Project results are expected to contribute to the following expected outcomes:

• Operational efficiency: the proposed solutions shall improve operational efficiency thanks to advanced communication means and increased automation. In particular, further improvements on vertical flight efficiency and cruising/taxiing fuel consumption are expected;
• Environment: the proposed solutions shall aim at optimising fuel-burn and the CO₂ emissions per flight;
• Capacity: the integration of new airspace users and air vehicles (unmanned aircraft, HLO operations, etc.) shall not negatively impact capacity;
• Cost-efficiency: is expected to be improved thanks to the new services supported by air-ground connectivity;
• Safety: increased air-ground autonomy will enable the human actors to be discharged from routine tasks and to focus on strategic tasks, including safety oversight of the operations;
• Security: The proposed solutions are expected to identify and mitigate the potential security risks deriving from the increased connectivity between stakeholders.

The Digital European Sky vision foresees the progressive evolution towards autonomous flying, increasing the global ATM performance in terms of capacity, operational efficiency and accommodation of new and/or more autonomous forms of mobility and air vehicles, i.e. supporting the evolving demand in terms of diversity, complexity from very low-level airspace to high level operations. The challenge is to propose and develop potential innovative or breakthrough solutions to allow the accommodation or full integration of these air vehicles, which will have a high degree of autonomy and will use digital means of communication and navigation. This requires closer integration and advanced means of communication between vehicle and infrastructure capabilities so that the infrastructure can act as a digital twin [A digital twin is a digital representation of an intended or actual real-world physical product, system, or process (a physical twin) that serves as the effectively indistinguishable digital counterpart of it for practical purposes, such as simulation, integration, testing, monitoring, and maintenance] of the aircraft. Future operations should therefore rely on direct interactions between air and ground automation, with the human role focused on strategic decision-making while monitoring automation. The objective is to ensure that both manned and unmanned aerial vehicles operate in a seamless and safe environment using common infrastructure and services supporting a common concept of trajectory-based operations.

The SESAR 3 JU has identified the following innovative research elements that could be used to meet the challenge described above and achieve the expected outcomes. The list is not intended to be prescriptive; proposals for work on areas other than those listed below are welcome, provided they include adequate background and justification to ensure clear traceability with the R&I needs set out in the SRIA for the air-ground automation and autonomy R & I flagship:

• New advanced means of communication between vehicle and ground infrastructure capabilities. In the future, the aim is to enable a much richer integration of ground infrastructure and air vehicles, so that ground information of vehicles, operations, etc. becomes similar to a digital twin of the traffic and vehicles situation. Future operations rely on direct interactions between air and ground automation, with the human role focused on strategic decision-making while monitoring automation support. Research shall address innovative and automated means of air ground communication. Research may address different operating environments e.g., airport, en-route, TMA. In the airport environment, research shall take into consideration EASA Triple 1 research (R&I need: Enabling greater ground and airborne integration and wider performance).
• Air-to-air (A/A) communication. The objective of this research element is to address A/A communication to enable new operations and to support advanced separation management and safety nets in the context of the safe cohabitation of different types of air vehicles (e.g., high altitude, drones, business aviation, scheduled aircraft, rotorcraft, etc.). This includes the definition of potential use cases describing the application of A/A communication, potential technical solutions, spectrum needs, risk assessment of loss of A/A communications, etc. A/A communication in the context of ATM/U-space, in particular for the safe co-habitation of these diverse aerial vehicles, is also in scope (R&I need: enabling greater ground and airborne integration and wider performance).
• Air-to-air (A/A) exchange services. Research addresses the definition of air-to-air services for the dissemination and exchange of relevant information (e.g., meteorological weather hazards, wake vortices, trajectory information between aircraft for operational purposes, etc.). Significant weather events, such as wake turbulence, icing, etc., captured by on-board system, which may be of safety concern to individual or multiple aircraft, could be broadcast to other airspace users. The objective is to increase safety and operational efficiency (R&I need: enabling greater ground and airborne integration and wider performance).
• Improved air safety using on-board / ground wake turbulence detection and prediction. Research focuses on how safety could be improved thanks to the use of wake turbulence detection information, which could be provided via different means (either air or ground based). This information could improve the pilot situational awareness regarding the surrounding wake turbulence events, since he/she will have access to this wake turbulence information through on-board sensors. Regarding the on-board detection, the aim is to ensure tactical measurement of wake turbulence activation of flight control response countering wake turbulence impact in order to increase the stability of the aircraft, thereby improving safety and capacity. Research may also address ground-based en-route ATC wake turbulence alerting: the ground-based prediction would rely on aircraft trajectory prediction, accurate higher altitude wind information (using downlink / Mode-S) and wake turbulence encounter risk model. The technical ground-based en-route wake turbulence encounter risk prediction capabilities need to be assessed from a feasibility and performance perspective. Research aims at confirming the technical capability to predict the risk with sufficient accuracy while limiting the risk of false alarm to an acceptable level, thus delivering the expected safety benefits. The on-board based detection has been addressed to some extent in SESAR (PJ.06.08.01/PJ.12.02.02 and PJ.02 in Wave 1) but the concept presented some technical challenges, which should be addressed. For the ground-based part, work performed in the non-SESAR project SAFEMODE shall be considered (R&I need: enabling greater ground and airborne integration and wider performance).