Barco Orthogon wins Best-in-Class award at the SESAR SWIM Master Class

Air Traffic Management (ATM) software expert Barco Orthogon claimed the Best-in-Class award at the System-Wide Information Management (SWIM) Master Class by SESAR, the European air traffic control infrastructure modernization program. Orthogon’s Arrival Management (AMAN) Human Machine Interface (HMI) for Controller Working Positions (CWP) was chosen amongst 39 competition entries in the Applications category.

The award ceremony was the tailpiece of the second edition of the SESAR SWIM Master Class, which took place between June and November 2013. Since its inception last year, the event – organized by SESAR and Eurocontrol – has become the ideal opportunity for ATM stakeholders to share their experiences and best practices concerning the implementation of SWIM. The focus lies on the efficient transmission of air traffic management information to aircraft, airports, air traffic controllers and other parties, which allows ATM businesses to benefit from the assured provision of commonly understood quality information.

64 teams, three winners
This year’s edition featured SWIM-enabled applications of 64 international teams. In a three-step process, the seven members of the jury selected three award-winning participants for each of the two categories, Applications and Services. Barco Orthogon won the Best-in-Class award in the Applications category with its CWP HMI solution. In the Services category, NATS and Snowflake claimed the prize for their London Heathrow Arrival Sequence Service.

Collaborative services and applications
Barco’s winning CWP HMI application is based on its open HMI ‘plug-in’ platform ODS™ Open Platform designed to meet the needs of today’s and future ATM with SWIM. In combination with NATS and Snowflakes’ winning web services, the application can display real-time arrival sequences calculated by the Arrival Manager (AMAN) at London Heathrow.

“We are delighted to be recognized by the SESAR SWIM Master Class and the ATM community for our work,” says Michael Eisele, Business Development Manager ATM at Barco. “SWIM is making more and more information available through its services, so it is important that we have applications that are SWIM enabled and at the same time display only relevant information. This award proves that we are prepared for this new era, with high quality offerings and a continuous drive to innovate for the benefit of our customers.”

Top solution for TOPFLIGHT
In the meantime, the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) has already expressed interest in the AMAN HMI application for usage in the so-called Cross-Center Arrival Manager (XMAN) project. In principle, IAA will use the AMAN HMI with extended horizon to improve efficiency for flights with destination London Heathrow airport. Trials are planned to take place in February and are part of the SESAR TOPFLIGHT project, which concentrates on the development of environmentally optimized flights to the airports of London Heathrow and Gatwick across the North Atlantic and arriving from the European continent.