Conference on Air Traffic Management Challenges

In April, the chapter hosted a workshop titled “Air Traffic Management in the Common Air Space: Challenges and Opportunities” at the School of Transmissions and Informatics of the Italian Army homeroom. The keynote speaker was Lt. Gen. Carlo Magrassi, ITAF, operational commander of the Italian Air Force and chairman fo the European Union Civil/Military Coordination Committee.
Lt. Gen. Pietro Finocchio, ITAF (Ret.), chapter president, and Maj. Gen. Umberto Castelli, IA, Cholls commander, opened the workshop, welcoming the attendees. The present air traffic management is no longer able to satisfy the increased demand due to commercial aviation and the air traffic growth expected in the coming years. The conference, organized by the chapter, focused on the analysis of the demand through a vision forecast made by Gen. Magrassi.

Giovanni Torre, ENAV, described the need of a better interoperability, while Benedetto Maras, ENAC, spoke about the new organization of the European Air Space in functional blocks with a detailed description of the needs and functionalities of the FAB under Italian responsibility, which covers Italy, Balkans, Greece and some North Africa countries. Col. Bernabei, ITAF, addressed the demands for the management of the military APRs, while Anna Masutti described a new proposal for APR use in non-segregated space. Chapter member Mario de Lucia described the requirements for new approach and landing techniques.

To address the challenges with air traffic management, several companies presented their technological offerings: Giancarlo Cinque, SELEX ES, reported on European Union SESAR trajectory management in order to support new approach to Reference Business Trajectory; and Luca Saini and Francesco Mauriello, Thales ITA, described the Frankfurt Precision Approach Monitoring experiences based on wide area multilateration. Marco Massenzi, Vitrociset, explained a security approach based on systems federation involving all the related aspects, while Luca Sfarzo, TRS, described the new challenges given by the satellite navigation systems to improve air space management.

The third part of the conference was devoted to innovation, with Vittorio Di Vito, CIRA, describing the new technologies to support the pilot, while Antonella Bogoni, CNIT, spoke about the photonic technologies for radar transceivers, and Roberta Cardinali, SESM, described security enhancements by using innovative passive radar technologies.

Professor Gaspare Galati, Rome Tor Vergata University, gave the concluding remarks and focused on the need for a deep integration between infrastructures and communication, navigation and surveillance technologies, and, last but not least, the human factor, including training.

Event Photographs: