As Europe seeks to integrate its aerospace industry and strengthen its technological autonomy, Spain has business projects called to play a relevant role in the transformation and automation of air traffic. In this field, Indra has reinforced its commitment to innovation with two new projects of the European SESAR program, aimed at the development of next-generation platforms to modernize the management of airspace and airport operations.
The initiative is part of the community efforts to move toward the so-called European Digital Sky, a model that seeks to improve interoperability among the different national air navigation systems, increase operational capacity, and take advantage of the possibilities offered by technologies such as artificial intelligence. The goal is to move toward a more integrated management of air traffic, overcoming the current technological and operational differences among the member states.
The transformation also responds to a strategic need. Studies by the European Parliament have been warning that, although the European aerospace industry holds a prominent position on a global scale, it still needs to guarantee its strategic autonomy, ensure access to essential raw materials, and take advantage of the synergies between the civil and military spheres.
In the field of aviation, the MEPs of the Transport Committee have recognized the opportunities offered by new technologies and advanced air traffic management concepts to strengthen European competitiveness. In one of its reports, consulted by Demócrata, the European Parliament notes that public investment can help materialize these advantages. It also points to the possibility of adapting regulatory frameworks to facilitate that the benefits of artificial intelligence extend to the sector as a whole in a safe manner.
In this context, Indra seeks to transfer technological advances from the research stages to their effective application in air navigation systems. The company has a consolidated track record in the SESAR program, in which it has participated since 2007, and has completed 21 innovation projects during the latest phase, corresponding to Wave 1 of SESAR 3.
The Director of Innovation and iTEC Collaboration of Air Traffic at Indra, Óscar López, explains to Demócrata that the company’s strategy is based precisely on applied innovation. In fact, he assures that more than 90% of the investment made in the previous development phase has already been incorporated into its commercial products. "All the innovation we have done in the past has been incorporated into our current systems and is available to our customers," he notes.
Now, the focus shifts toward the technologies that will have to shape the next generation of solutions for air traffic management. That is where Artemisa and NEURON come into play, two projects that address, from complementary perspectives, the modernization of en-route control platforms and airport operations.
Indra’s starting position is also one of its main assets. The company supplies systems to more than 30% of the world’s flight information regions (FIR), while more than 90% of the world’s passengers use some of its technologies at some point during their air travel. "Indra is already a world leader and Europe has technological sovereignty in this market. What we have to do is make sure we maintain and strengthen it for the future," López maintains.
Artemisa and supervised automation
On the one hand, the Artemisa project will develop a new generation of platforms for air traffic management, with the purpose of increasing interoperability and facilitating the evolution of current systems. To do this, it will work on an open, service-oriented architecture, which will make it possible to incorporate new capabilities and improve the secure exchange of information between different systems.
One of its main pillars will be to move toward automation level four, through which systems will be able to execute certain decisions autonomously in routine operational situations, always under previously defined conditions and with human supervision. López clarifies, however, that this advance does not mean that machines will take control of operations. "Automation, as it is currently set out, is supervised. The system does not make decisions on its own. It is the controller, the pilot or the tower controller who always makes the final decision," he explains.
The approach responds to the concept of collaboration between people and machines (human-machine teaming), in which technological systems provide information, detect possible conflicts and propose optimization alternatives, while the professional retains decision-making capacity. Artificial intelligence already makes it possible to develop some of these support functions, such as the solutions driven by Indra in the Jarvis project, which generate proposals to improve the management of operations.
Security constitutes, in any case, an indispensable condition for incorporating these capabilities. The person responsible at Indra underscores that any technological advance must guarantee continuity of service throughout all phases of implementation, including the transition between systems. "The systems are not turned off and a week is waited for the next one to work, but rather there has to be continuous and uninterrupted operation," he summarizes.
This requirement also explains the importance of advancing progressively in a sector in which operational safety is a priority. The adoption of new technologies must guarantee that protection levels are maintained both in the current system and in the future, without compromising the provision of the service during the transformation process.
NEURON brings artificial intelligence to airports
The second project, NEURON, focuses on the transformation of the management of airport operations through new digital tools. Among its development lines are the optimization of aircraft taxiing, the monitoring of surface movements, the incorporation of visual intelligence into digital towers and the joint planning of operations.
In this case, artificial intelligence will make it possible to develop more predictable and efficient operations, with potential to reduce consumption and emissions, in addition to reinforcing security in the airport environment.
The application of these technologies does not stem solely from experimental scenarios. Indra already has digital tower solutions that incorporate artificial intelligence algorithms to identify aircraft and provide additional information to controllers. Through screens that reproduce the airport environment using cameras, the system detects movements on the ground and presents contextual information about flights, such as their identification and characteristics.
These are support tools that allow the professional to have a more complete view of what is happening at the airport. López notes that these applications, as they are complementary and do not replace human decision-making capacity, are already available on the market.
The regulatory framework, however, still has to evolve to keep pace with the incorporation of these technologies. The person responsible at Indra acknowledges that the standardization of systems based on artificial intelligence and the procedures for their certification are not fully defined. In this process, the company collaborates with the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) in the development of standards and of the so-called means of compliance (means of compliance), which will make it possible to establish how the safety requirements of these solutions must be accredited.
A European model with international alliances
Beyond the specific technological developments, the two projects are part of a broader community strategy to reduce the fragmentation of European airspace. The coexistence of different national systems and operational procedures constitutes one of the obstacles to moving toward more integrated management.
In this sense, Artemisa will help lay the technological foundations of next-generation systems, although López points out that progress toward a common model also depends on alliances between providers and air navigation service providers. The project is linked to the iTEC system, which Indra supplies as the technological partner of an alliance made up of seven of the main European air navigation service providers, as well as Canada. This cooperation makes it possible to steer developments toward shared operational needs and facilitate the evolution toward interoperable solutions.
The international dimension is especially relevant for a company that already has a significant presence in the global market. López argues that Europe has a consolidated technological position in air traffic management, unlike other strategic sectors in which external dependence is greater. The challenge, therefore, is not only to achieve that autonomy, but to preserve and strengthen an industrial and technological capability that already exists.
To this end, the community schedule includes different stages of modernization. The Union has already approved the first Common Project (CP1), which established a series of technological improvements for the air traffic management system. In addition, the European Air Traffic Management Master Plan sets the sector’s long-term vision and serves as a reference for the next developments.
Indra is also working on defining the next package of measures, Common Project 2 (CP2), which will have to specify the technologies whose deployment will be required in the coming years. These include the new service provision model toward which Artemisa is oriented and the artificial intelligence applications linked to NEURON. The roadmap points to a horizon between 2035 and 2040, when a large part of these transformations must materialize. For López, the strategic framework is already defined and the next step is to ensure that the planned initiatives and their associated funding are translated into effective projects.
International collaboration is also part of that strategy. Indra highlights the role of its Canadian partners, whose shared vision it considers fundamental to steer developments toward the real needs of the sector. The objective is for innovation not to remain in the laboratory, but to end up being incorporated into operational systems capable of responding to the demands of an industry that needs to increase its efficiency without compromising safety.
With Artemisa and NEURON, the company is precisely seeking to consolidate its position in the next generation of air traffic management systems, transferring decades of operational experience to new digital platforms and, at the same time, strengthening European technological capacity in a strategic sector.