Special Issue on Social Infrastructure that Guarantees Safety, Security, Fairness, and Efficiency

Laying the Groundwork for the Next Generation of Air Traffic ControlSHOTA Takeshi, YOSHIDA Hiroaki

1. Introduction

NEC has been developing and delivering air traffic control systems to Japan Civil Aviation Bureau for more than half a century. Air traffic control systems have de-veloped in sync with the construction and expansion of hub airports and the increase in air traffic triggered by economic development in Asia. Looking to the future, the volume of air traffic is expected to continue to in-crease due to the emergence of various air mobility op-erations. Already new issues have arisen as the air traf-fic operating environment becomes ever more complex

as air traffic becomes more diverse. To help air traffic control systems advance into the future, it is essential that these issues be solved. In this paper, we look at NEC’s efforts to date in this area, as well as its plans for the future.

NEC has been developing and delivering advanced air traffic control systems that support the civil aviation bu-reau and air carriers in Japan for more than half a century. In the future, as the nations of the world draw ever closer together, the volume of air traffic will grow substantially, bringing with it a demand for more sophisticated and flexible air traffic control systems. This paper discusses some of the issues the aviation industry is facing go-ing forward and explains how NEC’s commitment to focusing on the next generation of air traffic control will help to solve those issues.

air traffic control system, hybrid air-route surveillance sensor processing equipment,

air traffic management system, high-speed transaction, sensing

Keywords

Abstract

Fig. 1 Development and introduction of air traffic control systems. Fig. 2 Image of data linkage between FACE and HARP.

19701973

19781987

19921994

20052015

2019

Commenced operation of flight plan information processing system.

Commenced operation of oceanic air traffic data processing system.

Commenced operation of aeronautical fixed telecommunication automatic exchange and aeronautical data processing system.

Commenced operation of total information display unit (TDU).

Commenced operation of airport flight information system.

Air traffic flow management system

Commenced operation of data link center system.

Commenced operation of flight object administration center (FACE) system.

Commenced operation of oceanic air traffic control processing system.

2018Introduced hybrid air-route surveillance sensor processing equipment (HARP).

AircraftOperator A

Civil Aviation Bureau

Aircraft/Pilots

FACE

HARP

Air traffic controlprocessing system(human-machineinterface)/Controller

Rader WAM Other sensors

Communicationsequipment

Navigation equipment

FODB

Aircraft

Aircraft

Operator B

Operator Z

Flight plan

Air traffic control communications

Accurate location information

Location information

Location information

Location information

Flight plan

Flight plan

Flight plan

Accurate location information

FODB:Flight Object Data BaseWAM:Wide Area MultilaterationHMI:Human Machine Interface

Technologies for Achieving Digital Transformation (DX) of Social Systems: DX of Airports

NEC Technical Journal／Vol.16 No.1／Special Issue on Social Infrastructure that Guarantees Safety, Security, Fairness, and Efficiency58

2. NEC’s Air Traffic Control Systems — The Story So Far

2.1 A history of development and innovation

As globalization forges tighter links between nations and economies, the role of airport and air travel has become ever more important. For more than half a cen-tury, NEC has been developing systems for air traffic

management operations in general, including air traffic control systems (Fig. 1).

2.2 Systems now in operation

Examples of large-scale systems supported by NEC include the flight object administration center (FACE) system which began operations in 2015 and the hybrid

Fig. 3 Overview of FACE1).

Fig. 4 Configurational concept and features of DIOSA/XTP2).

organizations

ICAP

(FADP)

Airlinecompany

Ministry ofDefense

Overseas

information

FACE(Flight Object Administration CEntersystem)FACE implements integrated control of flight plan information (flight number, flight route, etc.) and other information related to operation (flightinformation, weather information, etc.) for air traffic information processing systems, while issuing and receiving information to and from concerned organizations in Japan and overseas.

