派翠克 Ky, 欧洲空中交通管理计划
Release Date: 2009-02-19
You’ve been all around the world delivering SESAR’s message, but for us to hear it firsthand: why SESAR, and why is it important?SESAR operates in a sector which is at the same time extremely advanced in terms of technologies, but at the same time very much relying on handicraft. When you really think about it, the basic technology used in the field of air traffic management was developed in the 1950s, even if the aircraft itself is extremely modern. While they may have been good in the past, such technologies cannot support the growth of air transport in the next 10-20 years. Air traffic management needs to be modernized. The basic technology of VHF radio was invented in the 1920s, ground-based navigation means were developed in the 1950s, and radar from the 1960s and 1970s, so we really need to make a technological quantum leap, and that’s what SESAR is about: how to bring a technological revolution in the field.
The problem faced, however, is not only a technical one, we can for instance control satellites and vehicles in the air without difficulty. The main challenge faced is in decision-making. If I want to replace current voice communication systems with Data Link and digital telecommunications, it’s imperative the choice made for Airbus is the same as the one made by Boeing or other aircraft manufacturers, ground manufacturers, airports, the military, and so on and so forth. Multiplying all the possible choices by the number of countries in Europe, it’s easy to understand the only way to implement technological change is to have a synchronized or unified approach across the different European states, and indeed across the world. The key message is that SESAR is the modernization of technology under one single European program.
SESAR’s implementation is a huge initiative tracing its roots back to 2005, which will extend well into the next decade. What have been some of the main milestones thus far?
One of the major difficulties faced is to introduce changes in a synchronized manner, because changes in aircraft but not synchronised with airports, for example, are useless. In order to deal with the need for synchronization, the SESAR Definition Phase came up with the notion of consistent implementation packages, which are basically sets of technologies which need to be consistently implemented across different stakeholder groups. There are three implementation packages in SESAR. The first deals with the rapid implementation of technologies which are already there, but for which the business decision to invest has to be made. Typically, these are technologies to be deployed between now and 2012. The second implementation package is really starting to introduce new technologies into the game, and looks at a timeframe of between 2013 and 2019. This is where SESAR Joint Undertaking will dedicate most of its efforts, aiming for this window of opportunity where change will really be started. The first implementation package will not have much technological impact; the real paradigm shift will happen with the second package, and then there is a third package toward 2020, in which SESAR’s full benefits will be implemented. One of the difficulties is that the average life duration of an aircraft is 30 years, so what happens if you need to implement a new technology over that time span? That’s basically one of the difficulties airlines are facing. They tell us “You tell me I should invest in a technology, but why should I take the risk of investing in a technology that will soon be obsolete?” Understandably, they want certainty, and one of the difficulties is around ensuring the choices being made are reliable and can sustain the entire life duration of the aircraft.
How do you do that? Is it SESAR’s position to standardize and make such promises across the industry regarding technology?
This is the reason why SESAR needed to be conducted in partnership with the industry. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. You cannot force the industry to implement a standard they are not convinced is the right one, without contributing to its development, and testing its impact on their own product, platforms, and the like. They really need to be part of the decision-making process, and it’s SESAR’s job and role to ensure the industry is fully part of the process and that they are confident in the choices being made. Without that confidence, we will not succeed.
You mention the continued use of antiquated technology and the importance of the second step of the paradigm shift. What are some of the most important technologies in this paradigm shift being championed by SESAR?
The first paradigm shift will come from digital communication. It’s something that is comparable to the revolution of internet in our everyday life. Today, the pilot on board the aircraft and the air traffic controllers speak by radio, and to make sure they don’t miss information, pilots constantly listen to the radio. Replacing this system by internet, instead of listening to the radio, whenever a controller has information to transmit, he sends an email the pilot is certain to receive the information which concerns him directly. This completely changes the way both pilots and air traffic controllers do their job, and will be one of the key evolutions – although certainly not the easiest part, because the upfront investment is huge.
There must be a significant amount of resistance as well, even just extrapolating from the reliability and uptake of email in our everyday lives. How do you go about convincing the wide variety of stakeholders who all need to buy into the changes?
An important stakeholder group to be convinced is the air traffic controllers, and if I were them I would also be concerned. In replacing a direct telephone line with an email, the question arises of how one can be assured to be delivered the quality of service necessary to do the job. The only way to proceed is via extensive consultation, and to first of all get agreement on what kind of information is to be exchanged, incorporate necessary fallback procedures, and to test the new tools and technologies in their operational environment. That’s going to be the key in order to get them on board.
You mentioned some of the partners SESAR will be working with, such as Airbus and Thales among others. Which of the organizations most important to pushing the technology change is SESAR working most closely with?
There are three big groups of equally important stakeholders that are partners in SESAR. The first group is the air traffic control service providers, who are basically the managers of the air traffic control activities. The second is the ground industry, which is basically Thales, SELEX, INDRA and their equivalents, those companies who manufacture the controllers’ tools and ground devices. The last part is the airborne industry, which develops the systems onboard aircraft. SESAR can’t do anything with only one group, and needs to have the three groups involved, and maybe even more. Other groups could comprise companies involved in the military market, because we will need to equip military aircraft and systems as well. Basically, if we do not have one of those aforementioned groups on board in one part of the program, then SESAR is in difficulty.
You stress the importance of reaching some sort of consensus, but even within these stakeholder groups, it seems like not everyone’s interests may be perfectly aligned.
