Invitation to SESAR 1 Close-out event

Dr Stella Tkatchova, head of the Research and Innovation Department of SESAR Joint Undertaking, informed to the ICARUS research group leader, Enric Pastor, about the selection of the ERAINT project for a formal presentation of the results of this SESAR WP-E recently finished project in the SESAR 1 close-out event. The presentation will take place next June 14th in Amsterdam, at 17:30, alongside the presentation from the European Commission on the importance of exploratory research in ATM, a second WP-E project and concluding remarks from the SESAR JU Chief of ATM, David Bowen.

The ERAINT project, recently finished, was lead by ICARUS from June 2014 to January 2016. Within the project a number of simulations were conducted to study the safety issues and separation methods of a remotely piloted aircraft (RPAS or drone) flying in controlled airspace. The simulations were conducted with real historical air traffic, mixed with more than 50 hours of a drone flight, in several areas of Europe. Seven different air traffic controllers, from 4 different countries, were involved in the simulations, and their workload was measured to with different methods to evaluate the increase of complexity due to the integration of the drone in the airspace.

The project went through three steps of study: first, separation assurance between RPAS and airliners; second, dealing with RPAS contingencies; and third, dynamic changes of the RPAS flight operations. The project produced the development the future RPAS concept of operations for their integration into the non-segregated air space, and also pointed out the datalink technologies that could facilitate their seamless integration.