The first wave of SESAR 2020 exploratory research projects is now underway which will serve to contribute to modernising air traffic management in Europe.

SESAR Joint Undertaking have selected 28 projects for funding for a total of EUR 20.4 million within the framework of SESAR 2020 and the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

The selected projects will run until 2018 and will bring together universities, SMEs, research centres, airlines, industries, ANSPs from across the European Union and EU Associated Countries (Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Serbia, Israel, and Turkey). With these projects, the aim will be to create a SESAR innovation pipeline whereby new ideas can be funneled into the programme’s industrial and demonstration research strands.

The projects cover a wide range of topics and can be categorised into two main strands:

ATM excellent science & outreach aims at bridging ATM research with the wider research community and providing the necessary scientific support to ATM change either directly or through connection to other funded research areas in other disciplines or sectors in the following areas:

• Automation, robotics and autonomy
• Complexity, data science and information management
• Environment and meteorology for ATM
• Economics, legal and regulation

ATM application-oriented research aims to help mature new concepts for ATM beyond those identified in the European ATM Master Plan as well as help to mature emerging technologies and methods to the level of maturity required to feed the applied research conducted in the SJU.