This year, the SESAR Innovation Days (SIDs) took place at the charming Lake Bled in Slovenia between 1-4 December. Hosts Pipistrel and the University of Ljubljana welcomed 450 participants from Europe and beyond. The event started with visits to Slovenia Control and to Pipistrel’s aircraft production hall, followed by three days of plenary discussions and technical paper sessions. Alongside this agenda, an exhibition showcased 40 exploratory research projects that covered a range of topics, including AI solutions to enhance operations, air-ground integration and autonomy, sustainability, dynamic airspace, civil-military coordination, connectedness, multimodality, passenger experience, U-space, virtualisation and data sharing.
The plenary discussions gathered experts from different Air Traffic Management (ATM) fields, adding interest and valued insight. Pilots, Air Traffic Controllers (ATCOs), regulators and industry representatives shared their points of view on the new service delivery model, human-machine teaming and GNSS and virtual operations.
Enabling innovation in ATM: the new service delivery model
The panelists underlined that Europe’s current ATM infrastructure urgently needs modernisation, in order to cope with future demand. The new service delivery model will be an enabler for interoperability and modularity and it is expected to decrease the time between innovation and deployment. The future vision includes an environment in which ANSPs can access services from different suppliers, fully interoperable within Europe, making agile responses to operational needs possible.
How do we make human-machine teaming a reality?
The European ATM Master Plan uses this term as one of the pillars of the future. With the growing demand and limited workforce, digitalisation offers a chance to improve performance with our current human resources.
There is however an important complexity factor to be aware of when considering digitalisation: What if an AI-based tool is built upon the data collected in one country, but the tool itself is used in another country? If the data used for AI training comes from a different operational environment, will the Air Traffic Controllers trust it?
From the cockpit’s perspective, it is important to build and develop core skills from the beginning of the training for all operational staff. These skills should be regularly refreshed to ensure that the users are able to react correctly if the automated tools misbehave or fail.
When considering future areas of potential automation, the panelists mentioned ATC communication on the ground, long-term shadow-modes for testing new systems and tools preventing runway incursions as some of the priorities.
GNSS and virtual operations
European aviation relies heavily on satellite-based navigation and digitalised operations. Together with these new opportunities for better performance, efficiency and flexibility come vulnerabilities, like GNSS jamming and cyber threats. PANSA shared that in the Polish airspace GPS interference nearly tripled in the last year. Close cooperation and information sharing with the military, as well as situational awareness and reliable tools that detect signal disruption are paramount.
The use of multi-frequency, quantum sensing and a secure virtual layer with an integrated picture were mentioned as ideas to enhance security of operations.
Moving from innovation to implementation
Former European commissioner for Transport, Violeta Bulc shared her view that Europe should take a broader look at the potential of U-space and Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), and noted the example of China, where these concepts are gathered under the term ‘Low Altitude Economy’ (LAE). LAE is a rapidly growing sector focused on activities below 3,000 metres. It includes the use of drones and electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOLs) for deliveries, tourism, emergency responses and agriculture. This concept is strongly backed by China’s government, with 20 Chinese cities given the green light for testing and full-scale AAM operations planned for 2050. Bulc called for other industries – such as automotive, property development, rail, logistics, agriculture and telecom – to be factored in when designing Europe’s future AAM programme.
She pointed to multimodality and single ticketing, as well as vertical integration of space and air traffic, as the next frontiers for ATM, and called for more in-depth research in human factors and economic aspects.
The panel discussions highlighted that cooperation and bravery in innovation with a pinch of caution are the key ingredients of the common vision for ATM.
Meanwhile the exhibition included many innovative ideas, however projects related to social dimension and economy, and ATM and space vertical integration were missing. In addition, there was a shortage of material for new entrants other than drones.
The SIDs event is more than just a conference; it is a truly engaging meeting of minds from the ATM research community. There is a strong sense of community, which stands the sector in good stead for the future. The variety of activities, combination of panel discussions, announcement of SESAR young scientists awards, field visits and networking opportunities made SIDs 2025 an event worth visiting, or rather, experiencing.
