The Diplomat
Indra has been selected to participate in 21 “large projects” of research and innovation within the framework of the ‘European Digital Sky’ programme of the ‘Sesar 3 Joint Undertaking’ initiative, which have a total budget of 263 million euros, according to the company in a statement.
In this sense, the Spanish technology and defence company will lead four of the projects, in which, in its opinion, it will develop “cutting-edge” technologies that will “transform” the way of flying in Europe and improve the comfort of travellers and the service provided to airlines.
“Indra is once again playing a decisive role in this third phase of ‘Sesar 3 JU’, one of the world’s most ambitious and innovative ATM (air traffic management) initiatives that is transforming air traffic management to make it smarter and more sustainable,” he said.
The company has become part of all the projects that fit within its business strategy and to accelerate the market arrival of all these developments it will rely on its air traffic platform ‘iTEC’.
Indra’s ATM director, Javier Ruano, underlined that the company aims to “lead the global air traffic market” and that to do so it is committed to innovation to bring customers a new generation of systems to make management “much more efficient, safe and environmentally friendly”.
“If we want Europe to continue to be the sector’s benchmark, it is necessary to modernise control centres across the continent and provide them with maximum interoperability, as we are doing in ‘iTEC’, to put an end to the fragmentation of airspace,” said the executive.
Among the projects of this call that the company highlighted is ‘Isnap’, led by Indra, which will enable the evolution of ‘iTEC’ communications towards a “more modern and robust” model by updating the supervision functionalities of the ATM system and data recording, reports Europa Press.
On the other hand, the calculated trajectory of each flight plan will be improved thanks to the reception of new information emitted directly and periodically by the aircraft. “These improvements will be the basis for evolving the concept of virtualisation and airspace delegation,” he added.
The company will also lead the ‘Vitacy’ project, in which new architectures will be studied to develop more advanced virtual data centres capable of remotely providing more specific data with which control centres and towers will be able to cover functions such as arrival management, aircraft separation or conflict detection, among others.
Regarding en-route flight management, the company will be part of the ATC-TBO project, which will improve the way of responding to unforeseen events in the flight execution phase, where unexpected changes in the weather or in the configuration of runways at an airport can affect a large number of operations planned on the basis of very tight schedules, which need to be recalculated dynamically.
“Indra will work on the development of advanced digital assistants based on the use of artificial intelligence (Jarvis) that facilitate the work of controllers; accelerate the development of a new generation of ADS-B surveillance systems that provide more information in a safer way; and promote technologies that facilitate a flexible configuration of civil and military airspace (Mitrano),” the company added.
It will also be part of the Geese project, which will introduce transoceanic flights in formation in which one aircraft will lead the way, something that will result in energy savings for the rest of the aircraft, “just as birds do in their migrations”, Indra said.
On the other hand, Indra will develop new systems that will reinforce coordination and facilitate demand balancing (Island and Harmonic) to avoid air traffic congestion. It will also reinforce the cybersecurity of different air traffic and communications platforms, navigation and surveillance systems (FCDI).
Smart airports and drones
Indra will lead two “large projects” of the ‘Digital European Sky’, on the one hand, it will coordinate the FastNET project, which addresses the development of information exchange systems in airport environments to improve the experience and comfort of travellers.
In addition, it will coordinate the ‘Ensure’ project, which will develop the interface that will connect conventional air traffic management systems with the new traffic management platforms in U-space, something that will facilitate operations with drones at very low altitude.
“It will also participate in two other Sesar 3 projects that will focus on the development of drone separation services and the definition of the concept of operation of the vertiports (Spatio and Eureka). The company thus reaffirms its position as a pioneer in urban aerial mobility, which will offer enormous growth potential in the coming years,” he added.
Indra has been part of the Sesar Joint Undertaking since its launch in 2008.
