Rob Sharp, Interim CEO of Airservices Australia discusses the intersection of innovation, technology and collaboration for controlling air traffic into the future
A successful aviation industry requires great collaboration across myriad organisations, authorities, businesses and operators to keep aircraft in the skies today, to evolve for the future and to secure the social licence to operate for the benefit of everyone.
Airservices has a specific role:
- Provide facilities and services for safe, efficient air navigation including providing air traffic services, aviation rescue fire-fighting services and telecommunications services;
- Promote and foster civil aviation, and
- Activities that protect the environment from the effects of aircraft operations.
Reconciling these priorities can be a challenge. The way we think about airspace is evolving, as are the demands we face as airspace managers. We need to adapt to the future of aviation in a way that safely and confidently balances the needs of all users.
Like the imagination and effort required to enable the first 12-second, 36 metre journey of the Wright Flyer in North Carolina 120 years ago, the future of air traffic will rely on a combination of innovative thought, technological advancement and the collaboration of capable people.
At Airservices, we are turning to those principles as we prepare for the aviation landscape of the future. It will be a world where aeroplanes will share the skies with significantly more drones and uncrewed aircraft. A world where technology will increasingly provide the eyes for us to manage busy airspace. A world where we will need to make sure the new ways our customers want to use the skies can be facilitated and adopted in a safe and sustainable way. In collaboration with others, Airservices has been at the forefront developing the foundations for this future. There are many factors to consider as we move forward.
Industry relationships
Our relationships with industry are also critical to help us serve the needs of the public and the aviation sector today. For example, we are seeking complementary data sets from airlines, airports and industry stakeholders to increase cross-industry understanding of the causal factors of delay. The resulting insights will not only improve trust with the travelling public, but also inform better decisions to enhance whole-of-network performance.
Overall industry compliance with Ground Delay Programs, critical to avoid excessive airborne delay, are yet to return to long-term trend. We are working with airlines and airports to improve the coordination of strategic network planning processes to reduce opportunities for demand and capacity imbalance that in turn negatively effect on time performance and network reliability.
But it is not enough to come up with good technical and operational solutions. We’re also working to balance the competing needs of community and industry on issues like noise and sustainability. The Aviation White Paper acknowledges the importance of getting this balance right through the initiative for Airservices to appoint a noise and environment executive to lead this work.
Airservices Australia has developed the Community Engagement Standard, a framework for our ongoing conversations with locals about the steps we can take to manage the impact of aircraft noise. We are currently consulting with the community in Brisbane, Ballina, Hobart and Bankstown. This work will be increasingly important during a period of aviation infrastructure capacity uplift across the country over coming years.
Investing in quieter, greener technology, disciplined execution of operational plans and cross-industry alignment on necessary trade-offs between emissions and aircraft noise is critical to meet evolving societal expectations.
In early August, we announced a partnership with air navigation service providers from Singapore, New Zealand and Indonesia, as well as our respective flag carriers to trial user-preferred routing on 38 scheduled routes to enable pilots to take advantage of prevailing winds to save fuel and reduce emissions. It’s a win-win for all stakeholders.
Innovation and technology
Airservices Australia has been focused on three initiatives aimed at enhancing our ability to manage Australia’s increasingly busy and complex airspace.
Firstly, the Flight Information Management System and uncrewed aircraft program.
Airspace management will become more complex through innovative and expanding use of drones, along with the introduction of air taxis and other uncrewed aircraft. In preparation for this future, we’re developing the Flight Information Management System, or FIMS, to support the safe and efficient integration of emerging airspace users into Australia’s busy low-altitude airspace.
Earlier this year we released analysis we’d commissioned on the future drone and advanced air mobility market in Australia. This included a forecast that over the next 20 years drone and Advanced Air Mobility flights in Australia will increase from the current 1.5 million flights annually to 60 million in 2043.
As noted in the White Paper, these emerging technologies will transform the use of airspace over the next 25 years and have the potential to transform connectivity over short distances. There are a range of applications in support of emergency services, public safety, agriculture and the delivery of medical supplies.
FIMS helps facilitate this outcome, supporting an open-market unmanned aircraft systems traffic management, or UTM, ecosystem. This approach has been consistently reflected in government policy documents over five years.
But effective management of these technologies and their associated risks will be key to their acceptance, and this will require industry collaboration.
Airservices Australia has appointed Frequentis Australasia to develop the FIMS, which will provide important airspace information to airspace users and be the backbone of Australia’s UTM ecosystem. FIMS will deconflict drone flight paths at the flight planning stage and in flight, obtain authorisation to access airspace around airports, and ensure access to airspace is fair and equitable.