FACE

Aviation-related

Airline company

Ministry of Defense

Meteorological Agency (ADESS)

Overseas air traffic control organizations

Intra-bureau external system

organization

TAPS: Trajectorized Airport Traffic Data Processing SystemTEPS: Trajectorized En-route Traffic Data Processing SystemTOPS: Trajectorized Oceanic Traffic Data Processing SystemADEX: ATC Data Exchange System (ADEX)ICAP: Integrated Control Advice Processing SystemTEAM: Trajectorized Enhanced Aviation Management

Flight plan informationMeteorological information

Aviation information

Air traffic control center

Area control centers(Fukuoka and Tokyo)

- Central processing of operation information

- Relay processing- System transition

- FO management processing

- Operation informationprocessing at airport

- CNS/ATM-DB- FODB

Flight plan informationMeteorological information

Aviation informationLocation information

Departure/arrival informationTraffic flow information

TOPS/ADEX

TEPS

TAPS

TEAM

Source: Japan Civil Aviation Bureau, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT)

Aviation

centerAirport

Flight plan informationMeteorological information

Aviation information

High-speed transaction processing

Acceptance of high-volume/high-speed transaction request

High-speed processing using memory database

Development of apps focusing on business logic

Replacement of apps with uninterrupted service

Distributed data on multiple servers

Transparent data access

High-speed replication between memory devices

Automatic high-speed switching if failure occurs

Replication to RDBMS

Replication to remote areas

RDBMSRDBMSMemory database

Apps Apps Apps

DIOSA/XTP: Control of apps execution and communication

DIOSA/XTP: Memory cache

DIOSA/XTP: Data storeData conversion/communications options

Memory database

Data Data Data Data

Data Data Data Data

Reliability and availability of apps

Rapidity and availability of data access

Availability and continuity of data

Advanced implementation of apps by controlling transactions

Technologies for Achieving Digital Transformation (DX) of Social Systems: DX of Airports

Laying the Groundwork for the Next Generation of Air Traffic Control

NEC Technical Journal／Vol.16 No.1／Special Issue on Social Infrastructure that Guarantees Safety, Security, Fairness, and Efficiency 59

air-route surveillance sensor processing (HARP) system which began operations in 2018. These are discussed in detail below.

One of the primary responsibilities of air traffic con-trollers is to ensure that pilots maintain sufficient space between airplanes to avoid accidents. To do this, con-trollers need access to the flight plans of all the aircraft in their zone, as well as real time location data (Fig. 2). In Japan, FACE plays a key role in digitization and data sharing, while HARP provides pivotal information on the operation status of the various flights. Both systems are critical to the digital transformation (DX) of air traffic control systems.

2.2.1 FACE — supporting DX of air traffic management infra-

structure

Air traffic controllers manage air traffic using flight plans submitted by operators such as airline companies before flights. Flight plans include aviation call signs, de-parture airports, scheduled time of departure, destina-tion airports, flight duration, cruising altitude, and other information. To help achieve more sophisticated air traf-fic control, we are developing a system that allows such information to be used as more detailed flight object data (to trigger DX). FACE serves as a mission-critical component of this advanced traffic control system (Fig. 3) which is transitioning from conventional operation with humans (controllers) handling each element of flight plans individually to one in which integrated flight object data managed by FACE supports supervision and decision making of controllers, thereby helping to achieve safer, more efficient air traffic control.

The system requirements for FACE are as follows.(1) High availability: 24-hour non-stop operation

(2) Processing performance: Delay-free data process-ing for all target airplanes of air traffic control and linkage with related systems

(3) Processing capacity: Management of data for all target airplanes of air traffic control

NEC technology supports the two of the three require-ments FACE requires ― high availability and processing performance.

FACE utilizes NEC’s DIOSA/XTP, which is a high-reli-ability, high-availability, large-volume high speed trans-action processing platform that supports next-gener-ation social infrastructure. DIOSA/XTP is a proprietary NEC software product that supports the construction of a large-scale, highly expandable, high-reliability, and high-availability system. The DIOSA/XTP platform achieves large-volume, high-speed transaction process-ing thanks to high-speed data access supported by im-proved reliability and availability with built-in fail-safes that can be activated in the event of system failure.

Configuration concept and features of DIOSA/XTP are shown in Fig. 4.

2.2.2 HARP effectively exploits sensor data

To achieve air traffic management that is both safer and more efficient, accurate aircraft location data must be collected in real time and delivered to air traffic control-lers and air traffic control systems. Location data can be obtained using radars, as well as sensor technology such as the wide-area multilateration (WAM) sensor, which detects signals from aircraft at multiple receiving stations

Fig. 5 Outline of multi-sensor processing compatibility of HARP3).

