German Aerospace Congress 2009

The German Aerospace Congress is organised annually by DGLR, the German Society for Aeronautics and Astronautics. This year it took place at the Eurogress Conference Centre in Aachen, Germany, from September 8 to 10, 2009.

On the second day of the conference, DLR presented the AT-One paper on Virtual Block Control and Separation Bubbles. In contrast to the paper presented at ICNS 2009 in Arlington, this paper had a focus on evaluation of the concepts in cockpit simulator trials.

The conference sessions were generally set up with a broad range of topics so that there were not too many presentations directly focussing on ATM. Some of the presentations were mere descriptions of work approaches and used facilities, but they were nonetheless interesting. The sessions I attended described new approaches to avionics and control systems, especially for small private aircraft, knowledge management, simulator development, data analysis, and last but not least ATM.

A very interesting presentation from one of my AT-One colleagues described a revolutionary approach to controlling aircraft, referred to as sectorless ATM. In that scenario several tactical controllers share one giant airspace sector and control or rather guide a number of aircraft (between 3 to 8) through that sector. Although the concept still has some weaker points (controller communication, priority rules) it is an interesting starting point for innovative research in that area.

Requirements Engineering

Just at the start of the new year NLR finished a study for Eurocontrol investigating the role of requirements within the different life cycle phases of ATM operational concept validation as described by the European Operational Concept Validation Methodology (E-OCVM).

A survey of relevant standards (IEEE, ESA-ECSS, EUROCAE) and terminology related to operational concept validation and requirements engineering was performed. This survey resulted in a strategy for the development of requirements along the E-OCVM life cycle composed of three major processes called requirements elicitation or capture process, requirements analysis or specification process, and requirements management process.

The study describes the requirements strategy in detail and refers to the relevant standards that can be used as guidelines for the processes. An analysis of actors and their roles within the validation process emphasised the role of a central manager overseeing the development processes that lead to a gradual refinement of the requirements. Finally, the study analysed three European R&D projects regarding their requirements engineering processes and compared their approaches with the suggested strategy.

Thus, if you have lost your way in the underbrush of ATM standards and requirements documents, this study might be interesting reading material.

The report was published as NLR report CR-2007-702 and is publicly available.

What is the E-OCVM?

E-OCVM stands for the European Operational Concept Validation Methodology and is a framework that has been developed in 2004 by Eurocontrol in collaboration with several R&D partners including the ATM & Airports Department of NLR. Generally, the E-OCVM is based on the methodological approach described by the Master European Validation Plan (MAEVA) project in its Validation Guideline Handbook (VGH).

The MAEVA VGH suggests a five-step approach to validation that was originally defined in the Eurocontrol Development of EATCHIP/EATMP Validation Methodologies (DEVAM) project. As refined and expanded, these five steps form the core of the VGH. In order to address each of the steps at the appropriate level and for the appropriate audience, the VGH contains three parts, each describing the steps at different levels of detail. Despite the general acceptance of the VGH within the ATM community, several adaptations of the framework were proposed within European R&D initiatives (especially the Gate-to-Gate and C‑ATM projects) concentrating on the initial approach to validation activities and the related life cycle of the concept or technology to be validated.

Eurocontrol together with the Co-operative Approach to Air Traffic Services (CAATS) project team (responsible for co-ordinating validation approaches within the current European Commission Framework Programme) consolidated all change proposals in the first edition of the E-OCVM, which has become the mandatory methodological framework for concept validation within the European ATM community.

The E-OCVM addresses validation at the highest two levels of the MAEVA stepped approach, and additionally introduces a concept life cycle model as well as a so-called case-based approach. The latter integrates validation exercise results into key cases that directly address stakeholder issues about ATM performance and behaviours. More information can be found at the Eurocontrol Validation Forum website.