Making SWIM interoperable between US and Europe

There is a recognized need in both the US and Europe to develop an interoperability infrastructure which will allow a better interchange of ATM (Air Traffic Management) information between ground systems and equally between ground systems and the aircraft. The increasing complexity of the ATM functions required by traffic, which has grown significantly this past decade, presents a demand for additional automation and efficient functions supporting the operators. Developing two different SWIM (System-Wide Information Management) infrastructures on each side of the Atlantic, even if the infrastructure will not support completely identical objectives, represent risk and discrepancies in the decisions made between NextGen and SESAR. In this context, it is beneficial to compare and evaluate the choices and decisions made on the US SWIM program and the SESAR Work Package 14 (in charge of developing the SWIM technical infrastructure). The need to harmonize these choices and decisions, possibly looking for potential joint developments aimed at improving interoperability between solutions developed by NextGen and SESAR programs merits further investigation. Security concerns related to transmitting ATM data between the two continents will need to be addressed as well and could develop into an issue internally within each of the ATM R&D programs.