Multi-sensor processing compatibility

Compatible with systems other than radar such as ADS-B and WAM, HARP coordinates combined aircraft information at 4 air traffic control centers

Air route surveillance radar (ARSR)

Automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast

(ADS-B)

Wide-area multilateration

(WAM)

Hybrid air-route surveillance sensor processing equipment

(HARP)

Fukuoka Air Traffic Control Center

Kobe Air Traffic Control Center

Tokyo Air Traffic Control Center

Sapporo Air Traffic Control Center

Source: Air Traffic Control Association, Japan

Fig. 6 The evolution of essential information for aircraft operation4).

Fig. 7 Evolution of aviation communications and data sharing systems.

Source: Council to Promote Future Air Traffic Control Systems

AIXM

FIXM

IWXXM

Integration of data

Standardization

Aeronauticalinformation

Flight

Meteorologicalinformation

information

Aeronautical Fixed Telecommunication Network (AFTN)

Common ICAO Data Interchange Network (CIDIN)

First generation: Teletype communications

Second generation: E-mail (X.400, X.500)

SWIM (System Wide Information Management)

Third generation: Web service/SOA

Evolution of aviation communications and data sharing systems

Called Common Aeronautical Data Interchange Network (CADIN) in Japan

Air Traffic Services [ATS] Message Handling Services (AMHS)

Increasing capacity of exchanged messages, forwarding binary files (XML), enhancing security, etc.

Technologies for Achieving Digital Transformation (DX) of Social Systems: DX of Airports

Laying the Groundwork for the Next Generation of Air Traffic Control

NEC Technical Journal／Vol.16 No.1／Special Issue on Social Infrastructure that Guarantees Safety, Security, Fairness, and Efficiency60

to position the aircraft, and the automatic dependent sur-veillance-broadcast (ADS-B) sensor, which automatically broadcasts aircraft location information (Fig. 5). By tak-ing advantage of the high reliability of radar together with the high precision and high frequency of WAM and ADS-B, HARP is able to obtain extremely precise aircraft location information derived from multiple sensors and provide it to air traffic controllers in real time.

3. Supporting DX in Air Traffic Management

3.1 Digitization in the air traffic management sector

The air traffic management sector is now undergoing a period of transition to increased data sophistication (from text format to XML/GML format). For example, it is planned that a new data conversion model called a flight information exchange model (FIXM) will be intro-duced to convert text-format flight plans to XML-format flight object information (Fig. 6).

Similarly, international standardization is underway as evidenced by the fact that weather information will be standardized in the ICAO Meteorological Information Ex-change Model (IWXXM) and aircraft safety related infor-mation will be standardized in the Aeronautical Informa-tion Exchange Model (AIXM). Various efforts for social implementation of these standards are also underway.

To handle the increasingly complex data being pro-duced, aviation communications and information sharing systems have been updated as shown in Fig. 7.

These shifts reflect international trends towards uni-versal standards as epitomized by the System-Wide Information Management (SWIM) system whose pro-ponents are hoping to achieve a global-scale “system of systems.” These efforts are essential in the air traffic management sector. In today’s interconnected world, it

would be counterproductive for individual countries to develop independent air traffic management systems of their own when a necessary assumption is that many flights will be on international routes (Fig. 8).

With an eye towards integrated management of air traffic data ― including the FACE system, NEC has taken the initiative in developing systems to handle high vol-umes of complex data and is now reviewing social im-plementation of SWIM. We are now actively participating in international validation projects in the Asia-Pacific region and acting as the driving force, together with the United States, in pushing forward international efforts to achieve universal standards.

3.2 Promoting DX in air traffic management

One of the most important reasons why we are com-mitted to DX in air traffic management is to enhance the international competitiveness of Japan’s airline and airport companies, while accelerating digitization of the aviation industry as a whole. To achieve this, we will also make efforts to help the airline and airport com-

Fig. 9 Passenger-oriented DX in air traffic management.

