The use of CCS as an ADSP (providing a remote customer with flight plan, trajectory and other data) will have a significant impact on skyguide operational staff. To ensure acceptability and make the most of the opportunities CCS offers to skyguide, the CONOPS activity was launched in early 2021. The aim is to collaboratively assess the impact of CCS on skyguide’s current system and working practices, as well as on its strategic objectives.
Thanks to the collaborative development of a CCS “Concept of Operations”, skyguide will consolidate a plan for integration of Coflight capabilities within their own environment, encompassing appropriate training, working methods and HMI development.
CONOPS roadmap
The objectives of this CONOPS are to:
- Assess the main differences, benefits and potential gaps between the ATM flight data computed by Coflight and those currently used in skyguide system
- Ensure operational understanding of Coflight trajectory prediction principles, so that skyguide operational experts feel comfortable using Coflight functionalities in their tasks (supported by adapted tools, HMIs and working methods to be defined by skyguide)
- Experiment on the basis of operationally relevant use cases of Coflight functionalities, with the support of DSNA, ENAV technical and operational experts, in order to make the best use of Coflight current capabilities to satisfy skyguide operational needs and strategic objectives
- Collect feedback from skyguide ATCOs when using the data, trajectories and profiles computed by Coflight, to improve use of CCS solution
CONOPS activities will stretch over several phases of CCS development project; the first activities performed within Step 2 time frame mainly consist in getting familiar with basic principles of Coflight, through a series of presentations and workshops involving DSNA, ENAV and skyguide operational experts.
The team will work on significant use cases identified by skyguide, to gain full understanding of Coflight information computation and how it can be used. Simulations based on Coflight trajectory prediction will provide concrete material to collect feedback and iteratively refine CCS Concept of operations for skyguide.
Progress report
CCS CONOPS team conducted three workshops in 2021. The first one was facilitated remotely, the second on skyguide premises in Zurich and the third one on DSNA premises and remotely in Toulouse.
During the first workshop, the team drew up an initial list of uses cases for skyguide and planned the activities to be carried out thereafter. The second workshop was an opportunity for DSNA to present the application of the first use cases with Coflight and to gather feedback from skyguide users. The third session was dedicated to demonstrate Coflight in operation, on a 4F simulation, and pursue the discussions to enrich the use cases.
Interactive and creative workshops are a great opportunity to share knowledge: DSNA explains how Coflight works with illustration through the use cases given by the Swiss experts. Conversely, they share their strategic issues and vision so that the CCS teams can progress with the implementation of the services, including the progressive enrichment of the dataset, which sets the rules for Coflight to compute trajectories for skyguide.
This first phase of CONOPS activity is bringing DSNA, ENAV and skyguide operational experts together to facilitate the acceptability of Coflight and make sure that CCS meets advanced operational requirements.