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

• Civil–military coordination: the proposed solutions are expected to improve civil–military coordination at Network level, with shareable data on mission trajectories for better traffic prediction and airspace information exchange;
• Capacity, operational efficiency and environment: the additional predictability resulting from the integration of military flight data into the network, will lead to more efficient use of available airspace capacity by civil traffic which will lead to fewer delays, which will lead to greater fuel efficiency;
• Security: while ensuring better coordination, the proposed solutions will also ensure that the new data formats and information exchange services guarantee at least the current level of confidentiality, integrity and availability of information.

The Digital European Sky vision requires a sufficient level of civil/military interoperability and coordination, especially concerning trajectory and airspace information exchange, as well as the use of interoperable CNS technologies. The challenge is to identify and develop innovative solutions that could help achieving the appropriate level of civil-military interoperability, also maximising synergies between civil and military research and development activities.

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 civil–military interoperability and coordination flagship:

• Enhancing civil–military operations. Based on a survey of the existing procedures and services, this element will aim to identify new challenges related to the development of CDM processes for improved civil–military coordination, covering both manned and unmanned military remote piloted assets of all categories (e.g., large MALE-type RPAS, hybrid/heterogeneous formations, drone swarms, etc.). Research also addresses enriched military surveillance and threat detection based on big data analysis as well as potential impacts of military assets at different altitudes (from small drone swarms for low altitudes to HPAs for high altitudes). The research will investigate procedures, data formats (including the necessary levels of cybersecurity and data protection), and the application of resilience engineering across civil military ATM applications, dual-use technologies and information exchange services. An assessment of the relevant performance measurements will also carried out. Research aims also at tackling different standards in design of both military and civil aerodromes (R&I need: access to airspace).
• Access to airspace. To improve mission effectiveness for all types of manned and unmanned vehicles, military access to airspace must be guaranteed for planned and unpredictable trajectory profiles. In that regard, high-level civil–military ATM interoperability is fundamental, and this can be achieved through civil–military CDM supported by common procedures, data formats and underlying information exchange services. New systems and procedures should be flexible enough to adapt to different operational scenarios and needs, and ensure optimal separation management taking into account different and coexistent CNS air and ground capabilities. This is a precondition for accommodating civil and military operations in the same airspace (R&I need: access to airspace).
• Fully automated FUA process. Research aims at developing potential solutions for a fully automated FUA process able to accommodate military needs supported by higher levels of automation and to address the challenging demands for more airspace that come hand-in-hand with the introduction of new generation of military aircraft, and the inclusion of UAS into controlled airspace (R&I need: access to airspace).
• ATM civil-military interoperability in support of disaster/crisis management. Due to the multitude of actors involved, disaster management represents an enormous challenge in terms of information exchange and the coordination of civil and military forces. Research aims at developing potential solutions to advance civil-military interoperability through the design and development of easy-to-use, digitally supported information exchanges to better manage, from the ATM perspective, potential crisis and/or disasters. Research may address the development of a reference integration framework capable of ingesting data from heterogeneous sources in real time, processing, harmonizing and treating the information and exposing it to the different actors in emergency situations or possible crises (R&I need: Access to airspace).
• Performance management. Environmental sustainability, cost-efficiency and delays resulting from inefficient use of available capacity are concerns that all aviation stakeholders are responsible for addressing. The complex interdependencies between civil and military stakeholders need to be examined to enable appropriate performance measurement in a spirit of balanced consideration between national security and defence requirements (including potential non-negotiable ones as defined by the States), financial feasibility and commercial needs (R&I need: performance orientation).
• Development of innovative civil-military cooperation and coordination indicators. Civil-military cooperation indicators available in the SESAR performance framework allow a limited assessment of the improvement of civil-military coordination concepts in terms of civil and military flight efficiency the effectiveness of the coordination processes. Research aims at developing these indicators and/or propose new innovative ones. In addition, research will contribute to better understand the apportionment of SESAR ambition to increase flight efficiency between projects working on the improvement of civil-military coordination processes and projects working in other areas (R&I need: performance orientation).
• Digitalisation for airspace management (ASM) and mission trajectory management (MTM). Digitalisation for ASM and MTM will allow better integration of military requirements within ATM network operations. This enables the optimisation of trade-off between operational efficiency, flexibility and predictability of operations. Cloud, big data technologies and machine learning algorithms to allow exploiting conventional ATM data, and non-conventional data (video and voice records, passengers’ information, etc.) to make accurate predictions of the impact of different airspace and mission design and management options, thus supporting the relevant decision making processes. Research also addresses the potential application of predictive algorithms and statistical techniques for the exploitation of data in the cloud and relational and non-relational big data techniques with the aim of creating AI models, extracting information and exploiting the results in ASM and MTM. This will allow decoupling the provision of technical capabilities from the technical infrastructure necessary to provide services (R&I need: performance orientation).
• Improved security of military operations. This research element covers two separate aspects of protecting aviation data confidentiality: anonymization and confidentiality. Confidentiality refers to the protection of sensitive information in military air operations, both in training and real-world scenarios, to safeguard against adversaries and open-source intelligence. Confidentiality and anonymization both play important roles in ensuring the security and protection of military aviation data and should be addressed collectively. During peacetime, safety imperatives dictate that aircraft must remain cooperative with the underlying surveillance infrastructure but military operations may need to conceal the status and identification of flights. Some mitigating measures are possible for military operations deemed sensitive in nature e.g., Head of state flights but research is needed to develop more permanent technical solutions to address these security shortcomings. For air/ground systems like ADS-B or data link, the main security concerns are the exploitation of real-time airborne position data by malicious attackers. Another potential vulnerability is the possibility of generating false but credible ADS-B reports or data link messages, providing ghost aircraft tracks and thus confusing ATC (spoofing). Possible measures to mitigate this type of vulnerability include the suppression or concealment of information, message authentication, and/or increased monitoring activities of suspicious messages. More research is needed to speed up the response time to remove any intruder of false ADS-B signal out as fast as possible. Anonymization involves the use of various techniques, including data generalization, masking, pseudo-anonymization, synthetic data, shuffling, and perturbation, to remove or obscure personal information from data. The use of AI and other disruptive technologies can also enhance the effectiveness and automation of the anonymization process. Research on this area shall take into consideration the work done in industrial research solutions PJ.14-W2-84c “Secured surveillance systems (single and composite systems)” and PJ.14-W2-84d “Phase Overlay for ADS-B”. (R&I need: connectivity and access to CNS infrastructure).