AVIONICS CERTIFICATION FOR TRAJECTORY BASED OPERATIONS

Post World War It advances in air traffic management technology resulted in rapid development of standards expressed in three dimensions to ensure acceptable levels of collision risk between aircraft. This paper asserts that if aircraft are sequenced in four dimensions, they must also be separated in four dimensions. Using currently proposed controlled time of arrival accuracy standards, a series of simulations have been conducted to demonstrate the performance of flight management systems developed by two notional avionics vendors. The results of these simulations are then used to illustrate how compliance with seemingly precise performance standards can lead to unexpected consequences in a larger airspace system of systems. Recommendations for defining flight standards more completely and for the creation of certification categories that describe varying performance capabilities in terms of specific parameters are then provided.