Innovative Future Air Transport System: Simulation of a Fully Automated Air Transport System

Within the project Innovative Future Air Transport System (IFATS) funded by the European Commission within the sixth framework, a new concept for the air traffic organization has been developed. The most significant difference in today's organization is the lack of pilots and controllers. The IFATS concept foresees that each aircraft receives a four-dimensional (4D) contract before departure, which is calculated and negotiated on a worldwide scale so that it is conflict free. If, during flight, unforeseen deviations from the contract occur (delayed take-off, unforeseen weather change, reduced engine performance, or emergencies), a new contract is negotiated online taking into account the new boundary conditions. The German Aerospace Center (DLR) provided this project with a tool that simulates a large number of aircraft (approximately 1000) flying such a 4D contract. With this tool, 1-day traffic over Frankfurt airport with all the aircraft arriving and departing in Frankfurt was simulated. Normal situations were demonstrated together with disturbances such as delayed aircraft, thunderstorm, degraded performance aircraft, and aircraft facing an emergency. At the DLR Air Traffic Management and Operations Simulator, simulations were conducted with ‘real’ air traffic control (ATC) and pseudo-pilots in comparison to this fully automatic IFATS mode.