Aircraft trajectory based network centric applications

4D operations are regarded as the enabler for the future air operations. System Wide Information Management (SWIM) is regarded as the information architecture that provides the information management capabilities needed to realize 4D operations. To benefit from SWIM, network centric applications are needed. In this paper, air traffic control is viewed from the perspective of control theory. The information management concept that is realized by SWIM and the applications has to ensure that the different control loops are closed in a stable way. This paper discusses the research performed in the area of two such applications. The first one is an on-board application in the commercial aviation domain that provides 4D trajectory data to the SWIM environment. The second one is an application in the military domain that aims to achieve integrated and coherent cooperation using the network enabled capabilities offered by SWIM.