Single European Sky ATM Research - Project

Project

The SESAR project is composed of three phases:

• a Definition phase (2004–2008), to deliver an ATM master plan defining the content, the development and deployment plans of the next generation of ATM systems. This definition phase is led by Eurocontrol, and co-funded by the European Commission under the Trans-European Transport Networks programme and executed by a large consortium of all air transport stakeholders.
• a Development phase (2008–2013), to produce the required new generation of technological systems and components as defined in the definition phase. This phase (budget: 2.1 billion euro) is managed by the SESAR Joint Undertaking.
• a Deployment phase (2014–2020), for a large-scale production and implementation of the new air traffic management infrastructure, composed of fully harmonised and interoperable components which guarantee high performance air transport activities in Europe.

SESAR’s target concept relies on a number of new key features:

• the network operation plan, a dynamic rolling plan for continuous operations that ensures a common view of the network situation;
• full integration of airport operations as part of ATM and the planning process;
• trajectory management, reducing the constraints of airspace organisation to a minimum;
• new aircraft separation modes, allowing increased safety, capacity and efficiency;
• system-wide information management (SWIM), securely connecting all the ATM stakeholders which will share the same data;
• humans as the central decision-makers: controllers and pilots will be assisted by new automated functions to ease their workload and handle complex decision-making processes.

The SESAR project has a parallel in the NextGen project within the United States.