A high-fidelity artificial airport environment for SESAR APOC validation experiments

Abstract

Europe’s SESAR Program develops a wide range of solutions to increase the performance of the Air Traffic System. At airport level, the Airport Operations Center (APOC) is expected to provide the most benefit in adverse weather conditions, being the ultimate communication platform to pursue the Total Airport Management (TAM) Collaborative Decision Making Process. It will increase mutual and common situation awareness and allows the joint definition and implementation of the operational strategy. The assessment of APOC benefits in a live airport environment is rather limited and requires implementation and “right” weather and traffic situations. This work argues for validation trials in high fidelity artificial airport environments as a more reliable and less costly alternative which allows comparison between operations before and after implementation of new solutions. Based on requirements provided by SESAR concept documentation and from live operations this work presents an approach for such a high fidelity artificial environment.