HungaroControl Showcases Innovative Technologies for Future ATM at the ATC Global

Hungary’s air navigation service provider HungaroControl, with its research and development unit CRDS, will showcase its innovative technologies at the ATC Global in Dubai. 

See you at Booth 7110 on 5-7 October, 2015!

Check the presentation timetable in the related files

Thanks to its continuous innovation activities, HungaroControl is one of the key players in Europe regarding flight safety improvements, capacity increase, reduction of airline costs and enhanced environmental protection. To this end, the Hungarian ANSP focuses primarily on developments that improve the efficiency of air traffic management, as well as the introduction of up-to-date technologies. 

 

Multiple Cross-Border, Remote Operations

One of the prominent results of these efforts was the re-opening of the upper airspace over Kosovo last year. Thanks to this achievement, the last white spot was cleared from the map of the European airspace, contributing to the normalisation of aviation in South-East Europe. Based on EUROCONTROL data, the re-opening enables shorter routes and consequently a reduction of ca. 9,300 tonnes in annual fuel consumption, saving airlines nearly 7 million euros per annum. The Kosovo project was a major professional achievement, demonstrating HungaroControl’s capability of multiple cross-border operations

 

Centre of Research, Development and Simulation (CRDS)

In order to ensure smooth traffic in the airspace over Kosovo, an international simulation was held in HungaroControl’s Centre of Research, Development and Simulation (CRDS) prior to the re-opening.  The services of CRDS are not provided exclusively for developments in Hungarian air navigation, as HungaroControl considers it particularly important to offer other ANSPs world-class infrastructure that can give technological responses to, among others, the challenges posed by the growth of international air traffic. The fact that its engineers can make accurate copies of airspaces with various structures and diverse air traffic control human-machine-interfaces (HMI) also makes the centre exceptional. Thus at CRDS, air traffic control organisations can model and simulate the introduction of new procedures and tools (such as CSO, PBN, CPDLC) under optimum conditions. Applying Human Factors methodology in line with E-OCVM standards, CRDS validates simulation outputs in order to provide ANSPs with a complex analysis.

One of the tools put to the test is CSO (Concept of Seamless Operations), which provides optimised flight profiles by combining two innovative solutions: FRA (Free Route Airspace) allows the aircraft to cover the shortest route between the entry and exit points of the given airspace, while CDO (Continuous Descent Operations) enables optimum descent with the lowest possible fuel consumption, at the shortest distance to the destination airport. Another procedure to be  tested at CRDS is PBN (Performance Based Navigation), used for reducing deviation from the route marked out for the individual flights, which can thus contribute to mitigating pollutant emission and noise, and facilitate the use of airports operating among complicated terrain features and under difficult weather conditions. 

The most recent successful international test series of CRDS was related to testing the new Controller-Pilot Data-Link Communications system (CPDLC), which ensures a direct data link between the control centres and the on-board systems of aircraft. At the end of last year, controllers from the Romanian and Bulgarian ANSPs successfully tested the methods of introducing the service in their respective airspaces

 

Remote Tower

HungaroControl is making intensive efforts towards the implementation of another major project, the remote control tower that aims to enable ANSPs to navigate airport traffic from their own buildings with the help of a virtual surface. HungaroControl’s Remote Tower concept has achieved considerable success on the international market: the emergency control centre at the Dubai airport is being implemented according to the suggestions of a consortium of five companies, including HungaroControl

 

Merge Strip

Last but not least, HungaroControl developed MergeStrip, a simple yet ingenious new air traffic control concept, which helps the ATCOs in enabling continuous descent operations, reducing fuel burn and emissions. MergeStrip has earned significant interest from other ANSPs in and outside Europe.  For more information about MergeStrip please see the attached flyer.

 

The related technologies will be presented at the HungaroControl booth at the ATC Global. If you want to learn more about HungaroControl, please click here. If you are interested in CRDS, HungaroControl’s research, development and simulation centre, please visit this page. If you are eager to know more about basic training for air traffic controllers, please click here.