The most relevant SESAR 2020 solutions dealing with future Capacity Management processes are Dynamic Airspace Configuration (DAC) and Flight Centric ATC (FCA). Both concepts, DAC and FCA, rely on traffic flow complexity assessment. For this reason, complexity assessments processes, methods and metrics, become one of the main constraints to deal with the growing demand and increasing airspace capacity. The aim of this work is to identify the influence of trajectories’ uncertainty in the quality of the predictions of complexity of traffic demand and the effectiveness of Demand Capacity Balance (DCB) airspace management processes, in order to overcome the limitations of existing complexity assessment approaches to support Capacity Management processes in a Trajectory-Based Operations (TBO) environment. This paper presents research conducted within COTTON project, sponsored by the SESAR Joint Undertaking and EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program. The main objective is to deliver innovative solutions to maximize the performance of the Capacity Management procedures based on information in a TBO environment.

Very-low-level (VLL) urban air operations have been extensively investigated as a solution for mitigating congestion in cities. However, the manner in which the management of such traffic should be performed is still actively investigated. One important component of such a system is the conflict detection and resolution (CD&R), mainly composed of the strategic and tactical CD&R module. While many approaches towards these have been studied, insufficient analysis has been conducted on their compatibility when functioning within a unified, hybrid system. Additionally, their robustness to operational uncertainties such as wind and departure delays is often overlooked. In this work, we investigate the performance of strategic planing methods when combined with tactical CD&R and subjected to a wide range of traffic demand levels and uncertainty conditions. Simulations indicate that the performance of the strategic deconfliction module is highly sensitive to the presence of wind and delay. This decline in performance is partially mitigated by the tactical deconfliction module. Thus, the results suggest that increased use of tactical CD&R could lessen the required level of detail of strategic deconfliction methods, leading to improved compatibility between the two modules.

A safe and efficient integration of U-space operations necessitates robust conflict detection and resolution (CD&R) mechanisms, particularly for very-low-level (VLL) operations in constrained urban airspace. Research has focused on the development of navigation and traffic management concepts suitable for such operations that aim to mitigate the challenges posed by this novel environment. However, the current research landscape is fragmented, with CD&R methods still needing to be integrated within a more unified framework. In this paper, we present an overview of our approach towards air traffic management for VLL U-space operations and analyse their limitations compared to other work. Then, based on the conclusions of other existing work, we identify key areas for improvement and propose recommendations for future research and development for VLL airspace structure design, conflict detection and resolution, and U-space operations simulations. We conclude that a unified approach should be used towards integrating and investigating the interdependencies of U-space services within a standardised verification and validation framework.