NOTAM goes digital
On 06/01/2010, in SWIM, by steve
What is a NOTAM?
A NOTAM...
There are a few things in aviation that have survived over the years with so little change as the NOTAM, in spite of its numerous, known shortcomings. NOTAM is a quasi-acronym for Notice to Airmen, a system of providing aeronautical information introduced well over 60 years ago.
NOTAMs… we have all seen them, worked with them and think we know them. But do we really?
...and the cranes it refers to!
A NOTAM is a text message, constructed using a code defined by ICAO and distributed via the Aeronautical Fixed Telecommunications Network (AFTN). It informs the recipients of immediate or temporary changes to the air navigation infrastructure, both airport and en-route. As an example, if a runway or part of a runway is temporarily closed, this will be announced in a NOTAM. There are several types of NOTAM but their essence and purpose is the same: provide vital information to airmen in a timely manner. In fact, the NOTAM is the middle part of the layered legacy system of information provision: the AIP (Aeronautical Information Publication) describes the big picture and the permanent situation; NOTAMs bring information about sudden/immediate changes and temporary changes that will exist for a short time only; and the operational radio, including broadcasts like the ATIS (Automatic Terminal Information Service), that announce sudden changes and continue to do so at least until the information is also available in a NOTAM.
The NOTAM offices of the world’s States are a legendary bunch of very independent minded experts, who know very well how important their job is and who tend to be slow with changes, however useful, lest the carefully thought out system fail in its purpose. Frustrating on occasion, it is hard to blame them for being careful.
EUROCONTROL winter feature – the digital SNOWTAM trial
On 07/12/2009, in SWIM, by steve
Winter is coming…
After the earlier digital NOTAM trials organized by EUROCONTROL and the FAA, it is now time for trials with the digital SNOWTAM. The trials will run until March 2010 with the participation of several airports, airlines, NOTAM offices and the European AIS Data Base (EAD).
SITA selected to provide PENS – but SWIM is more than just ANSPs!
On 24/11/2009, in SWIM, by steve
Those of our readers who have looked at the various postings on System Wide Information Management (SWIM) will be familiar with the abbreviation PENS which stands for “Pan European Network Service”. PENS will allow air navigation service providers from 38 countries to exchange operational data communications across a common network for the first time.
Following an intensive competitive tendering exercise, SITA was selected as the provider of this managed IP based regional communications backbone service.
PENS will enable the 38 ANSPs of the EUROCONTROL Member States to exchange operational ATC data communications in a seamless and integrated manner; it will provide an alternative to the ad-hoc bi-lateral communications that are largely in place today between the ANSPs, resulting in improved service levels and reduced overall costs.
Single Sky Committee unanimously supports Aeronautical Data and Information Quality (ADQ) Implementing Rule
On 04/11/2009, in SWIM, by steve
The drive is on to transform Aeronautical Information Services (AIS) into Aeronautical Information Management (AIM). This is needed to set the scene for the introduction of System Wide Information Management (SWIM), the ultimate goal of the activity.
The change from AIS to AIM is primarily the morphing of the traditional, package based aeronautical information system into a data-based one, where users are provided with data to feed their particular applications in the way they need it rather than being fed with pre-cooked packages that do not really satisfy anyone while also being extremely difficult to change when new requirements turn up.
System Wide Information Management (SWIM) – Here and now
On 18/10/2009, in SWIM, by steve
That in ATM we are only now taking the first tentative steps to set the scene for the implementation of System Wide Information Management (SWIM) is not due in any way to SWIM being so complicated, it needing rocket science or yet to be invented technologies. Many an “expert” would make you believe this to be the case but it is not. We lost more than ten years due to ignorance and obfuscation but never mind, it is more important to look towards the future and it looks good for SWIM.
True, the SESAR target dates for SWIM are not as ambitious as they should and could be, but OK, one step at a time… At least officially SWIM is not in question any more.
In the meantime, if you want to have a first hand demonstration of SWIM at work in the aviation context, do the following.
SWIM – Institutional aspects first and foremost
On 11/10/2009, in SWIM, by steve
Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine has recently published a very interesting article with the title “Integration Nightmares”. It is about the problems planners and engineers are facing in integrating the battlefield “system of systems”. As the author reports, high level military planners do not like to pay to solve complexity… Researchers have to weave through political, technological and financial obstacle courses to figure out how to create that “system of systems”.
You may shrug this news off and ask what relevance does this have to air traffic management’s SWIM? After all, we have SESAR and it will take care of such detail.
