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AURA (SESAR PJ34-W3 ATM U-SPACE INTERFACE)

PJ34 AURA is the first SESAR Industrial Research project dedicated to U-space. Within its two-year duration, it will develop two SESAR solutions, defining an interface and a Concept of Operations (CONOPS) for the interoperability of Air Traffic Management (ATM) and U-space systems.

PJ34 AURA will help to enable the development of Very Low Level (VLL) markets, allowing the introduction of new players in a safe, harmonized, sustainable and efficient way. Enhancing the compatibility and interoperability of U-space and the current ATM environment, the project will provide means to avoid the segregation of airspace. Aiming to represent all relevant stakeholders through the involvement of an Advisory Board, it will deliver input to the current regulatory and standardization initiatives of U-space through two different solutions:

Solution one: Collaborative U-space-ATM interface

Solution one will identify the requirements for U-space information exchange with ATM through SWIM (System-Wide Information Management) and will validate a set of selected U-space services, developing the service definition for the SWIM candidate services.

Solution two: Collaborative ATM U-space Environment Concept Development

Solution two will define a novel ATM-U-space Concept of Operations for drones in a fully collaborative environment with ATM that go beyond the existing concepts developed for a U-space. The objective is to develop and validate a medium- to long-term concept which facilitates seamless operations of drones and manned aviation, with high volumes of traffic operating safely and concurrently in non-segregated airspace.

The DLR will contribute to the second solution of the project and mainly focus on the definition of the operational concept, which includes the description of the operational environment, services, scenarios and use cases, as well as requirements for the ATM-U-space collaboration.

The solution will be assessed through various fast- and real-time simulations. As part of the AT-One collaboration, the DLR and the NLR (Netherlands Aerospace Centre) will validate the CONOPS and Air Traffic Control (ATC) display interfaces that are needed to cope with contingency situations involving drones in non-segregated airspace, by connecting the U-Fly (DLR) and NARSIM (NLR) simulation environments.

This project has received funding from the SESAR Joint Undertaking under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101017521.