It’s a valid concern. In the group of the ground industry, for instance, the partnership contains five competitor companies. It was quite interesting because they were asking at some stages, “Why should I give you certain information that would essentially be given to my competitors? What’s in it for me?” But what SESAR managed to do was convince everyone that we are all together in the same situation, which necessitates the need to define a new product base and work on it for commercialization in 2013 to 2019. It’s a matter of either everyone and all competitors working together to a certain stage, and then everybody lives their own life, or remaining outside the program and doing everything on one’s own. That was the choice given, with the end result as noticed by one of the program partners: “Life is going to be extremely cold outside SESAR.” And I think it’s true, because it’s obvious. Either you enter SESAR and work together with your competitors to a certain extent, or you just don’t come and live your own life. The only sensible choice is to join SESAR, with full knowledge that competitors must work together within certain normal limits, and although there are sometimes tense moments, so far this approach has worked well.
So it will be cold for those who choose to deliberately remain outside SESAR, but what about institutions, companies, or even nations that lie outside the purview of SESAR’s European mandate? For example, countries like China which are perhaps integrated into the global sphere, but not into the European SESAR.
One of the things we are convinced about is that SESAR needs to be coordinated in a global manner with other worldwide initiatives. The reason for this is quite simple. Airbus aircraft will fly all over the world like Boeing aircraft. Ccompanies want to sell their products not only in Europe but in a worldwide market,. It’s a global business, and as such international cooperation is a must, and is not optional. What we need to do is make sure it can work. International cooperation is more than just sharing documents or information, it’s also working together, whether with partners in America or China. In the discussions SESAR had with China in November, we looked at very specific and concrete examples of activities for cooperation, and it’s a work in progress. It’s not only about agreeing that international cooperation is important and to exchange information, but also identify activities where it is necessary to have an integrated team or Chinese people coming over to Europe to work with our team or vice versa. At present, SESAR is at a stage of the program where this needs to be investigated in further detail, and we are not there yet at the moment.
Of those concrete examples, are there some you’d like to highlight for our readers?
Typically the new communication platform and internet are the most significant. There are a couple of other developments which are much more technical in nature, to do with the development of new generations of products, of which a country such as China with extremely high rates of growth in terms of aviation, air transport, and air traffic has to anticipate. For example, it may be interesting for China, if they need to implement a new system in an airport for 2010, to wait a little longer to have the next generation of technologies which will be produced by 2013.
In a sense, you and SESAR are setting the policies and direction of an industry that are really going to spill over and be the global model. In this context, what is your grand vision for how air traffic management will be in the future?
I really think that, although it may be surprising, air traffic management in the next 20 years is going to look like today’s train system. If you take the train, you usually know within a margin of one minute what time it will arrive, and every single point of the train’s trajectory. In our field, if you take the plane, you never know exactly when you will take off or arrive, let alone when your baggage will arrive. If SESAR is able to define a system in which all those uncertainties are replaced with certainty, then we will have made a major breakthrough. And that’s basically the way the system should operate in the future, in being much more precise. When you know exactly where an aircraft is at a given time, you can cross the aircraft or organize traffic flows in a much more precise manner, and when that’s possible, the industry will be able to sustain the growth of air transport to three times current levels.
Looking toward the future, once this phase of technology updates are complete, how permanent will that new paradigm be?
It’s a neverending story, because the new generation of air traffic management may look like what I just explained, but there will still be some physical constraints, such as runway length or for instance something called a wake vortex, which is turbulence created in the wake of aircraft. When an aircraft lands or takes off, there are winds created in its wake, that can develop into something big or small, under certain conditions of pressure, temperature, humidity, and wind. Today, the system used is based on a zero-risk policy, which is to have the distance between the aircraft such that there is safety in the worst-case scenario. Evidently, this is not the optimal way of doing things, because those wake vortices are created in very specific situations. One of the important questions to work on is how to detect when those wake turbulences are created, and to optimize positioning in a safe manner according to these wake vortices. This is an area where there is a lot of work to be done, and I am not sure there will be a magic solution found in the next 15 to 20 years.
Another major issue is going to be the noise around airports. It’s a dream to think that we can build a large set of new airports, at least in Europe, around big cities. But this means airports will need to be increasingly integrated into the urban environment, and this creates problems. Aircraft can be quieter, greener, and so on and so forth, but as far as we are concerned in the way we manage takeoff and landing, how can we do so better in an urban environment? Those are things we need to work on. There were people thinking about underground runways, where an aircraft would takeoff outside after it has put most of its thrust. This may be for 2050 or 2080, but is just illustrative that there are always revolutionary things to be done.
What will be the most important advice for the people taking over the Joint Undertaking stage of SESAR, to ensure all these ideas actually get successfully put into place?
The most difficult part is the partnerships, because although it’s introduced as a magic solution, it takes a lot of effort and is something which is quite fragile. Whenever there is a small tension, you immediately see that, and even if companies are obliged to work with their competitors, at the end they remain competitors. Maintaining that balance is where I spend most of my energy and time, and is also a key for SESAR’s success.
Also, we should never forget that the things we develop need to be implemented. It’s extremely easy to define in a lab the new internet generation for the aircraft. But testing it in a real life environment with the controllers and pilots becomes different. And the way technological change is perceived is also different. Thus, partnership and being close to the operational world are the biggest parts of my advice.
What is your final message to your Chinese counterparts?
It is essential we talk, but even more essential we do more than talk. I’m not interested in just signing an MoU; if it’s a first step, that’s OK, but if it’s the only step, it’s useless. I’m really a pragmatic person, and believe in things that are real work, not only ideas. The entire industry needs to work together in a manner that takes into account the global interests of each party, meaning you cannot, if you’re European, ask the Chinese to solve only European problems and vice versa. We need to find common ground on which there is a common interest, which implies give and take. When we are pragmatic and find areas in which there is a common interest, the need for working together becomes obvious.
| Company: | 欧洲空中交通管理计划 |
| Position: | 执行主任 |
| Country: | 比利时 |