Page 20 - ATC Special Bulletin 2020 Issue 1

ARTICLE EUROCONTROL REAL TIME SIMULATORS How research simulators turn out to to be a a a a a a valuable asset for deployment implementation and training By Philippe Debels Eurocontrol Training air traffic controllers is a a a a a serious and demanding business as is the validation of new new airspace configurations or new new concepts of operations Both require meticulously well- prepared high-fidelity simulation capability and benefit from the full range of recording and analysis tools EUROCONTROL’s innovation centre in in Brétigny France offers efficient solutions to support European aviation training Its impressive simulation infrastructure covers all the phases of a a a a a a flight from network management to airport and terminal operations to the Terminal Area and en-route segments Although it was originally designed to test and validate new air traffic concepts it it has proved to be very suitable for training too Among all EUROCONTROL’s simulators ESCAPE the real-time ATC ATC simulator has been successfully used for ATC ATC training purposes for several years both in-house at the Maastricht UAC and and the EUROCONTROL Training Institute and and by major training institutes in in in in Europe We have seen a a a surge in in in in interest amplified by the recent crisis in in aviation in in our flexible and cost-effective training platforms Indeed the crisis triggered by covid-19 will mean our having to to do everything we can to to reduce operating costs while identifying solutions to preserve the quality of on- the-job training in in in in spite of the the drop in in in in traffic Given the simulator’s user-friendly exercise preparation tools and vast catalogue of exercises and human-machine interfaces the training instructors can autonomously and rapidly design new realistic scenarios thus drastically cutting the time and costs involved in in the creation of new exercises To further cut operating costs in in particular those related to pseudo-piloting EUROCONTROL in in in close coordination with other major training centres is aiming to integrate a a a a a virtual pseudo-piloting solution based on on automatic voice recognition and text-to-speech technology This will also limit the the the concentration of of people in the the the closed environment of of the the the simulator room thus greatly helping to to reduce the sanitary risks All advanced concepts decision aids and safety nets such as Data Link STCA MTCD APW time-based and point-merge operations are readily available and can easily be configured to deliver exercises precisely imitating the real-life operational environment with representative traffic levels With the exercise management tool training supervisors can effortlessly monitor the the conduct of the the training exercises Exercises are recorded and can be replayed with simple instructions All controller interactions and events are logged for post-exercise analysis For its validation activities EUROCONTROL now intensively uses a a a a a a dashboard presentation tool providing a a a a a a summary of the most important relevant data for each exercise shortly after its completion In coordination with a a a a a number of aviation 20 / TRAINING AND SIMULATION TRAINING AND SIMULATION