Highly efficient air transport depends - and always will depend - on the collaboration of human protagonists from different organizations. Concepts of operation and technical solutions are developed and implemented within the European research programme SESAR (Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research) which build on "collaborative decision making" (CDM) as an enabler. According to this concept, teams in ATM will work together in a much more collaborative and flexible manner than today.
These operational working procedures are required and yet they are not sufficiently defined. Furthermore, there is a lack of infrastructure and established methods for the evaluation of these working procedures.
The ITC project
The Inter-Team Collaboration (ITC) project, a three-year project by the German Aerospace Center (DLR), will address these important issues. It will focus DLR's own expertise on teamwork and involve stakeholders to develop solutions for team collaboration in an efficient ATM system. ITC aims to establish the evaluation competency required for the European air traffic management in the near future. The project is also developing methods for validating collaborative decision making processes. This knowledge will be essential, when innovative ATM concepts such as Total Airport Management, Multiple Remote Tower Operations or Sectorless Air Traffic Management are deployed. Additionally, guidelines for the design of these collaborative work processes are being derived, which take into account the required safety and efficiency of air traffic management. ITC has defined four specific goals:
Research activities
ITC partners will run three large-scale simulation exercises, in which they will collect detailed and highly realistic data concerning collaboration within and between teams. These exercises refer to operational concepts which were developed in large part by DLR and now are part of SESAR2020:
DLR maintains extensive facilities for the validation of concepts, technologies and procedures in air traffic management, known as the Air Traffic Validation Center. This unique validation infrastructure and DLR’s capabilities will be used in the ITC exercises to simulate these future workplaces and to derive realistic data concerning the required interaction processes.
The ITC project is developing a model of inter-team collaboration which is the basis for the three exercises. Thus, with the results and knowledge gained within the project, ITC can provide a proven model for inter-team collaboration, taking into account the needs and specifics of the ATM environment.