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The Resilient Synthetic Vision for Advanced Control Tower Air Navigation Service Provision (RETINA) project is one of the selected Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) exploratory research projects on High Performing Airport Operations and it investigates the potential and applicability of Virtual/Augmented Reality (V/AR) technologies for the provision of Air Traffic Control (ATC) service by the airport control tower. The project assesses whether those concepts that stand behind tools such as Head-Mounted Displays (HUDs), Enhanced Vision Systems (EVSs) and Synthetic Vision Systems (SVS) can be transferred to ATC with relatively low effort and substantial benefits for controllers' Situational Awareness (SA). In doing so, two different augmented reality systems are investigated: Spatial Displays (SD) that, potentially, can be made to coincide with the tower windows and See-Through Head-Mounted Displays (ST-HMD). In this context the RETINA concept will enable the Air Traffic Controller to have a head-up view of the airport traffic even in low visibility conditions, similar to the vision currently provided in the cockpit with Head-Up displays. In the two-year project, the RETINA concept was developed, implemented and validated by means of human-in-the-loop simulations where the external view is provided to the user through a high fidelity 3D digital model in an immersive environment.

An increasing degree of automation in air traffic will also change the role of the air traffic controller (ATCO). ATCOs will fulfill significantly more monitoring tasks compared to today. However, this rather passive role may lead to Out-Of-The-Loop (OOTL) effects comprising vigilance decrement and less situation awareness. The project MINIMA (Mitigating Negative Impacts of Monitoring high levels of Automation) has conceived a system to control and mitigate such OOTL phenomena. In order to demonstrate the MINIMA concept, an experimental simulation set-up has been designed. This set-up consists of two parts: 1) a Task Environment (TE) comprising a Terminal Maneuvering Area (TMA) simulator as well as 2) a Vigilance and Attention Controller (VAC) based on neurophysiological data recording such as electroencephalography (EEG) and eye-tracking devices. The current vigilance level and the attention focus of the controller are measured during the ATCO’s active work in front of the human machine interface (HMI). The derived vigilance level and attention trigger adaptive automation functionalities in the TE to avoid OOTL effects. This paper describes the full-scale experimental set-up and the component development work towards it. Hence, it encompasses a pre-test whose results influenced the development of the VAC as well as the functionalities of the final TE and the two VAC’s sub-components., {"references":["ACARE, \"Flightpath 2050-Europe's Vision for Aviation,\" Advisory Council for Aeronautics Research in Europe, 2011.","SESAR JU, \"European ATM Master Plan,\" 2012.","HALA!, \"Deliverable, I. D. Position Paper,\" hala-sesar.net, 2012.","E. E. Jones, A. R. Carter-Sowell, J. R. Kelly, and K. D. 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Current researches on aircraft design aim to reduce airplanes and components weights, optimizing aircraft performances and contributing to the challenge of reducing fuel consumption and operational costs. In this perspective novel materials and technologies are developed, but also advances in design methods and tools. Generative Design is a novel approach to automatically optimize component design. The design process has to be designed itself to achieve the optimal solution, in relation to design parameters, requirements and limits. Which peculiar features justify considering this technique to be a substantial step forward with respect to classical MDO? Could Generative Design be only an important, but not particularly differentiated approach for the design of (aerospace) structures and possibly systems of a higher level? For example, when the design goal is to find the best configuration of a structure, does generative design lead to the discovery of new concepts, or types of structures, or it is a particular application of genetic algorithms to topological optimization? This paper aims to contribute to give an answer to the previous questions. Specifically, the generative design approach is expected to be able to select between basic concepts and use these as the basic instructions and ingredients of a recipe for the design of a new system. By these considerations, in this paper, we revised the improvements brought by Generative Design principles within the traditional design procedure in aeronautics, considering Additive Manufacturing technology.

This paper describes the preliminary design of a short-medium range windowless aircraft, with the aim to reduce fuselage weight. As a matter of fact, the aircraft weight reduction is the main element to reduce fuel consumption providing advantages in terms of operational costs reduction and environmental impact of the flight operations. An innovative solution based on OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) technology is considered to improve passengers’ comfort avoiding claustrophobic effects that can arise from the elimination of traditional windows. A traditional configuration is considered as reference: weight and cost reduction provided by the introduction of a windowless configuration are assessed by means of analytical study. Moreover, the preliminary design activity has been coupled with the development of a digital mock-up. A small-scale demonstrator of the selected configuration has been manufactured by means of a rapid prototyping technique.

Due to the interest of general public and the industrial stakeholders, new challenges and demands are rising in aircraft design. The sustainability is taking its place amongst more traditional design factors, such as safety, performances and costs. Sustainability is both environmental and economic, and among the factors contributing to economic sustainability, there is also passengers' comfort. In order to win these two challenges, they must be considered in the early stages of aircraft design. In this work, the focus is on emissions generation and acoustic comfort, aiming at reducing pollution and internal noise in the preliminary design phases. These results can be achieved with both unconventional aircraft configurations and advanced materials, which also require new numerical formulations to be assessed. In this research, on one hand, the windowless configuration for a commercial aircraft is studied with traditional preliminary design methods in order to achieve a weight reduction and consequently a return in terms of emissions and costs. On the other hand, a new class of insulating materials, the acoustic metamaterials, is applied on the passenger cabin lining panels. The complex kinematic behaviour of these advanced materials is studied through the Carrera's Unified Formulation, that enhances a wide class of powerful refined shell and beam theories with a unique formulation.

The SESAR (Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research) Joint Undertaking has recently granted the Resilient Synthetic Vision for Ad- vanced Control Tower Air Navigation Service Provision project within the framework of the H2020 research on High Performing Airport Operations. Here- after, we describe the project motivations, the objectives, the proposed method- ology and the expected impacts, i.e. the consequences of using virtual/augmented reality technologies in the control tower.