Fig. 8 NEC’s commitment to international validation of SWIM.

the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). We developed a global enterprise messaging service (GEMS) and

SWIM Activities

MGD

August 2014MGD: Florida

April 2016MGD2: FloridaDevelopment of NEC GEMS

June 2020Florida

November 2019Bangkok and Singapore

Server developmentView prototype

Presentation Participation in demonstration/presentation

Server development Server development

Participation in demonstration

IIH&V: Florida

Participation in demonstration

NEC has actively engaged in R&D into SWIM. We participated in the Mini-Global Demonstration (MGD) led by

conducted connection tests in collaboration with the FAA. We are now participating in the ASEAN-SWIMdemonstration and plan to perform a newvalidation with the United States.

2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020

MGD2 IIH&V(FF-ICE) APAC-SWIM FF-ICE/X

Operator(airline/airport)

Passenger(end-user)

Creation ofpassenger-oriented

services

Japan Civil Aviation Bureau

(JCAB)

Technologies for Achieving Digital Transformation (DX) of Social Systems: DX of Airports

Laying the Groundwork for the Next Generation of Air Traffic Control

NEC Technical Journal／Vol.16 No.1／Special Issue on Social Infrastructure that Guarantees Safety, Security, Fairness, and Efficiency 61

Authors’ Profiles

SHOTA TakeshiSenior ManagerRadio Application, Guidance and Electro-Optics Division

YOSHIDA HiroakiManagerRadio Application, Guidance and Electro-Optics Division

Reference1) MLIT Civil Aviation Bureau: Overview of Flight Object

Administration Center (FACE) System (Japanese) https://www.mlit.go.jp/koku/content/001358997.pdf2) DIOSA/XTP: Large-Volume High Speed Transaction

Processing Platform (Japanese) https://jpn.nec.com/diosaxtp/index.html3) BANNO Kimiharu: Challenges We Will Face in National

Air Traffic Control and Actions to Address Them, 2016 Air Traffic Control Seminar, October 2016 (Japanese)

http://atcaj.or. jp/wordpress/wp-content/up-loads/2017/01/H28_ATCAJ_Seminar_mlit.pdf

4) Council to Promote Future Air Traffic Control Systems Information Management Study Working Group: 2014 Activity Report, 2015 (Japanese)

https://www.mlit.go.jp/common/001088139.pdf

panies achieve utilization of data that can contribute to improved value of experience from the viewpoint of passengers. This goes beyond conventional efforts to improve the efficiency and sophistication of air traffic control operations and airport management and involves effectively utilizing data to improve the customer expe-rience (Fig. 9).

When SWIM comes online, all operators will be con-nected to each other. Full utilization of SWIM data will improve the customer experience and revolutionize op-erator productivity. For example, by linking data from airline companies with intermodal passenger transport and communities, it will be possible to offer a wide range of services ― such as seamless multimodal route search ― to help travelers to enjoy pleasant, stress-free trips. This technology can also help to enhance the work expe-rience by optimizing staffing and reforming work styles.

Building on our long history and experience in the aviation industry, NEC will continue to contribute to the progress of the Japanese aviation industry by helping them achieve DX in air traffic management (Fig. 10).

4. Conclusion

In this paper we have outlined the efforts NEC is mak-ing to support air traffic management and help trans-form aviation into a more robust, future-ready industry. We will continue to adapt to changes in technology and the environment as we strive to develop systems that maximize customer value and contribute to further ad-vances in air transport.

In conclusion, we would like to express our gratitude to the MLIT Civil Aviation Bureau as well as other con-

Fig. 10 How DX in air traffic management is achieved.

cerned organizations and manufacturers who have been so generous in instructing and helping us develop the systems introduced in this paper.

JCAB data platform

Analysis

Airport/airline data storage

Meteorological informationApron/Gate information

No-show information

Air route

Tenant information

Delay information

Passenger informationFuel condition

AirportAirline

Intermodal passenger transport

Creation of new serviceDigital marketing

Optimization of fuelLinkage withintermodal passenger transport

Optimal staffing

Improved value of customer experience

Productivity revolution of

operators

Meteorological informationApron/Gate information

No-show information

Air route

Tenant information

Delay information

Passenger informationFuel condition

Intermodal passenger transport

Technologies for Achieving Digital Transformation (DX) of Social Systems: DX of Airports

Laying the Groundwork for the Next Generation of Air Traffic Control

NEC Technical Journal／Vol.16 No.1／Special Issue on Social Infrastructure that Guarantees Safety, Security, Fairness, and Efficiency62

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