ATM-X/DIP Team Attends Multi-Regional Trajectory Based Operations Technical Interchange Meeting
November 16, 2021
On November 2–4, 2021, leadership from the Air Traffic Management Exploration (ATM-X) Project, and its Digital Information Platform (DIP) Sub-Project teams attended a three-day Technical Interchange Meeting (TIM) on Multi-Regional Trajectory Based Operations (MR-TBO) hosted by the FAA. A large portion of the meeting was dedicated to reviewing the scenarios needed to begin the integration and testing phase of the FAA’s 2022 MR-TBO spring demonstration. The goal of the demonstration is to inform requirements in a closed-loop system to identify challenges and gaps. The scenarios reviewed covered protocols and procedures for requesting, approving, and acknowledging trial plan requests and flight trajectory updates between multiple ATM Service Providers (ASPs). The operations span pre- and post-departure scenarios, with multiple flights as the subject in each of the scenarios. The organizations collaborating in MR-TBO are looking to understand how to update and communicate a trajectory plan that everyone is working towards. The FAA and their partners will continue to work on the concept and risk reduction activities through FY24. The ATM-X Project is collaborating with the FAA to identify valuable services and scenarios to further validate MR-TBO scope and procedures. By attending the TIM, the DIP team was able to gain insight into the benefits of MR-TBO and the challenges that remain to be addressed. Feedback from the TIM is being used as input to formulate concepts and select features for a flight deck service that would be valuable to demonstrate in FY25 for DIP’s Sustainable Aviation (SA)-2 demonstration.