Over the last two years the joint RTCA SC-214/EUROCAE WG-78: Standards for Air Traffic Data Communication Services have cooperated to develop safety and performance requirements for data communication services in air traffic management, ahead of a European Commission Mandate requiring a revision of previously published standards. These advanced data links between ground and airborne systems aim to increase airspace capacity, enhance user access, and improve flight routing efficiency.
“It was a big effort,” said SC-214 Chair Claire Robinson of Universal Avionics Systems Corp. “I’m glad we made it happen, and that we had operational expertise coming together to create something that could be globally applied. We all learned a lot from each other, sharing ideas, sometimes with completely different approaches.”
The work of SC-214/WG-78 involved two Revisions. Revision A to Baseline 2 ATS Data Communications standards (i.e., DO-350A/ED-228A, DO-351A/ED-229A, DO-352A/ED-230A, and DO-353A/ED-231A) was completed in March 2016. Robinson said since being released, Revision A has been garnering operational feedback to better address issues.
“Anytime operational feedback is implemented into a standard, it’s exponentially better,” said Robinson. “This gave us an operational baseline ahead of the mandate starting. Three hundred aircraft are operating and providing experience from controllers and the airborne component.”
Revision B has taken more time. Since it reflects better technology and several improvements, it is the preferred revision said Viktor Jagasits of EUROCONTROL.
“Revision B was developed with a lot of input about new functionalities and desired improvements from (Air Navigation Service Provider) ANSPs,” said Jagasits. “While Revision A brings more to the airborne implementers, Revision B brings a lot more usability for the ground users through new features which were implemented based on practical (Air Traffic Control Officer) ATCO needs and not theoretical requirements.”
Luc Emberger from Airbus agrees Revision B is strong, as this revision includes the outcomes of the SESAR 4D validation and brings additional benefits while still tracking to meet (European Aviation Safety Agency) EASA’s goals to for (Extended Projected Profile) EPP planned for the end of 2027. Revision B Standards are available here.
“The availability of mature standards to support the systems development was one of the criteria to make EASA’s maturity gate successful and show we were on track to meet the 2027 goal successfully,” said Emberger. “A negative maturity assessment would have potentially led up to a cancellation of the mandate. This would have delayed the datalink deployment in Europe and all the associated benefits for many years.”
Robinson shared the concern that without successful collaboration and progress, forward motion would have been delayed for years.
“This is a victory,” said Robinson. “I think what we’re doing here is improving safety and performance all around and the added benefit of fuel savings and time savings.”
