PhD Autonomous & Decentralized Air Traffic Management

Background

Air Traffic Management (ATM) and Communications, Navigation, and Surveillance (CNS) systems form the operational foundation of civil aviation. Current operations depend heavily on centralized ground facilities and satellite services for surveillance and management. This system is vulnerable for a range of disruptions including infrastructure failures, GNSS outages or cyber incidents. These vulnerabilities can degrade or even halt civil aviation.

Project ORION (Onboard Resilient Infrastructure-free Operational Network) investigates an alternative ATM/CNS architecture designed to function without reliance on ground- or space-based infrastructure. By utilizing an aeronautical ad-hoc network for communication, relative positioning, and surveillance, ORION aims to enable aircraft to self-organize and maintain safe separation thus ensuring a minimum service level even during (large scale) disruptions.

Project description

This PhD project is fundamentally multidisciplinary. As a PhD candidate, you will design, model, and evaluate a decentralized ATM/CNS architecture. The research focuses on determining how core traffic management functions can be sustained through cooperation using an aeronautical network when centralized ground and satellite services are unavailable.