ObjectSecurity, the leader for model-driven security policy automation, today announced that they have jointly been awarded a study contract by EUROCONTROL that supports SESAR (Single European Sky ATM Research) WP14.
EUROCONTROL, the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, is an intergovernmental civil-military organisation made up of 39 Member States and the European Community, which is committed to building a Single European Sky that will deliver the Air Traffic Management (ATM) performance required for the 21st century and beyond. Historically, ATM systems were not interoperable. Future ATM concepts rely on a much more dynamic form of information sharing. ATM systems will be both producers and consumers of data. All systems will be connected via a middleware to the same “cloud of services”, and civil-military interoperability will be achieved through SWIM rather than the existing point-to-point interconnections. The System Wide Information Management (SWIM) concept is central to building the future European ATM system because it facilitates a net centric future, which is at the core of the SESAR operational concept. In essence, the SWIM concept is expected to improve not only civilian but also military Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) by facilitating the exchange of ATM data across the entire ATM system. For the military it also has some specific benefits because it further facilitates the exchange of data and services for the Air Defence (AD) and Command and Control (C2) functions.
This study will ensure that the SWIM technical design being developed in WP14 addresses the military requirements including civil-military interoperability, interconnection of military systems, architecture, and middleware. The specific focus of the study is on the interfacing possibilities of the military legacy systems, including military ATM as well as Air Defence (AD) and Command & Control (C2). The outcome of the study will be a clearly defined interoperability concept and architecture for SWIM along with a set of requirements for the civil-military interface. The study will identify the systems that require interoperability, the services they will consume and provide, the quality of service requirements (including security) that these services entail and the interoperability concepts and architecture that are required to ensure cost effective interoperability. We then use our innovative formal method to derive requirements for middleware that will help ensure interoperability is actually achievable and provide a plan for its validation. While security issues are to be addressed by a separate study, certain issues need to be considered, because security is an integrated aspect of the system and has a strong influence on the system’s implementation and performance. While military users will wish to have access to all information on civil ATM systems, they will not wish to share operationally sensitive information with civil users.
The integrated project team consists of well-connected and recognised leading experts in civil and military ATM, and information system management (Helios, uVe, and ObjectSecurity). Helios is Europe’s leading ATM consultancy well known for supporting EUROCONTROL, the European Commission, air navigation service providers and regulators on a wide range of ATM and CNS issues for both civil and military issues. uVe is an independently owned consultancy group specialising in the provision of technical and operational leadership to clients in the defence and aviation sectors.