As part of the SESAR Joint Undertaking JARVIS project, Ecole Nationale de l’Aviation Civile (ENAC) and Airbus Defence and Space (Airbus DS) recently conducted a session to validate Air Traffic Control Digital Assistant (ATC-DA) for Conflict Resolution, one of the three artificial intelligence solutions that the project is developing. The tool is designed to assist air traffic controllers with the integration of new airspace entrants and growing interconnections as well as environmental decisions and overall efficiency of air transport.
The experiment took place in March in a dedicated test room at ENAC, using the GENETICS Airbus Defence and Space platform. The setup included DALIA radar interface for visualisation and clearances and the TESLA tactical controller tool (TCT) for conflict detection and resolution, developed by Airbus DS.
Each of the eight participating air traffic controllers held a valid en-route radar license with over 10 years of experience and the pilot and adjacent sector coordination were automated. During three days, participants performed traffic separation under different scenarios: A baseline scenario using only the TCT for conflict detection, a TCT plus AI-powered resolution advisory, trained on real air traffic controller decision-making behaviour, and a TCT plus resolution advisory method based on expert judgment.
SESAR said that while it’s too early to communicate provisional outcomes, the tests are a critical step in understanding how digital assistants can realistically support controllers and be fine-tuned for operational use.
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