Consultancy

With an increasing number of drone incidents, there is no escaping the need for the reliable integration of drones in order to ensure safe, orderly and expeditious air traffic.

In Germany, the DFS Group is the only authority designated for the performance of safety assessments concerning changes to ATM systems. We offer our customers consultancy services for UAV and RPAS that concentrate on Preliminary Safety Assessments. Our assessments could – if required – lead to the official DFS Safety Assessment and Operational Concepts, reflecting the current design parameters relating to German regulations – especially in the FSAV – at all times.

DFS Aviation Services offers a high-quality product for the integration of UAV into the current airspace. Our customers receive both the Preliminary Safety Assessments and the official safety assessment from a single source. This means we can, for example, reduce costs by integrating UAV design issues at an early stage of the project, when the probability of some identified hazards is still too high to operate the UAV in the current airspace. Furthermore, we support our customers with operational concepts for the integration of drones in their airspace.

Fast-Time Simulation (FTS) is the simulation of models at an accelerated speed in a cost-efficient manner. The simulation produces large volumes of output data that can be later analysed to extract conclusions and inform key business decisions at an early stage. The models aim to give an accurate representation of real life operations; however these do not incorporate Human-in-the-Loop (HITL).

With our inhouse expertise and licence for the established software AirTOp, we can lead through a flexible, rule-based Fast-Time Simulation which is open and modular, as well as extensible at the request of customers. DFS Aviation Services can provide you with great experience in such studies in respect of the three ATC areas: Tower, Approach and En-Route.

Airport CDM is an operational approach for the optimum handling of the turn-round process at the airport. With our approach to collaborative decision making (CDM) at airports, we will support you in:

• Fully exploiting available capacities and operational resources
• Reducing your costs
• Lowering emissions
• Improving punctuality and
• Forging stronger partnerships with other stakeholders

Aircraft can be served efficiently according to the “best planned – best served” principle. This allows you to take the right operational decisions at the right time, based on optimal information sharing with all stakeholders involved.

DFS Aviation Services also provides consulting services for Total Airport Management (TAM). The Total Airport Management approach follows the principles of A-CDM but goes even further, including even more operational areas of an airport. TAM uses a medium and pre-tactical planning horizon and identifies upcoming bottlenecks at an early stage in the process. An improved method of sharing information and data leads to an increase in efficiency and accuracy in airport operations that ultimately benefits all stakeholders.

To improve and safeguard the changing conditions and requirements in air traffic, it is essential for air navigation service providers to conduct regular surveys and studies.

As an experienced ANSP, DFS Aviation Services can support you in ensuring your service quality and safety by conducting studies on your behalf. For your project, this means possible risks can be identified at an early stage mitigated if necessary.

Studies offered by DFS Aviation Services include Feasibility Studies, Capacity Studies, Fatigue Risk Management Studies and Recency Studies, among others.

ATM Systems require constant adaptation in order to keep abreast of development, e.g. the increase in air traffic. This leads to a change in technical and procedural changes and, as a result, the need to conduct additional Safety Assessments. According to the international regulatory framework, changes to the functional ATM Systems must always be safety assessed.

DFS Aviation Services applies proven and appropriate safety assessment methods that comply with the international and European standards set by ICAO, EUROCONTROL and EASA and ensure successful safety assessment for our customers.

The key to success is adopting a holistic view of ATM by considering people, procedures and objects and their interactions in the air traffic environment.

An Airspace Design project consists of the redesign of an airspace (TMA or FIR), and subsequently the implementation of it, taking into account the needs of all airspace stakeholders (civil, military, ATC, airlines, regulator, etc.). The aim is to mitigate or eliminate the existing constraints in the current set-up, while achieving the main objectives set for the new one (safety, capacity, efficiency, etc.).

DFS Aviation Services follows international best-practices (e.g. ICAO document 9992) throughout these projects, bringing expertise from airspace designers, procedure designers, air Traffic controllers, CNS experts, and validation & simulation specialists, for example.

The scope of an Airspace Design project can vary depending on the specific needs of the customer and will be tailored to you needs. It can include topics like new routes, new holds, new sectors, new SIDs/STARs, and/or new Instrument Approach Procedures, and will be tailored to you needs.

Airspace has become a scarce resource in areas where high demand and growing rates of civil air traffic compete with issues of national safety and sovereignty. Civil-Military Coordination in Air Traffic Management is a key enabler, as it regards the optimised use of national airspace and ATM resources. Germany is the leading nation in Europe with more than 50 years’ experience in the development of an integrated model of civ-mil ATM.

One of the key elements of that model is the idea of Flexible Use of Airspace (FUA), which started in Germany in 1996. Long before it became part of the Single European Sky initiative (SES). Today, this airspace management concept, according to which airspace should not be designated as either purely civil or purely military airspace. Instead it is considered as one continuum in which all users’ requirements must be accommodated to the maximum extent possible.

In order to ensure that activities and outcomes are effective and efficient in meeting corporate goals, Performance Management has become a crucial process in the last couple of years.

The DFS Group has implemented and continuously improved a performance management process and has also continuously expanded this experience within the scope of the EU-wide regulation of benefits – an experience that we can now pass on to our customers.

The DFS Group’s expertise covers all facets of performance management, including metrics development, goal setting, monitoring and reporting, ATM evaluation and benchmarking for routes and terminals, and for aerodromes.
We are happy to tailor our offer to your specific needs.

Air Traffic Flow and Capacity Management (ATFCM) is a service which is complementary to Air Traffic Control (ATC). It ensures an optimum flow of air traffic to or through areas where traffic demand at times exceeds the available capacity of the ATC system. ATFCM regulates the traffic flow in order to avoid overloading of individual sectors.

DFS Aviation Services can support you with tailored services that can be adapted to your requirements and needs. In addition, each project is specially adapted to the sectors concerned and their specifications.

Due to its increased precision and lower operational costs, GBAS will likely replace the current Instrumental Landing System (ILS) over the next few years according to the ICAO / EUROCONTROL plan.

A Ground Based Augmentation System (GBAS) is a satellite-based precision approach landing system. It works with a satellite-based GPS navigation system. With the aid of GPS data sent by the GPS satellites, this data is forwarded to the GPS receiver. The data is corrected in the GBAS Ground Station. Afterwards, the corrected signals are sent to the aircraft. One GBAS Ground Station is sufficient for several runways at an airport.

The DFS Group is one of the drivers of GBAS implementation and operates multiple stations at various sites in Germany. Also, throughout participations in working groups and R&D activities the DFS Group supports the future spread of GBAS.

With this know-how, DFS Aviation Services can provide you with optimum support during the changeover from ILS to GBAS, from training ATCOs to developing ideas for solving operational challenges.

According to the ICAO and EASA, runway safety should remain a high priority for airport stakeholders, as runway incursions continue to be a major reason for incidents and accidents at airports worldwide.

The main contributing factors are poor visibility, the complexity of runway as well as taxiway layouts, and in particular, the impact of human factors.
At most airports, the air navigation service provider (ANSP) has operational responsibility for the runways,whereas responsibility for the infrastructure lies with the airport operator. Close cooperation is therefore essential for safe and effcient operations.

Thus, DFS and Fraport have actively joined forces to enhance runway safety with the mutual development of the “Runway Incursion Alerting System” (RIAS) at Frankfurt Airport, one of the major hubs in global air trans-portation. This common, integrated, and preventive end-to-end solution is specifcally designed to avoid the unintended entry or crossing of an active runway, and to protect all safety-critical areas of the airfeld.