EXODUS is a Digital Sky Demonstrator and COOPANS first step towards a federated Virtual Centre solution for exploiting further economies of scale. The aim is to reduce the national need for duplicated solutions, by Demonstrating the benefits of the Virtual Centre as a federated data service provider for 6 European ANSPs. The EXODUS Virtual Centre team presented the scope of the EXODUS project at Airspace World to demonstrate 3 key scenarios, 1. “Loss of OPS room”, 2.” Loss of Tech room”, and finally 3. “Loss of a Radar Tracking service” by use of federated service partners. 

You are more than welcome to follow the project on LinkedIn: Exodus Virtual Centre 

Our experts at Airspace World also showed some of the key enablers to Trajectory Based Operations (TBO), that were the main focus of our SESAR3 ATC-TBO validation exercises at Thales’ SkyCentre in April 2025. 

Automated conflict resolution proposals and proposed actions, enhanced use of Controller Pilot Data Link Communications (CPDLC) clearances, automatic CPDLC clearances generation, and smart integration of Adverse Weather Areas (AWAs) were presented.

The features were shown during the SESAR Joint Undertaking Walking Tours “Trajectory-Based Operations”, but also to many different stakeholders willing to learn more about our TBO-related investigations.

Preliminary results of the simulation exercise (qualitative, based on debriefs with ATCOs):

> The “positive”: automation (e.g. system generated CPDLC clearance proposals based on CD/R resolutions or proposed actions), HMI implementation in general (incl. AWAs), Prepare & Share functionality, working methods.

> The “mixed result”: 50% of CD/R resolution proposals are deemed good/efficient, and 50% not necessarily “logical”. Also, the more AWAs, the more difficult to trust the resolution proposals. In other words, further CD/R parametrization needed, and of course time to build trust (like moving from “manual” to “automatic” gear).

> The limitations (external factor to the EXE): AWAs update rate (5 min) can have a negative impact on ATCOs perception of an aircraft avoiding an AWA or not.

During the next weeks, the COOPANS SESAR3 ATC-TBO team will work on the edition of a detailed exercise report, once all the data recorded during the execution of the simulation will have been analyzed and consolidated (human performance and safety questionnaires, logs, …). 

If you want to know more, just reach out to the team and follow us on LinkedIn: SESAR3 ATC-TBO