Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - GRADE (GNSS Solutions for Increased GA and Rotorcraft Airport Accessibility Demonstration)

Teaser

\"The overall objective of the GRADE project is to demonstrate the capability of General Aviation and Rotorcraft to benefit from the concepts developed in the SESAR programme, thus facilitating their integration into the airspace and at the airports where the SESAR concepts are...

Summary

\"The overall objective of the GRADE project is to demonstrate the capability of General Aviation and Rotorcraft to benefit from the concepts developed in the SESAR programme, thus facilitating their integration into the airspace and at the airports where the SESAR concepts are implemented and guaranteeing the same access opportunity to all the airspace users.
Specifically, the project focuses on solutions based on GNSS technology: curved legs and continuous descent approach procedures for fixed wing aircraft, and low-level routes, point in space concept and simultaneous non-interfering operations for rotorcraft. Indeed, GRADE aims at demonstrating the applicability of the following SESAR Solutions to General Aviation aircraft and Rotorcraft equipped with non-certified or specific on-board equipment:
• #51 – “Enhanced terminal operations with RNP transition to LPV”,
• #55 – “Precision approaches using GBAS CAT II/III”,
• #103 – “Approach Procedure with vertical guidance”,
• #113– “Optimised Low Level instrument flight rules (IFR) routes for rotorcraft”.
The project will also focus on technological aspects, testing some prototypes already available within the consortium and suitably customized to fit the above listed SESAR Solutions needs: GNSS EGNOS and GBAS navigation algorithms able to guarantee the applicable RNP; Portable non certified Primary Flight Display to support pilot decisions and operations.
Concerning the demonstration objectives, they will be achieved through in flight live trials performed at two different sites and using three different aircraft:
• in the Italian airspace at Capua airport, using CIRA’s FLARE experimental flying platform;
• in the German airspace at Braunschweig airport, using TUBS’s Cessna 172N and DLR’s ACT/FHS research helicopter.
Preparatory Real-Time Simulations with hardware and humans in the loop will complement the flight trials, in order to identify the most relevant scenario conditions to test in flight, to assess possible safety risks during the in-flight trials, as well as to achieve preliminary assessment of measurable performance indices in realistic environments. All the tests (real time simulations and flight trials) will involve licensed air traffic controllers and pilots to operate the scenarios.\"

Work performed

\"The work performed in the first year of the project mainly concerned the following tasks, which were all successfully completed:
• Demonstration Plan Definition
• Technologies Customization
• Real Time Simulation Platforms Preparation
• Real Time Simulation Demonstration
The first task produced the consolidated Demo Plan. It details the scope of the demonstration through the definition of the operational scenarios, the identification of the involved actors with their role and responsibility, the specification of the exercises objectives and of the metrics and indicators that allow assessing the objectives’ achievement.
The Technologies Customization consisted in the definition of the requirements and the consequent modification of the prototypes, already available within the GRADE partners, in order to fit the validation objectives defined by the Demonstration Plan for the real time simulation exercises. All the technological solutions were integrated into a standard General Aviation and/or rotorcraft cockpit using affordable avionic equipment.
The Real Time Simulation Platforms Preparation task aimed at setting up the platforms used for the execution of Real-Time Hardware and Human in the Loop Simulations. Regulatory, safety and legal aspects necessary to get clearances and authorizations before the flight campaigns were also faced up and are still on going.
Finally, the Real Time Simulation with human and hardware in the loop were performed at CIRA and DLR, completing the GRADE Exercises #01 and #02 and testing, before the actual flight, procedures and technologies for all the selected Solutions as defined by the Demonstration Plan. Professional Pilot and Air Traffic Controllers were involved in the simulations. Relevant parameters for systems performance, human performances and safety assessments were gathered and made available for the post simulation analysis.
During the first year period, project management and dissemination and communication activities were also carried out.
Globally, the GRADE activities are on schedule and the team delivered (as planned) seven contractual deliverables (five of them were already approved by the SESAR JU, whereas the last two are still under SESAR JU review) and achieved two project milestones.\"

Final results

General Aviation accounts for about 5% of the total civil aviation revenues in Europe, and involve about 8% of the civil aviation job posts (AOPA Germany). General Aviation shows a wide range of uses from private and business travels to commercial on demand transport, leisure, sport, training, law enforcement, fire-fighting, medical services, agriculture, parcel service, aerial work (i.e. construction crane) and others. All these sectors and the society can benefit from the improvements coming from the GNSS and SNI application in GA and Rotorcraft activities.
The GRADE Project will perform demonstrations of GNSS and SNI application in General Aviation and Rotorcraft activities. The flight tests will produce data and sound results that can be used to support regulation, standardisation and certification needs for GA and rotorcraft. Expected outcomes of the project will comprehend performance measures, safety assessment and human performance evaluations. System performance will be expressed in terms of navigation precision of satellite based position system. Safety will be assessed in terms of reliability of the proposed solutions, as well as in terms of capacity to manage non-nominal and failure conditions. Human performance measures will apply to workload and situational awareness of both pilot and air traffic controllers. In further details, the project will support performance improvements by contributing to
• improve safety and airport accessibility of General Aviation and Rotorcraft to regional and small non-instrumented airports, large airports not equipped with the ILS system, and major ILS equipped airports (for GA and rotorcraft not equipped with ILS airborne devices).
• Ease the integration of General Aviation and rotorcraft with commercial aviation into airports airspace, by reducing the runway occupancy times and spacing between arrival aircraft without negatively affecting safety and human performance, and displacing IFR rotorcraft from active runways, while allowing an easier way to manage both traffic flows fixed-wing aircraft and rotorcraft.
Indeed, procedures and technologies demonstrated within this proposal will allow:
• providing more accurate positioning of the aircraft during the approach and geometrical vertical guidance during the final approach segment;
• increasing the pilots’ situational awareness both in lateral and vertical plane, the overall navigational and terrain awareness, thus reducing the risk of Controlled Flight Into Terrain events;
• reducing the approach minima with respect to conventional NPA procedures, consequently enabling successful approaches in conditions that may otherwise cause delay, diversion or cancellation;
• increasing flexibility in planning arrival paths in terminal airspace.
All these achievement can be obtained without requiring any change to the current on-ground infrastructure.

Website & more info

More info: http://www.gradeproject.eu/.