Thales and Skyguide partner to bring open architecture and best-of-class 3rd party system integration to the ATM industry

Thales, a global leader in advanced technologies, and Skyguide, the leading Swiss ANSP (Air Navigation Service Provider), both in Europe and globally, are partnering to enable the transformation to open architectures based on the Thales OpenSky platform and to evaluate the use of components from TopSky – ATC One in Switzerland.

Collaboration between ANSPs and OEMs but also between OEMs will become increasingly important within the ATM industry as it embarks on a journey of transformation in ATM system architecture, from traditional on-premises solutions toward solutions that provide the benefits of modern hybrid-cloud based technologies with increased scalability, flexibility, interoperability and ease of integration of 3rd party systems, components and applications.

The Thales OpenSky platform is an enabler to this transformation, which aims at reducing the cost of integrating 3rd party components, applications, and systems, and allow them to run on a single platform while not jeopardizing safety or security.

OpenSky is a platform that is based on Kubernetes technology, leveraging a global investment by the Thales Group into a state-of-the-art digital platform. The Kubernetes Analytics and Services sTack (KAST) is a digital platform utilized across the Thales Group in the context of mission critical systems for various technology areas. The Thales OpenSky platform extends this investment to ensure that the KAST platform meets the safety, security and operational requirements that are expected in the ATM domain. The platform is based on an open-source solution that has become increasingly popular across a broad range of industries as a means of both modernizing architectures and migrating traditional on-premise systems toward the cloud. This migration provides many benefits for ANSPs including ease of maintenance, increased scalability, improved performance, reduced total cost of ownership and less complexity when integrating 3^rd party applications and systems. The migration of safety and mission critical systems to these new technologies presents a challenge to ANSPs however, the Thales OpenSky platform provides the necessary safety and security features as well as the capabilities that ensure such a platform is adapted for the operational ATM environment.

The ATM industry can benefit from a technology that has already transformed many other domains, providing the opportunity for improved compatibility between products, systems, applications and components as demonstrated by the agreement that SAAB and Thales have signed recently in the context of Singapore Airshow. While the journey towards edge-cloud and open architectures in the ATM industry delivers many benefits to ANSPs, the Thales OpenSky platform aims at ensuring that these capabilities are obtained while system safety and security are not compromised.

“Thales is excited to embark on this technology transformation for open architecture and platform modernization together with Skyguide, the leading ANSP in Switzerland. Thales is committed to ensure that ANSPs globally can benefit from the latest technologies and the benefits they bring while not compromising on safety and security for their ATM systems.”  Christian Rivierre, VP Airspace Mobility Solutions, Thales

"Skyguide is looking forward to going one step further into our strategic journey towards an open and modular service-oriented architecture by leveraging Thales' secure and safe open platform for the integration of the next generation Skyguide systems. Klaus Meier, Chief Technology Officer, Skyguide.