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Articles
Articles
NextGen/Sesar concepts of operations require both
the capability to safely implement a new technology
paradigm to support the Controller (working proc-
esses) and to ensure its capability for evolving in the
next decades (without lock-ins). Indra CWP responds
to those challenges.
Indra CWP has received the “Red Dot product award
2012” in recognition its design development excellence.
The Indra CWP is a real solution created with a holistic
approach to current and future ATM problems, where
the whole experience of Indra converge in a innova-
tive result, fully aligned with current ongoing SESAR
activities.
In the creation of Indra CWP, Indra has applied its ex-
tensive experience in the ATM industry and its proven
innovation methodology. The workspaces of Control
Centres and Towers will benefit of the amazing evolu-
tion of information and communication technologies
used in other industries and at our home. This article
gives a brief overview of the design process and of
the characteristics of the product.
Indra CWP assets
When Indra decided to create the new CWP platform,
its motivation was to solve all needs of each actor of
the value chain in the ATM services provision. This
value chain is mainly focused in the ANSPs as a whole
organisation providing air traffic control services and
the controllers at the core of the process.
From the controller point of view, Indra has been
investigating the way they actually work in order to
provide an integrated solution where he can find the
right information at the right moment, leaving clear
their mind to take the right decisions. The result is a
CWP that creates a clear and calm job environment,
reducing sound and visual noise, adapting all the
physical and virtual space, to the particular needs and
requirements of each single people.
From the ANSP perspective, their main goals are in-
creasing productivity, reducing operating costs and
always keeping the very high safety standards that
the community deserve. In parallel the CWP has to be
designed for being able to a smooth and non expen-
sive evolution towards more advanced ATM services.
Bearing in mind all of these objectives the new Indra
CWP platform has been built-up on the following
values and key drivers:
• Integration:
The information dispersed frommany
different sources is gathered and integrated in a
smart way to show the controller what he needs to
see when and where he needs to see it.
• Simplification:
To allow an easy access and
identification of the information. It reduces the
controller workload by rationalizing and reducing
visual & information“noise”. It allows making the
most frequent tasks easily and less frequent tasks
achievable.
• Adaptation:
This capability is addressed at
different layers. At the business layer, in order to
cover all the specific ANSP requirements.
For the operational ANSP layer, being able to be
Accelerating CDM
implementation
Controller
working positions
Indra CWP for Control Centres and Tower Systems
Ergonomic design in colloborationwith Loop/CDN
adapted to the different roles and layouts in the
control room. For the ATCO, the workstation has
to respond fast and easily to each individual needs
and preferences and at the lower layers being able
to cope with the continuous evolution with limited
and controlled impact in the addition of new
capabilities or changes.
• Open Architecture:
This paradigm offers the
means needed to achieve a flexible evolution,
being the basis on which the previous values are
built.
Open architecture
For easing evolution and at the same time reducing investments and maintenance costs, Indra has developed its
new CWP platform following the Open Architecture paradigm, avoiding monolithic designs, coupled architecture
and proprietary or non-standard solutions (SW & HW). Key dimensions of the paradigm are:
•
Modular design
with the definition of loosely coupled components
•
Interoperability:
allowing the easy integration of multiple sources of information at the workstation in
different environments without architectural changes.
•
Open Source and Standards:
avoiding the dependency on proprietary solutions.
• Scalable system:
taking full advantage of the available multiprocessor hardware.
• Robust and reliable product:
developed following industry standards.
• Maintainable and extensible software:
based on a layered architecture with well-defined interfaces
Focussing in the presented main design drivers, Indra CWP has been developed with a
data-centric /
component based / layered
architecture based on the following scheme:
• Infrastructure layer:
provides a framework with the appropriate resources to build a complete integrated
CWP solution on top. It is supported by underlying COTS product and HW&SW layers.
• Data Management layer:
Conceptually, Indra CWP is a data-centric system, where the data and services
provided by its components (or even external applications) are shared and made available at workstation
level. In this layer all the relevant information needed by applications and clients included in the CWP is
stored. It make use of the available standard to store the information in the most stable data model, providing
a single, integrated view of information to be handled at the workstation level.
• Application
layer handles the data coming from the Data
Management level applying the necessary logic for been
used by the presentation layer
• Presentation
layer is responsible of presenting information
received from application layer and allows a high degree of
configurability.
• Interoperability
layer allows the adaptation of the product
for the interaction with the rest of functionalities even in
different environments with minimal or no impact on design.
It also decouples the product design from external
architectural decisions.
The interoperability aspect of Indra CWP is a remarkable characteristic. This is not only what is explained
about the Interoperability layer, but in the sense that it is also prepared in a context where the CWP is able
to address the SWIM principles within the ATC system for information management as described in the
Flight Object and SESAR principles allowing to share and make available relevant common data between
many and diverse interested parties.
With the presented approach and open architecture principles Indra CWP is consolidated as a suitable
solution for today and for future evolution within SESAR.
The next generation
Francisco Sánchez, ATM Strategic Research, Indra Sistemas