actors, Terminal Management Areas (TMA) and the Airspace Users (AU), to supply network-wide solutions that respect constraints and priorities as far as possible; -to further integrate the Dynamic Airspace Configuration (DAC) concept with INAP and Network Management (NM), increasing the flexibility of the process to be more efficient in the usage of available capacity. The main benefits that the project will provide are an increase of capacity, cost-efficiency of Air Traffic Services (ATS), flexibility and cost reduction of AU and fuel efficiency. The developments are grouped into two solutions: -Enhanced Demand Management, covering the two first areas; -Dynamic Airspace Configuration, covering the third. It is a goal for this project to provide mature evolutions to the forementioned concepts, with some elements becoming candidates for early deployment and that can integrate the new architecture of integrated Network Management (iNM).