Sure, SESAR will help in bringing the partners together and in coordinating things but the obstacle course will still remain and needs to be negotiated. OK but why single out SWIM?
For most people, System Wide Information Management (SWIM) is a physical network, some standards and protocols and a few applications with some kind of network management thrown in, but little else.
SWIM, the external enabler – now read the book!
On 28/09/2009, in SWIM, by steve
Towards the end of the SESAR definition phase the airspace users in Europe presented a paper, arguing that System Wide Information Management (SWIM) was in fact external to air traffic management and as such, its implementation could and should happen at its own rate matched to the need to ensure mximised, early benefits.
The reasoning behind this argument was that SWIM could generate major efficiency benefits by improving situational awareness and decision making even in a basically legacy system and hence its implementation should not be tied to more advanced air traffic management developments slated for later years only.
Although the document has not been updated in the past year and parts of it have now been possibly superceeded, it still contains valuable information for those engaged in the definition and scoping of SWIM. The document as such is not an official position from the airspace users even if the content had originally been thoroughly discussed with their representatives. SInce it had been presented in an open meeting, it should now be considered as being in the public domain and we are pleased to share it with our readers for the benefit of the SWIM community.
Click on SWIM DOC to download your copy.
System Wide Information Management (SWIM) – the pretty picture
On 25/09/2009, in SWIM, by steve
System Wide Information Management (SWIM) is the cornerstone of the future air traffic management system. While the underlying concept of SWIM is not overly complicated, it does require a shift in thinking something that tends to result in different interpretations, some closer to the real thing than others. In the following we present an understanding of SWIM that we think is a basically correct reflection of the main features of the idea. This is being done in the hope that many who are interested in SWIM will be able to grasp some details that were hitherto less well understood. When SWIM is actually implemented, some elements might have different names but the elements will be more all less the same. What follows is not a SWIM architecture in the strict sense of the word. It is an illustration of the concept and its elements.
I am sure many of our readers will have questions or concerns, some may even find errors in this write up. Use the comment option or send is mail.
Let’s work on getting a common understanding of SWIM!
SWIM in the USA
On 17/09/2009, in SWIM, by ahmad and lesley FAA
System Wide Information Management (SWIM) is an advanced technology program designed to facilitate greater sharing of Air Traffic Management (ATM) system information such as airport operational status, weather information, flight data, status of special use airspace, and National Air Space 
(NAS) restrictions. SWIM will support current and future NAS programs by providing flexible and secure information management architecture for sharing NAS information. SWIM will use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware and software to support a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) that will facilitate the addition of new systems and data exchanges, and increase common situational awareness.
How did SWIM originate?
EUROCONTROL initially presented the SWIM concept to the FAA in 1997, where it has been under development ever since. In 2005, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Global Air Traffic Management (ATM) Operational Concept adopted the SWIM concept to promote information-based ATM integration. SWIM is now part of development projects in both the United States (NextGen) and the European Union (Single European Sky ATM Research – SESAR).
At the cradle of SWIM
SWIM, well the name that is, was born in the early morning on a misty February day in a hotel room in Luxemburg. It was 1998.The abbreviation of System Wide Information Management, SWIM has now become an integral element of both SESAR and NextGen, the air traffic management development projects in Europe and the USA, respectively. Getting here was not easy.
Following the publication of the first issues of the European ATM Operational Concept Document (OCD) and the ATM Strategy for 2000+ it was felt that the wide-ranging and informal discussions that can take place at a workshop would generate valuable additional information to feed subsequent editions of those documents. The workshop took place in February 1998 in Luxemburg.
The air was pregnant with the need to do something about the horribly inefficient manner the sea of information generated by and consumed in air traffic management was being handled.
Why we must learn to SWIM?
On 26/07/2009, in SWIM, by steve
The power of information is in sharing it…
A document discussing future air traffic management functions passed through my desk the other day. The time frame was 2020 and the context, one can safely assume, SESAR, the big European air traffic management development program.
Reading the document, I came upon several instances where the authors described how certain functions will need to be limited or might not even work since the system will not be aware of this or that piece of vital information.
There was also no mention of important, hitherto under-utilised, new sources of information, like the Airline Operations Centre (AOC). Can’t use that thing once the aircraft is airborne, was the reason given.
I am not saying the document was bad. It had all the right things and the right words in it. What it failed to do was show how to-day’s constraints arising from the dearth of information would become requirements to be satisfied by System Wide Information Management (SWIM).
A system built along the lines described in the document would have the same limitations built into it that make to-day’s set up struggle to keep up with demand.
