Airport Surface Operation Collaborative Automation Concept

Limitation in airport runway throughput naturally constrains traffic capacity. For this reason, the increasing demand on capacity ultimately will require airport expansion to increase the number of runways and associated taxiways. Often the airport expansion plans necessitate an increase in the complexity of surface traffic, leading to a decrease in surface traffic efficiency, which is reflected as an increase in taxi delays. Consequently any concept to increase airport traffic capacity needs to take into account efficiency issues such as taxi delays as well as safety and operator workload issues. This paper introduces a collaborative automation concept being developed under the Surface Operation Automation Research (SOAR) to address some of these issues in a complex airport environment. The concept is enabled by advanced technologies envisioned for the 2020 time frame. It involves surface traffic management (STM) automation to aid tower operation, and flight-deck automation to help execute clearances generated by the STM automation for efficient surface operation. The functions of and integrated operation between these automation components are described, together with an assessment of enabling technologies in communication, navigation, and surveillance. Plans for evaluating the collaborative concept prior to full-scale technology development are