One of the main objectives was to improve the predictability of ground operations in all weather conditions. An important aspect of this is to ensure that there are no blockages or grid locks created by the aircraft moving on the surface and that turnover and achievements of target take off times remain high. Also, by automating some of the communication between tower and cockpit, the work load for the ground controllers can remain managable even in the face of future increasing traffic.
To this end, SINTEF contributed optimization technology for dynamic, deconflicting, surface routing. This continuous ("on-line") re-planning was tightly integrated with an AGL-based guidance system that communicated planned speeds and right-of-way decisions to pilots. The resulting methodology was implemented in the SINTEF ATC Optimisation Library and the SINTEF ATC Guiding Server, and integrated with the tower control system developed by Frequentis AG. The technology was evaluated as a part of the projects validation excersice, using the airport simulator of Eurocontrol.
More about the project, and the results, may be found here.
