B4 consortium was established in 2014 by Baltic FAB ANSPs - PANSA and ORO NAVIGACIJA, together with counterparts from Czech and Slovak Republics ANS CR and LPS SR.
The main idea of B4 Consortium was to work together for the delivery of research and development activities in ATM/CNS domain that could add value to the attainment of the objectives of the technological pillar of the Single European Sky as well as to strengthen Central and Eastern Europe countries’ presence in grand EU initiatives. The Consortium members believe that by combining different know-how of the B4 Consortium members as well as by collating their different areas of expertise, this regional approach to the R&D will yield economies of scale and bring about added value to the overall SESAR Programme.
At the same time B4 is a great example of successful co-operation between functional airspace blocs. B4 Consortium’ Members represents two Europe FABs: Baltic FAB and FAB CE, as well as they are active members of GATE ONE (joining 13 ANSPs), a regional platform of Central and Eastern European ANSPs.
The key contribution of B4 Consortium to SES initiative is the vast expertise in air navigation services’ domains, experience in executing several high complexity ATM projects and well equipped facilities. Beside the above, B4 Consortium brings the expertise and experience of its Linked Third Parties, ranging from scientific research, concept developments, up to product prototyping and manufacturing.
B4 Consortium Members provide en-route air traffic management from 4 Area Control Centers, situated in Warszawa, Vilnius, Prague and Bratislava, which handle together around 2,1 million annual IFR movements. B4 Members provide air traffic control service at 27 international airports. Activities of Consortium’ Members also comprise aviation training, CNS service’s provision, aeronautical publications and aeronautical information services.
What added value B4 Consortium will bring:
- Very well recognized ANSPs with long-term history and broad experiences;
- Deeply involved in general as well as specific ATM/ANS issues and therefore having very good understanding of current ATM deficiencies, weaknesses and challenges;
- Wide range of ANS experts including ATCOs dealing with several different areas covering ANS methodology, ANS procedures, CNS infrastructure as well as international projects;
- Experiences with several SESAR projects and other research and development projects conducted by EUROCONTROL or EC together with industrial partners;
- Flexible capacity (manpower and facilities) to handle SESAR projects based on SESAR 2020 Programme;
- B4´s facilities including but not limited to: test development platforms for different (in terms of functionalities, equipment manufacturers) systems, ACC/APP simulators for validation, 3D TWR simulators, pilot/flight simulator, equipped regional airports suitable for live tests, dedicated airport and aircrafts for tests and training, licences for the application SW;
- Long-term and numerous cooperation with various industrial partners.
B4 Consortium role:
- Function design reviewer and software validator;
- ANSP being able to evaluate and verify outcomes from testing and/or shadow operations using its own testing/operations platforms and/or simulators;
- ATM procedures designer covering also corresponding safety cases and analyses;
- Contributors to very large scale demonstrations.
On top of this, our role we are wishing to fulfil and the value added that could be brought via our participation is the following:
- Taking into account geographical location, peculiarities of air traffic evolution in terms of its allocation and trends within this part of Europe’s airspace, while basing on the broad regional co-operation experience, to contribute to establishing a clear and sustainable European strategy towards third country co-operation in ATM related Air Transport research, development and demonstration of the solutions could (to be) deployed;
- In range with the clear understanding of the phenomenon of networking effect and the role of the transitional arrangements for Network optimisation, to contribute to its resilience and to the readiness for smoothing the potential impact caused by difference in technologies applied, transitional fluctuations or significant variations (short-term) of the traffic density and trends (long-term) deviation, if any.
B4 Consortium expectations
Short term:
- Validated and proven solutions to be applied to current challenges, including safety, capacity and cost efficiency hot spots. This is a great opportunity to observe mutual efforts of the partners and to join timely and in efficient manner to gain clear benefits as predicted by business case;
- Opportunity to see and better understand the results of our national and FAB activities for the benefits at Regional and pan-European level. Inter alia,it relates to expeditious and successive environmental improvements harmonized at Regional level and further synchronized towards timely ensuring pan-European benefits;
- Enhanced training and validation basing on common approaches and methods, via sharing of best practices and sophisticated platforms.
Medium term:
- Predictability while planning the developments and synchronizing the deployments to deliver evolving ATM services in particular in the areas of applicability/utilization of the new ATM and non-ATM technologies;
- To be prepared and properly participate in Network optimisation processes ensuring appropriate level of interoperability and functional capability for seamless integration and flexible interfacing with third country.
Long term:
- Opportunity to engage with and support wider research community, while contributing to the innovative solutions oriented to further practical „fit in“ and „on demand“ applications;
- Fundamentally new effective solutions of known problems and immediate concentration of the joint efforts on the solutions to the newly discovered problems we haven‘t yet faced with while utilizing current technologies.
B4 consortium members are active beneficiaries in 18 SESAR2020 IR&V, Transversal and VLSD projects:
- PJ.01 Enhanced Arrivals and Departures
- PJ.06 Trajectory & Performance Based Free Routing
- PJ.10 Separation Management En-Route & TMA
- PJ.02 Enhanced Runway Throughput
- PJ.03a Integrated Surface management
- PJ.03b Airport Safety Nets
- PJ.04 Total Airport Management
- PJ.05 Remote Tower for Multiple Airports
- PJ.07 Optimised Airspace Users Operations (UDPP)
- PJ.08 Advanced Airspace Management
- PJ.14 Communication – Navigation - Surveillance
- PJ.16 Controller Working Position/HMI
- PJ.17 SWIM Infrastructures
- PJ.18 4D Trajectory Management
- PJ.19 Content integration
- PJ.20 Master plan maintenance
- PJ.22 Validation, Verification and Demonstration Infrastructure
- PJ.28 Integrated Airport Operations (incl. TBS)
8 SESAR projects (Trajectory & Performance Based Free Routing, Separation Management En-Route & TMA, Airport Safety Nets, Total Airport Management, Remote Tower for Multiple Airports, Communication – Navigation – Surveillance, Controller Working Position/HMI and 4D Trajectory Management) are represented by 2 and more B4 consortium members.
