Surveillance Data Processing Systems (SDPS) are the beating heart of every air traffic management system. An SPDS receives data from multiple surveillance sensors like radars and ADS-B receivers and uses complicated mathematical algorithms to produce a stable and continuously updated air situation picture, with flights moving smoothly, without jumps and abrupt changes in trajectory. Air traffic controllers need it to keep flights safely separated and every Air Navigation Service Provider (ANSP) has one SDPS and usually a backup one too, in case something goes wrong.
Those systems are much less visible than controller working positions and advanced conflict detection systems, but are nevertheless absolutely indispensable because they provide the surveillance data that other systems require.
Despite Europe being a gigantic patchwork of diverse Air Traffic Management (ATM) systems, almost all European ANSPs use the same SPDS: the EUROCONTROL ATM suRveillance Tracker and Server, known as ARTAS. When development started, in 1993, the “R” stood for Radar but as ARTAS can integrate ADS-B and multilateration (MLAT), it now stands for the “R” in suRveillance.
A successful centralisation by EUROCONTROL
ARTAS is available “for free” to all EUROCONTROL member states. The budget is taken from the agency’s budget, which comes from route fees paid by airlines. Nothing is really for free, especially something as good as ARTAS. Is this the secret sauce making this long-lasting success possible or is there more?
SDPSs are complex to develop and certify and EUROCONTROL took the initiative to create and maintain one in an early attempt to harmonise technical equipment in Europe. The agency does not develop ARTAS directly but awards and renews development contracts on a regular basis.
Different industry partners have worked on ARTAS over the last quarter of a century. The main development contract is issued every five years and multiple side-contracts are awarded to various companies as well. EUROCONTROL remains the owner of all intellectual property rights and ensures continuity over time.
Management by the users, for the users
The real success factor is that ARTAS is developed under the supervision of EUROCONTROL in a process managed very closely by users themselves. Each ANSP using it has dedicated personnel, known as Local ARTAS Management Operations and Support team (LAMOS) and they form a lively working community. EUROCONTROL has a similar team, known as Central ARTAS Management Operation and Support or CAMOS for short.
CAMOS and LAMOS teams meet quarterly at the ARTAS Users Group (AUG) and Change Control Board (CCB) meetings. Industry partners also participate in the AUG and CCB, where every operational or prospective user is given an opportunity to raise their voice to address their concerns, share about recent incidents, or propose new features. The group also has the authority to make direct decisions about new features to be implemented, prioritisation of bugs to be fixed, and where the project should go in the longer term.
Besides regularly exchanging views, users sometimes support each other directly. Some countries contributed full algorithms, notably France’s DSNA once simply contributed a new altitude tracker. Discussions sometimes can become heated but this tightly-knit community of technicians usually comes to consensus and takes common decisions. Some evenings of the AUG and CCB meetings, hosted either at EUROCONTROL HQ or by a user, were memorable too, which helps to forge long lasting bonds.
This group is a great example of European colleagues working together smoothly. As Antonio Principe, the ARTAS & SDDS Services Manager at EUROCONTROL, often said when addressing the AUG meetings: “The ARTAS success is the sum of the contributions of the European community of SDP experts working for industry, ANSPs and EUROCONTROL”.
Slow but steady pace of innovation
This culture of consensus sometimes means that the pace of innovation in ARTAS can seem slow but evolution is present for sure. It can accept ADS-B, MLAT, and Surface Movement Radars (SMR) making it a real gate-to-gate tracker. Not many other SDPSs can claim this.
Parts of the software have been modernised over the years and the hardware architecture changed too. Originally, each ARTAS was made of 10 Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) computers running UNIX. Nowadays, this has been reduced to two PCs running Linux.
Success replication across all surveillance products
A testament to ARTAS’ success is that it is used outside of Europe too, in Morocco, Iceland, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Indonesia, Papa New Guinea, and in the USA.
The same international model of project management and governance also exists with other EUROCONTROL projects in the surveillance domain:
- SASS-C is a tool used to evaluate surveillance data quality and demonstrate that a given ARTAS unit is performing according to the requested level of performance.
- SDDS, the Surveillance Data Distribution System which typically is used upstream of ARTAS, to distribute, to convert, and to pre-process surveillance data.
- ASTERIX, which is the underlying data format used for all surveillance applications, which is also managed by EUROCONTROL.
The work and collaboration done by the team around ARTAS is a really great example. Technical people are usually quite humble and discreet, so it is not surprising that this common work is not well known. Hopefully, this article will be a way to shine a bit of light on this brilliant, long-lasting effort, because its result truly is a European treasure.