FIMS will facilitate Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations and be digital and automated from day one, providing easy approvals to access to airspace. It will be the central decision-making component for the UTM ecosystem, into which approved third-party suppliers can connect to access the data, communications, and decisions they need to deliver their services to UAS operators including commercial, civil, academic, research and government.
The Australian Association for Uncrewed Systems is Australia’s largest industry advocacy group for uncrewed systems. A survey they ran in early 2019 found strong support for the proposed ecosystem that includes FIMS.
However, collaboration is key here, and what we're calling for is continued ongoing close communication across the industry as we evolve these systems. We are very supportive of open market systems, but for the benefit of all.
The second program I wanted to reference is the Digital Aerodrome Service program. With the needs of the aviation sector changing quickly, a once-in-a-generation investment is required to provide more scalable capabilities to monitor increased and more complex aerospace activity.
Airservices has been evolving beyond the tower-and-on-site controller model, introducing digital aerodrome services, with the first deployment at Canberra underway and scheduled to begin operations in 2025.
The technology uses cameras located around the airfield to provide remotely-located controllers with a series of ‘out of the window’ views, doing away with the need for a bricks and mortar tower.
We have commenced the construction of the 35-metre mast at Canberra airport and commencing fit out of the operations centre, located 13km off site in a highly secure data centre in coming months. Western Sydney is very close behind with plans for their 45-metre tower in the final stages of airport approval. Western Sydney’s secure operational facility will be located 17km away in Eastern Creek, supported by state of the art physical and data security and infrastructure.
This world class technology will improve the capability of our controllers, enabling us to deliver even greater levels of safety and increased capacity wherever it is deployed. The technology has been used, proven and demonstrated to be safe in over 10 airports and five countries around the world.
And thirdly, the OneSKY and CMATS program.
This is the merger of Australia’s civil and military air traffic control automation systems under the $1 billion-plus OneSKY joint program between Airservices and Defence.
The resulting Civil Military Air Traffic Management System, or CMATS, will provide a unified air traffic management capability that will give Australian Defence Force and civilian controllers access to a shared view of the Australian administered airspace.
This major evolution of our air traffic management services will meet the needs of an aviation future that demands greater efficiency, capacity, and increased civil-military coordination, while ensuring safety and security of the service.
In partnership with Thales in Australia, CMATS has its foundations in the existing Thales TopSKY product family. That doesn’t mean it’s a ready-made solution. The engineering process has been dominated by the integration and scale of the work required, along with an uplift in security to meet contemporary cyber security needs.
This new, coordinated approach to air traffic management will serve modern Defence aviation operations, which require more airspace to operate due to longer-range capabilities, and airlines which continue to seek the most efficient flight paths. The system will also factor in the emerging requirements of new airborne systems such as electric air taxis and large-scale drones, should future airspace regulation allow for them to share the same airspace.
CMATS will become operational across more than 200 air traffic control positions, all interconnected across several Tower Approach units and three Air Traffic Services Centres, servicing a single Flight Information Region encompassing all of the Australian civil and military airspace.
The scope of the OneSKY Program covers national infrastructure upgrades, technology delivery with Thales, integration into the Airservices and Defence national airways systems, and transition of the air traffic controller workforce onto the new technology.
The design cycle involves incremental design-build-test releases of functionality to help build confidence in the maturing design.
The program is currently completing the installation and integration at all sites commencing the comprehensive testing program. Incremental software builds and testing will continue throughout 2024 and 2025. The testing of all increments is expected to be completed before deployment commences in 2026 and operationalisation occurs from 2027.
Clearly this is a complex undertaking that hasn’t been without delays. But good progress is being made and last month the Projects of Concern Summit agreed to continue executing the OneSKY-CMATS remediation plan through regular milestones, with Minister Conroy acknowledging the considerable effort that’s gone into this process over the past 12 months.
CMATS will provide the foundation for Australian aviation as Airservices looks forward to integrating the expected increase in uncrewed airborne operations and space related activities.
Conclusion
What is clear from the projects I’ve outlined is that this is a critical time for the future of aviation and airspace management. Embracing innovation means forgoing the comfort of current technologies and ways of operating. New capabilities come packaged with new demands.
That’s why the future of air traffic management in Australia will require the combined efforts of our sector to ensure we’re investing in the best technologies and ideas to position us at the forefront of innovation in the global aviation industry.
